Once they had a finished script, the Shermans moved on to other projects elsewhere with an assurance from Walsh that they could come back if Disney ever did decide to make the movie. He just wanted to make sure that the Shermans’ work wasn’t left unfinished while they were still on the hook for the studio. As they’d done on Mary Poppins, the Shermans worked closely with Walsh and cowriter Don DaGradi to crack the story.Īpparently Walsh had no intention of actually making Bedknobs And Broomsticks quite yet.
Before they left, producer Bill Walsh had them finish up their work on Bedknobs And Broomsticks. Since his death in 1966, they’d been making plans to leave the studio. The boys had always reported directly to Walt. In 1968, the Shermans’ Disney contract was due to expire. Bedknobs And Broomsticks felt so much like Mary Poppins that it was abandoned a second time. Unfortunately, it was a little too obvious. The Shermans picked it up again in 1966, presumably assuming that it would make an obvious follow-up to Mary Poppins.
Once Travers finally signed on the dotted line, Bedknobs was scrapped. Walt instructed the Sherman Brothers to start coming up with songs for both Mary Poppins and Bedknobs And Broomsticks. Norton’s most famous work is probably The Borrowers, which I’m frankly stunned Disney never made into a movie. By 1957, the two books were collected under the title Bed-Knob And Broomstick. The Magic Bed Knob and Bonfires And Broomsticks were Norton’s first published works. One idea was a film based on a pair of children’s books by Mary Norton that Disney had acquired the rights to years earlier. Walt needed a backup plan in case Mary Poppins fell apart. Negotiations were contentious and on more than one occasion, it appeared as though the project was doomed. Walt Disney tried for a long, long time to wrestle the film rights to Mary Poppins out of author P.L. That’s sort of true but Bedknobs And Broomsticks isn’t exactly a Mary Poppins clone.
So Bedknobs And Broomsticks would appear to be a take-no-chances attempt to completely recreate the creative alchemy that produced Mary Poppins. But Walt’s follow-up musical, The Happiest Millionaire, had been an ambitious and costly misfire. When a studio produces a movie that captures lightning in a bottle the way Disney did with Mary Poppins, you can’t blame them for trying to replicate the trick.
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