Filed to:angela lansbury
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Congratulations to Disney classic
Bedknobs and Broomsticks, not just for making it to the half-century mark, but for having a tone of oddball whimsy that feels just as weird today as it probably did in 1971. Witchcraft, orphans, Nazis, dance routines, animated animals, Angela Lansbury? Just a
few of its extraordinary ingredients.
The Nazi content bookends the story, which is set in 1940, and also provides its motivation, since eccentric protagonist Eglantine Price (Lansbury, who is perfect) decides to become a witch specifically to assist the British war effort. She’s less than enthused about another World War II-adjacent service she’s asked to provide, housing orphans who’ve fled the Blitz in London, but she agrees to do it anyway. That’s how she meets the scrappy Rawlins siblings: Charlie (Ian Weighhill), Carrie (Cindy O’Callaghan), and Paul (Roy Snart).
The kids soon discover her secret and have big plans to blackmail her, so she imbues a bedknob with a spell that allows the kids’ bed to magically zip around. In London, where they’ve gone to track down the incantation Miss Price needs to put her anti-Nazi plan into play, they meet Professor Emelius Browne (Tomlinson), a chipper con man who’s sort of a Wizard of Oz type. He admits he mostly made up the spells for Miss Price’s witchcraft