Every day, AlloCiné recommends a film to (re)watch on TV. Tonight: the Oscar for Best Actress for Julie Andrews.
On this Christmas day, what better than a Disney classic to awaken our child’s soul? This evening, W9 is broadcasting Mary Poppins, one of the productions of the big-eared firm that was most warmly welcomed by the public and the press when it was released in 1964.
After ten years of negotiations, Walt Disney finally obtains the rights to the novel “Mary Poppins” by Pamela L. Travers (a story in its own right told in the feature film In Mary’s Shadow released in 2014). Under the leadership of Robert Stevenson, its film adaptation is transformed into a musical with titles that have become cult (“Chem Chem Cheminée” notably won the Oscar for Best Original Song) combining live action and animation.
To interpret the nanny that every child would dream of having – smiling, mischievous, inventive, ready for all activities, all sprinkled with a good dose of magic – the studios evoke Bette Davis, Angela Lansbury or Mary Martin, while Pamela L. Travers nominates Julie Harris.
It is the secretary of Disney who then mentions the name of Julie Andrews, noticed on Broadway in “My Fair Lady” in 1956. After seeing him on stage in “Camelot“, Walt Disney hires her the next day. If Warner prefers Audrey Hepburn for the film adaptation My Fair Lady, Julie Andrews, aged 27, thus makes her very first appearance on the big screen.
A performance that marked the beginning of her impressive film career and for which she was awarded the Oscar for Best Actress in 1965 (as well as the Golden Globe in the same category and the BAFTA for Revelation of the Year).
A true hymn to childhood, Mary Poppins is also a work-testament that crowns the career of Walt Disney, who died in 1966.
Mary Poppins by Robert Stevenson with Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, David Tomlinson…
Tonight on W9 at 9:05 p.m.