fine whine

I can but wonder why Disney considers 1971's Bedknobs and broomsticks to be a suitable film for children. Having watched it today for the first time since I was a child, I can't say that I appreciate it more now than I did years ago. Based on what I see now, I'm not sure I should have even seen it as a child. Set against a backdrop of World War II, the story weaves in some pretty heavy themes:

• child abandonment and the death of a parent (the three children are orphans of a sort)
• wanton and unchecked pollution (Miss Price*'s motorcycle spits out a cloud of foul yellow smoke)
• witchcraft (well, that one's obvious, but the scene where the witch joins the children in a post-prandial prayer stands out)
• dishonest clergy (the priest seems to have plans to somehow acquire Miss Price's land and estate, and seems to be faking illness to avoid military service)
• blackmail (the children know Miss Price is a witch and hold it over her for better food and a bed knob)
• obvious drug trip overtones (the psychedelic flying bed sequences)
• confidence games and scams (the Professor sings a song about selling 'cures' that don't work and charms that do nothing, though he sells only one broken trinket to the smallest child)
• wasting food (the Professor cracks eggs and pours milk on the head of one of the bystanders)
• mail fraud (the Professor didn't expect his correspondence course spells to actually work)
• illegal squatting and disobeying government orders (the professor has appropriated a nice mansion vacated by people more squeamish about the unexploded bomb in the front yard)
• taking children to pawn shops (Portabello Road, obviously the Disney backlot, seems to be where people sell things when they're down on their luck, but still ready to dance away their sorrows)
• art forgery and other misrepresentation of goods (Portabello Road)
• vandalism (again, Portabello Road, wherein the youngest child defaces a bust with a mustache, and the older boy breaks a couch)
• racial segregation (the tedious and interminable Portabello Road dance sequence is segmented many a time, but never integrated. Turbans and steel drums don't mix)
• threatening children with violence (a knife is held menacingly against one of them)
• children swearing (well, if "bloody" counts)
• a general disregard for the reality of physics and other science (nevermind witchcraft and a flying bed or breathing and dancing underwater, but talking animals? Give me a break)
• a disregard for proper grammar and speech (besides the children, the animals speak very poorly and do not set a good example for an impressionable audience)
• cheating and other poor sportsmanship (the animals' soccer game is brutal, particularly on the referee)
• theft (the professor steals the king's medallion, and the smallest boy stole a book from the Professor's squat)
• encouraging cohabitation (the shopkeeper is happy to think that the professor and Miss Price are shacking up without being married)
• butt-kicking (the witchcraft-animated pair of shoes kicks the witch in the rear end)
• overt sexual innuendo (one long shot has the Professor giving a large sausage to a pussy-cat, hmmm)
• cruelty to animals (he steps on its tail)
• general war-is-hell kind of stuff (shooting, fisticuffs, and whatnot, albeit with spectral solders on one side and scared Germans on the other)

All that, and it was rated 'G'. Go figure.

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* 'Eglantine Price' seemed such an odd name that I was forced to run some anagrams on it. The most promising ones I found, well, weren't that promising.

• I nip a neglecter
• Certain peeling
• I pin a recent leg
• Inelegance trip
• Pelican integer
• Near nice piglet

Of course, "Eglantine" is merely an anagram of "Inelegant", but is it really that simple?

If I instead use 'Miss Eglantine Price' I also get:

• Mantlepieces rising
• Single priest cinema
• Grim penis latencies
• Replaces meningitis
• Angelic Mister Penis
• Genitalic primeness

Genitalic primeness, indeed. To think, this movie is for kids!