[LISTENED TO: March 2013] Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang
I knew of this movie (although I haven’t seen it in decades) but I didn’t know it was based on a book. And I had no idea the book was by Ian Fleming! The creator of James Bond! Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang is his only children’s novel and it was released posthumous;y (he died a few months before it came out). I’ve never read any James Bond and I don’t love the films all that much so I can’t really compare this to his more famous works. But it seemed like it was written by a guy who knew from spies and scary villains (I actually guessed that he had written this before the Bond books and it was a kind of lead in).
So the story starts off simply enough. We meet the Pott family: Caractacus, the father, a former Navy commander and now an inventory of slightly wacky things–known in town as Crack Pott (ha); Mimsie, the mom, sweet and good natured and up for adventure, and the eight year old twins: Jeremy and Jemima. Most of Crack Pott’s inventions aren’t very good but he eventually makes up a candy that is also a whistle and sells them to Lord Skrumshus and his candy company for a tidy sum (and Fleming goes into the details of the money saying how it’s a small sum up front but since Lord Skrumshus sells billions of candies it’s good deal–Fleming is full of grown up ideas like that in the book and is clearly trying to impart some wisdom to his audience).
Since they live near the motorway, they decide to buy a car. But they don’t want one of those black beetles that you see everywhere. He wrote this book in 1961 so I’m not entirely sure about what kind of car he was talking about there. The family decides to buy a one of a kind old car from an old man in a garage. The man raves about the car and wishes he could keep her, but he has to sell it for scrap. Pott offers him a few quid (everyone loves the car and its license plate read GEN 11 (like Genii)) to have the car delivered to his garage. He spends the next several months fixing her up. And when she starts, the noises she makes gives her the name Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Their first test drive is a marvel and they get her up to 100 miles per hour!
WHAT?? 100MPH? In Rural England?? Wow. And who knew they used miles and not kilometers (it’s pointed out much later in the book that they use kilometers on the continent) in the 60s? (It became mandatory there in 1978). The car is marvel! She even has all kinds of buttons that Pott hadn’t figured out what they do yet. And on their next venture they decide to go to the seaside on a warm day. But so do 20,000 other cars, so there is a massive traffic jam. Chitty Chitty shows what she can do and takes over the controls–she grows wings and a propeller (which all come naturally from the car parts) and she flies over the traffic!
When they fly to the beach it is crowded so Chitty flies the to an island in the middle of the English Channel. And they have a lovely picnic together and take a nap. Until the tide starts to come in. Chitty escapes and they take off. But they head away from London and towards France!
And here’s where the story turns into a wild Bondian adventure rather than a cute family story about a magical car.
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