On This Day

Monday 16th December 1968

51 years ago

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the British musical film loosely based on Ian Fleming's novel The Magical Car was released. Roald Dahl wrote the screenplay with Ken Hughes. In England, circa 1910, eccentric Caractacus Potts (Dick Van Dyke) works as an inventor, a job which barely supports himself, his even more eccentric father, and his two children, Jeremy and Jemima; but, they're all happy. When the children beg their father to buy for them their favourite plaything - a broken down jalopy of a car sitting at a local junkyard - Caractacus does whatever he can to make some money to buy it. One scheme to raise money involves the unexpected assistance of a pretty and wealthy young woman they have just met named Truly Scrumptious, (Sally Anne Howe) the daughter of a candy factory owner, but Caractacus eventually comes into another one-time-only windfall of money, enough to buy the car. Applying his inventing skills, Caractacus transforms the piece of junk into a beautiful working machine, which they name Chitty Chitty Bang Bang from the noise its engine makes. At a seaside picnic with his children and Truly, Caractacus spins a fanciful tale of an eccentric inventor, his pretty girlfriend, his two children, and a magical car named Chitty, all involved in the faraway land of Vulgaria. The child-like ruler Baron Bomburst, ruler of Vulgaria, will do whatever he can to get his hands on their magical car; but, because of Baroness Bomburst's dislike of children, youngsters are outlawed, even the unsuspecting offspring of foreign inventors of magical cars. The film was directed by Ken Hughes and produced by Albert R. Broccoli (co-producer of the James Bond series of films, also based on Fleming's novels). Fleming took his inspiration for the subject from a series of aero-engined racing cars called "Chitty Bang Bang", built by Count Louis Zborowski in the early 1920s at Higham Park. Fleming had known Higham Park as a guest of its later owner, Walter Wigham, chairman of Robert Fleming & Co.