Saving Mr. Banks: A Great Movie on Persuasion

Gary North - December 25, 2013

First, begin with this. The movie never tells this.

For me, as a teenager who got his first job in a record store in 1956, I was blown away by the My Fair Lady album, with Andrews' portrayal of Eliza Doolittle, when Andrews was 21 years old. Much as I like the movie, I have never forgiven Jack Warner for not hiring Andrews to play her Broadway role. I realize that the movie needed a star, and Andrews was not the draw that Audrey Hepburn was, but it would have been better with Andrews. It deserved Andrews. I deserved Andrews!

Second, be prepared to see a movie about Walt Disney. If we are to believe this script, he was the most relentlessly cheery man in business history. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it. This was because of the other half of the story: P. J. Travers, who wrote Mary Poppins, and who is portrayed as one of the great dignified and eloquent curmudgeons of all time. She was probably worse than Emma Thompson portrays her.

Third, it is a movie on persuasion. Given its plot line, it is a movie on salesmanship. This salesmanship was employed by Disney to persuade Travers to sell the rights to Mary Poppins. He had promised his daughters 20 years earlier that he would make Mary Poppins into a movie. He would stop at nothing to fulfill his promise.

Fourth, I have never seen Mary Poppins, nor do I plan to. I had no idea regarding the title, Saving Mr. Banks. When I found out, in Tom Hanks' final sales pitch, my retroactive admiration for Disney increased. The script's writer who wrote that presentation deserves an Oscar nomination. So does Hanks, for his delivery. Sadly, the event never happened.

Fifth, the scene where she hears "let's Go Fly a Kite" is magical in a Disney sort of way. Watching Bradley Whitford dance was a revelation. I am not saying he is a dancer, but the scene worked.

Travers insisted on taping her daily artistic negotiations with Disney's creative staff: Whitford's character and the two songwriters. The Disney studio still has those tapes. The screenwriter no doubt took liberties with them, but their use in the closing credits was itself highly creative and very simple. The woman was adamant about what she wanted. But what she wanted most was enough money to make sure she could keep her London home. That, she received. Without that, the charming Walt Disney would never have persuaded the curmudgeonly Miss Travers.