Saving Mr. Banks

[ilovemk76]

According to her biography:

Marriage: She had a long time roommate/friend: Madge Burnand.

This has only been a rumor. She seemed to have affairs with both sexes but she never married.

She took the name Pamala when she started out as a Shakespearean actress in Sydney at 17 because it was a popular name.

She did not have a privileged life and she did not go to boarding school in England. She didn't emigrate to England until 18 to pursue literary dreams.


She went back to Sydney and the boarding school when WWI broke out. "Called Lyndon as a child, Travers moved with her mother and sisters to New South Wales after her father's death, where an aunt (the inspiration for her book Aunt Sass) had a sugar plantation. She lived there for 10 years, although boarded at Sydney's Normanhurst Girls School during World War I."

That is certainly a privileged life for the times.

http://www.biography.com/people/pl-travers-21358293

In fact, her mother lost her inheritance after her father died due to the bank her money was in going bankrupt. They had to sell their house and live in a tin roofed shack, relying on handouts from aunts. She had a very hard childhood.

Her first 7 years were privileged, then they fell on hard time but a short time later she is living on a sugar plantation.

She did go to boarding school in Australia.

While she did cry at the premier, it had nothing to do with the way Banks was portrayed. Disney withheld the info that there would be animated scenes in the movie. When she saw it, she demanded that they be removed as she had specified no animation. Disney turned his back on her and told her the ship had sailed and while she had script approval, she did not have editing approval. Her anger at Disney lying to her is why she forbid Disney or anybody associated with the movie to ever work on any of her books again.

She hated the entire movie, especially the animated part. She complained about Banks long before the premier. They changed the ending and added the "Kite" song for her.

In her will, she also specified this, adding that only English born writers could adapt her works.

She was very snooty and hated not only Walt Disney, who was dead for 30 years by the time she died, but All Americans. This showed in her will.

Records are very clear that she only adopted one of the boys. The other brother (Tony) showed up at 17 on Travers doorstep to meet his brother.

They are suppose to have met in a bar.

 

[PizzieDuster]

Gosh, I really wish I would have read this thread before seeing this movie yesterday. Not entirely my fault I fell asleep, we went to one of those nice theaters that have the reclining seats and I had a glass of wine.

I now want to see it again, after reading all of your very informative posts.

 

[Hrhpd]

She went back to Sydney and the boarding school when WWI broke out. "Called Lyndon as a child, Travers moved with her mother and sisters to New South Wales after her father's death, where an aunt (the inspiration for her book Aunt Sass) had a sugar plantation. She lived there for 10 years, although boarded at Sydney's Normanhurst Girls School during World War I."

That is certainly a privileged life for the times.

http://www.biography.com/people/pl-travers-21358293

Her first 7 years were privileged, then they fell on hard time but a short time later she is living on a sugar plantation.

Not quite:

What happened to P.L. Travers family after her father died?
P.L. Travers's mother, born Margaret Morehead (portrayed by Ruth Wilson in the Saving Mr. Banks movie), hailed from an affluent sugar refining dynasty. However, Margaret had lost most of her inheritance when the Queensland National Bank was discovered insolvent. Margaret and her three daughters left their large Queensland, Australia home, where they had servants and a horse-drawn carriage, for a tin-roofed shack where they relied on the charity of various aunts. -DailyMail.co.uk

She hated the entire movie, especially the animated part. She complained about Banks long before the premier. They changed the ending and added the "Kite" song for her.

Not quite. Actually, she hated the Kite song and wanted it removed.

Was "Let's Go Fly a Kite" the song that won over Poppins author P.L. Travers?
No. In the Saving Mr. Banks movie, P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) begins tapping her toes when she first hears "Let's Go Fly a Kite." However, according to Poppins songwriter Richard M. Sherman (portrayed by Jason Schwartzman in the film), "Free the Birds" was actually the song that broke her. -SFGate.com

During our investigation into the Saving Mr. Banks true story, we discovered that some of the things that Travers objected to with regard to the Mary Poppins movie included the animated horse and pig; the song "Let's Go Fly a Kite"; the notion that Mary Poppins would have a romance with a mere chimneysweep; turning Mrs. Banks into a suffragette; naming Mrs. Banks Cynthia instead of Winifred (Travers won that battle); the grandness of the Banks house; certain American words and phrases; and the casting of Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews (she felt Andrews was too pretty compared to the plain, short and thin lady in the book). -MentalFloss.com

 

[bballmom56]

Not quite:


Was "Let's Go Fly a Kite" the song that won over Poppins author P.L. Travers?
No. In the Saving Mr. Banks movie, P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) begins tapping her toes when she first hears "Let's Go Fly a Kite." However, according to Poppins songwriter Richard M. Sherman (portrayed by Jason Schwartzman in the film), "Free the Birds" was actually the song that broke her. -SFGate.com

But how can you put much stock in the statement when they can't even get the title of the song correct?

 

[LisaR]

Since seeing the movie, I've read many articles on Travers. This is what I have concluded:

Walt was far from perfect, but it is only logical that a Disney movie about Mr. Disney would certainly portray him in the best light possible. From all accounts, though, Walt on his worst day was better than Travers on her best day.

I haven't found anything that disagrees with how horrible Travers was. As a matter of fact, most of what I have read claims that the movie makes her appear far nicer than she really was (dancing to the music, friendly to her driver, etc). She simply wasn't that nice!

 

[ilovemk76]

But how can you put much stock in the statement when they can't even get the title of the song correct?

She needs to be right at any cost. So I will let her.

 

[Hrhpd]

She needs to be right at any cost. So I will let her.

 

[Hrhpd]

But how can you put much stock in the statement when they can't even get the title of the song correct?

Obviously a typo. But there were two separate sources cited that said she hated Kites.

 

[Hrhpd]

Another that says she did not live the high life on a sugar plantation:

Bowral was sleepy in the winter and rambunctious in summer with city folk down for the views and the country air.

The living was cheap in this little town. Margaret and her three girls moved there in 1907; Aunt Ellie had enrolled Lyndon and Biddy in the new Bowral branch of Sydney Church of England Girls Grammar School, founded a year earlier. The Goffs rented a wooden cottage, one of four in Holly Street, then a dirt road. Aunt Ellie paid the rent. A willow drooped near a brown stream that ran through a paddock, fronting the garden. Here Lyndon grew from child to young woman. Valerie Lawson [1999] Mary Poppins She Wrote: The Life Of P L Travers Aurum Press, Great Britain, pg 50.

Aunt Ellie moved the family to Sydney when Lyndon was grown as there was no work in Bowral and Lyndon needed to work to help support the family.

Fascinating biography of PL Travers. One should read it

 

[LisaR]

Another that says she did not live the high life on a sugar plantation:

Bowral was sleepy in the winter and rambunctious in summer with city folk down for the views and the country air.

The living was cheap in this little town. Margaret and her three girls moved there in 1907; Aunt Ellie had enrolled Lyndon and Biddy in the new Bowral branch of Sydney Church of England Girls Grammar School, founded a year earlier. The Goffs rented a wooden cottage, one of four in Holly Street, then a dirt road. Aunt Ellie paid the rent. A willow drooped near a brown stream that ran through a paddock, fronting the garden. Here Lyndon grew from child to young woman. Valerie Lawson [1999] Mary Poppins She Wrote: The Life Of P L Travers Aurum Press, Great Britain, pg 50.

Fascinating biography of PL Travers. One should read it

I'm confused as to what point you are trying to make. Are you saying the movie didn't depict her life exactly as it was? What movie ever does? I don't even think the movie addressed the middle years of her life. The focus was on her life as a young child and again as an older adult. The time she spent with her aunts weren't even addressed in the film and I fail to see how that changes anything. The fact remains that she was a cranky, difficult individual. Whether she lived in poverty or was rich wasn't the point. People who grow up poor can still be nice human beings.

 

[Hrhpd]

I'm confused as to what point you are trying to make. Are you saying the movie didn't depict her life exactly as it was? What movie ever does? I don't even think the movie addressed the middle years of her life. The focus was on her life as a young child and again as an older adult. The time she spent with her aunts weren't even addressed in the film and I fail to see how that changes anything. The fact remains that she was a cranky, difficult individual. Whether she lived in poverty or was rich wasn't the point. People who grow up poor can still be nice human beings.

Of course people that were brought up in poverty can be wonderful people.

The PP had posted that after her father died, she lived a charmed life on a sugar plantation.

When I said that was not quite true, she challenged it, turning it into a pissing match and then ending with a rather rude remark.

I am just giving her some more material.

Being poor actually does play into Travers' story. Because she was poor, she spent a lot of time daydreaming by that willow in her front yard. She has said that all that daydreaming was the beginning of the formation of her amazingly creative mind.

 

[snykymom]

I admit I have never read the books, but in the movie Traverse gets very upset when she thinks they are portraying Mr.Banks as too cruel by tearing up the letter. If he's worse in the books, why was she upset? Or was that "made for movie" stuff?

In the stage show of Mary Poppins on Broadway, I actually didn't think that Banks was cruel. I actually thought that Mary Poppins was! She definitely was not the warm, understanding nanny that Julie Andrews portrayed. In fact, she was much more like Helen Goff's aunt. When they got to "Spoonful of Sugar" in the show, it wasn't to give the children medicine so that they wouldn't get sick like in the movie; it was so that they would behave! My daughter and I looked at each other wide-eyed, and she says, "Mary Poppins is a drug pusher!"

 

[elgerber]

In the stage show of Mary Poppins on Broadway, I actually didn't think that Banks was cruel. I actually thought that Mary Poppins was! She definitely was not the warm, understanding nanny that Julie Andrews portrayed. In fact, she was much more like Helen Goff's aunt. When they got to "Spoonful of Sugar" in the show, it wasn't to give the children medicine so that they wouldn't get sick like in the movie; it was so that they would behave! My daughter and I looked at each other wide-eyed, and she says, "Mary Poppins is a drug pusher!"

I don't recall Mary being cruel. Miss Andrews was cruel and used her elixer in "Brimstone and Treacle" to get the children to behave.

 

[Geoff_M]

I'm also not sure I buy the notion that the film paints Walt as a "Saint". The film clearly shows he used deceit with regard to the use of animation in the film against Travers' expressed wishes, as well as his attempt to exclude her from the US premiere of the film. He is painted as wanting the film rights "by hook or by crook" and his sweet-talking of Travers seemed to have no end. You have to admit that this was a pretty gutsy thing for a company to do with the man that is the primary source of their public goodwill.

 

[jlmarr]

I thought this was an interesting review, although I don't agree with all of it...

http://www.grantland.com/blog/holly...hilly-borderline-nastiness-of-saving-mr-banks

 

[eliza61]

I thought this was an interesting review, although I don't agree with all of it...

http://www.grantland.com/blog/holly...hilly-borderline-nastiness-of-saving-mr-banks

wraps up my sentiment. I loved Emma's acting but I did not like the Travers character at all.

As I said before, I really couldn't find a reason for her disdain and condescension. Babies on planes, drivers who are professional, perfect strangers, all targets of her nastiness. I know Walt was no saint but god bless him for really wanting to take on this book. I would have booted her and her book back across the pound.

 

[Help Please!]

Sooo....I cried through so much of the movie. I was a big, blubbering mess. I don't know why, but it was just so emotional for me. But, I loved it. Definitely NOT a kid movie, I would say teenagers for sure, and only then if they're interested in what the movie is all about.

I will say that my husband usually whines about my movie choices (we almost saw Anchorman), but for whatever reason he went along, not thinking he'd really enjoy the movie...and he LOVED it. And he is a tough critic...he said it was the best movie he's seen in a long time.

If you haven't seen it...SEE IT!!!

 

[tajz90]

Sooo....I cried through so much of the movie. I was a big, blubbering mess. I don't know why, but it was just so emotional for me. But, I loved it. Definitely NOT a kid movie, I would say teenagers for sure, and only then if they're interested in what the movie is all about. I will say that my husband usually whines about my movie choices (we almost saw Anchorman), but for whatever reason he went along, not thinking he'd really enjoy the movie...and he LOVED it. And he is a tough critic...he said it was the best movie he's seen in a long time. If you haven't seen it...SEE IT!!!

I started crying when Travers said Mary wasn't there for the kids and didn't stop. I could barely make it through the movie!

 

[goofyintoronto]

Sooo....I cried through so much of the movie. I was a big, blubbering mess. I don't know why, but it was just so emotional for me. But, I loved it. Definitely NOT a kid movie, I would say teenagers for sure, and only then if they're interested in what the movie is all about.

I will say that my husband usually whines about my movie choices (we almost saw Anchorman), but for whatever reason he went along, not thinking he'd really enjoy the movie...and he LOVED it. And he is a tough critic...he said it was the best movie he's seen in a long time.

If you haven't seen it...SEE IT!!!

I agree. Its was amazing. I almost cried myself!

 

[PollyannaMom]

I've avoided this thread until seeing the movie, but we got to go last night, and I thought it was wonderful! The contrast was great - I felt so bad for her as a child, but so disliked her as an adult.

I had a little bit of background on the Sherman brothers writing the songs, so that was fun for me to see, and I really liked the addition of the driver. I loved how the real photos and tape were included at the end, and thought the only mistake they made was wasting the clouds. (I sort of expected to "see" things in them, during the beginning and end shots.)

Now I have to add re-reading the books to my already-long reading list!