Cinema: Ersatz Poppins

Bedknobs and Broomsticks is a present for the holiday season from the Disney studios. It's like getting a lump of coal in your Christmas stocking. Made in blatant imitation of Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks concerns the singularly unengaging adventures of an amateur witch named Eglantine Price (Angela Lansbury) and her three cockney charges (Roy Snart, Ian Weighill and Cindy O'Callaghan) during the early days of England's involvement in the second World War. It must be the first movie in history to combine Nazis and singing fish.

Miss Price is about to complete a...

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