Promoting Poppins : The Merchandise of Mary Poppins

The Walt Disney Company today are pros when it comes to knowing how to promote their latest films but, back in the day, they had the marketing game pretty well in hand, too. 

In 1964, without the aid of the internet or a bombardment of television commercials, they promoted Mary Poppins to countries all over the world. And once the film became the success that it was ( critical acclaim, $31 million in box office receipts, 13 Academy Award nominations ) companies clamored to Disney to obtain permission to place Poppins on their products

Judging from the number of different products that were released over the next 10 years, Disney was pretty liberal in granting this permission. Below we have assembled a little gallery of some of the most popular Mary Poppins products of the 1960s and 1970s for you to peruse. If we are missing any, let us know and we will add it to the gallery. 

Enjoy! 

Coloring Books & Other Activity Books

This Whitman coloring book features some really spot-on illustrations of Julie Andrews and the Poppins children. 

Since Mary Poppins always had a bit of magic up her sleeves ( or hiding in her carpet-bag ), this set features a bit of magic, too....magic wipe-off crayons. 

Another magical book.....paintless and dot-to-dot coloring. What could be easier? Just brush the paper with water and watch the pictures appear, pictures as lovely as Bert could draw himself.

A Golden Funtime Coloring Book. Not sure what the "cut out" means. Tear sheets?

Most coloring book covers liked to feature Mary Poppins in her customary flying pose, complete with umbrella open. 

On this cover, she sports some fancy yellow boots and is flying over a freeway. If Mary Poppins supports Shell Oil then that is the gas to use! 

Story Books & Comic Books

A beautiful cover from Gold Key comics emphasizing how Poppins is "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" ( you won't see this word typed twice in one post! )

A Golden Look-inside Book. Five little books hidden inside this one. If they all feature interior art as cute as this cover, I'm buying it. 

This is an interesting Spanish language storybook. Note how much Mary Poppins looks like a female bullfighter here. 

The classic Little Golden Book cover, probably one of the best-selling Mary Poppins pieces of merchandise. 

And look how cute the drawings are inside! 

A Golden Press souvenir book featuring photographs and behind-the-scenes stories about the making of the film.

Colorforms

Colorforms were cut pieces of vinyl that stuck "like magic" to the background cling surface. In this case, that surface image is Mary Poppins in her undergarments. 

The original Colorforms box art. Mary Poppins hair color is more of a reddish tint and her clothing is of a solid color. 

Paper Dolls

Paper dolls with no scissors needed, just a bit of punching will get them right out of their pockets. 

This set, from Whitman, gave you plastic stands to display them on. 

A Golden Funtime book offered a whole bunch of activities in one: 4 paper dolls, story to read, pictures to color, and a carousel to build. 

Good looking doll clothing, too. 

Record Albums & 45s

The 33rpm and its reissue with the cassette tape of the read-along storybook featuring the same cover artwork. 

Another "story and songs" book, this time with Marni Nixon doing the voice of Mary Poppins and Richard M. Sherman reading, too. Richard is one half of the Sherman Brothers, the songwriting duo who composed the music to Mary Poppins. 

A cover variation of the same record. 

Disneyland Records was a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company so not only did they collect from other companies' merchandise but they marketed their own, too!

This 45 record featured "One Man Band" as a bonus song, which was the tune that Bert sang in the opening of the film ( to the melody of "Chim-Chim-Cheree" )

A blurry image of one of the original album covers. 

This was the most famous release and it is quite common to see it at rummage sales and second-hand stores. The sheet music featured the same painted artwork.

And, of course, there were covers released.....the big band maestro Lawrence Welk was one of the first to release a Poppins album. 

Then Duke Ellington toyed with the music.....

....and even Ray Walston "spoke" the lines in rhythm. 

This British release featured a rather dark looking design on its cover. 

Whereas the illustrator who painted the cover to this later ( 1968-1975 ) release decided to redesign Mary Poppins and the children altogether. They look like Edith Nesbit characters here. 

This cute cover was from another British release. Note the Indian and the gent with the top hat. 

This is the funniest looking cover from the New York Theatre Orchestra LP release. Mary Poppins looks like a dressed mannequin here ( a male one at that! ).

Another unusual cover, this one clearly inspired by the art of Peter Maxx. Mary Poppins looks "high" in this drawing, and not because she is flying in the air!

A British release album, featuring the Mike Sammes Singers. This fine group ( sort of the British version of the Ray Conniff Singers ) often did Disney cover albums to coincide with the release of their new films.

And speaking of Ray Conniff.....this chorus would never pass up a chance to do those great Poppins tunes. 

Sticker Books

A lovely cover to a sticker fun book, featuring some smug looking horses. 

Another sticker book, this one from a later release. 

Advertisements

Advertisments were a bit more difficult to find. Hefty featured some great artwork of Mary Poppins toting her carpetbag ( not garbage bags? ) in the air. 

And Kraft Chocolates offered a fantastic prize for this giveaway advertisement: a carpetbag filled with $10,000 in cash! I wonder who the lucky winner of that contest was. 

Dolls and Dollcraft

McCall's issued a stuffed doll sewing pattern and then followed it up with some more patterns featuring costume variations. These patterns can be found on Etsy. 

A series of dolls released by E.I. Horsman as early as 1963. Tonner released a series of dolls more recently that feature a stunning array of wardrobe changes. 

Lunchboxes

This lunchbox from Aladdin came in two options, tin or vinyl. 

Puzzles

And who can forget puzzles! This is a simple frame-tray puzzle from Whitman....

...and then there is this unusual block puzzle with picture scenes. 

I would have liked to own this one....Bert conducting the animal choir.

And lastly, a Jaymar interlocking Mary Poppins Picture Puzzle featuring the final scene in the movie, Let's Go Fly a Kite. 

Yvonne Mitchell, Author & Playright

At some point in their career, most actresses feel the need to write an autobiography, but while there are many actresses who penned one of these personal books of praise, there are very few who put a quill in hand to write something more than an autobiography - to write a book. Lilli Palmer, Cornelia Otis Skinner, and Julie Andrews are several actresses that come to mind who have made a name for themselves as authors.....another is Yvonne Mitchell. 

Did you know that this striking English actress was quite an accomplished writer? One of her early works, a play entitled The Same Sky, won an Arts Council playwriting competition in 1951 and was performed at the Nottingham Playhouse that same year. Her writing may have possibly came about from her desire to address her feelings about being Jewish, which was a bit uncommon in the English stage scene. This play is set in London during the Blitz and deals with a romance between a Jewish woman and a non-Jewish man and the reaction of their families to this arrangement. 

Mitchell in "Woman in a Dressing Gown" ( 1957 )

Mitchell's husband, Derek Monsey, was a theater critic, journalist, and novelist himself, so they shared a passion for writing as well as for the theater. In 1957, at the height of her career, she wrote her autobiography entitled "Actress". That same year, she penned "Colette", one of the best biographies of the famous French author. Even while she was busy throughout the late-1950s and 1960s making films such as Passionate Summer, Tiger Bay, Sapphire, Conspiracy of Hearts, and The Trials of Oscar Wilde, she didn't put her writing on the backburner. It was during this time that she wrote "The Bed-Sitter" ( 1959 ), "A Year in Time "( 1964 ), "Cathy Away" ( 1964 ), and "The Family" ( 1967 ).

In the 1970s, Mitchell eased away from films and focused more on theater work, nonetheless, she also wrote novels such as: "Martha on Sunday" ( 1970 ), "But Wednesday Cried" ( 1974 ), "God is Inexperienced" ( 1974 ), "Fables" ( 1977 ), and "But Answer Came There None" ( 1977 ). 

There are so many reasons why fans and critics adore Yvonne Mitchell and it is wonderful that she was able to take her writing, which was a creative outlet for her, and build a reputation for herself as an author as well.

This entry is a part of our latest series entitled "Did You Know?".....sometimes we just feel like sharing interesting fragments of television and movie history and now we have a place to do just that. If you have a hot tip that you would like us to share on Silver Scenes, drop us a line!

The 3rd Annual Hollywood Auction This Sunday

Tomorrow night, beginning at 8pm EST, Silverbanks Pictures will be hosting its third annual Hollywood Auction on eBay. For those of you who are not regular readers of Silver Scenes, Silverbanks Pictures is my sister and my home-based business, specializing in classic movie photos and other memorabilia.  This auction, our biggest of the year, will feature over 250 candids, stills, and publicity photos from the 1920s-1970s. 

We have a motley assortment of images this time around which include some rare candids of celebrities such as Betty Grable, Joan Crawford, and Cornel Wilde. The selection always changes and we never know what we will end up purchasing and later offering to the public via auction - but I think this year has some real gems hidden in the mix. 

If you would like to view all of the items going up on auction click here, other you can preview a small sample of what will be available to bid on simply by scrolling down below. 

Enjoy! 

Honor Blackman, Mervyn LeRoy, and Jean Seberg posing with Maria Cisternas after a publicity luncheon promoting "Moment to Moment"( 1966 )

Jill St. John is presenting an award to two unknown men in this 1960s publicity shot

John Fosythe and Lana Turner gaze into each other's eyes in this scene from "Madame X" ( 1966 )

William Eythe and Anne Baxter looking resplendent in a publicity photo for Lubitsch's "A Royal Scandal" ( 1946 )

Dorothy Lamour, for once, not pictured in a sarong!

James Stewart always had a passion for aviation. Here, he is talking with aviator Ben Howard and his wife Maxine "Mike", who was also an aviatrix. 

This looks like a scene from "The Third Man" but it's actually from "Journey into Fear" ( 1942 ). In case you didn't recognize him, that's Joseph Cotten pictured. 

A happy college foursome. Pictured are Bonita Granville, William Holden, Ezra Stone, and Judith Barrett. Stone was famous for being the voice of Henry Aldrich on radio and later, in the 1960s, he directed "The Addams Family" television series. 

Jack Carson, Janis Paige, Martha Vickers, and Dennis Morgan in "The Time, the Place, and the Girl" ( 1946 )

Joan Crawford is giving a big schmootz to a soldier before he heads off for Army training. 

The Searchers ( 1956 ) 

Susan Strasberg and Henry Fonda in "Stage Struck" ( 1958 )

Betty Grable with her two adorable girls, pictured off the set in 1955. 

Look how young Preston Foster looks here!

Jane Powell and Vic Damone looking great in Technicolor

Josef von Sternberg's The Last Command ( 1928 ) with Emil Jannings

That's Nelson Eddy singing with Jo Stafford ( egads, it's not Jeanette MacDonald! )

You'd never guess who this lovely woman is - it's the Madonna. She had only a brief appearance in "Ben-Hur" ( 1959 )

The Academy Award winning set design for "How Green Was My Valley" was created by Nathan Juran, who later became a director of Ray Harryhausen films. 

Roddy MacDowall and Lassie ( aka Pal ) in "Lassie Come Home" ( 1943 )

Lana Turner and Anthony Quinn talk behind the scenes during the making of "Portrait in Black" ( 1960 )

Bette Davis with Isreal Chas de Cruz and Frank Lloyd in the 1940s

Van Johnson and Sonja Henie went to the Ice Capades and ended up with the stars of the show asking for THIER autograph!

Dorothy Provine in London in the mid-1960s

Diana Lynn, looking pretty in this publicity photo for "The Kentuckian"

Chester Morris, on the RKO set, walking with a big grin on his face

Mickey Rooney as Huckleberry Finn ( 1939 )

The Impossibly Difficult Name that Movie Game

Get a look at this pretty gentleman! He seems to be in shock wearing such a frock. If you look beneath the soot on his face you'll recognize this actor, who appeared in many, many, many movies...this film being a bit later in his career. 

As always, if you are not familiar with the rules to the Impossibly Difficult Name that Movie game or the prize, click here!

Nugget Reviews - 25

The Private Eyes ( 1980 )   14k 

Scotland Yard detectives, Inspector Winship and Dr. Tart, are hired to investigate the death of Lord and Lady Morley at their English mansion. One by one all of their suspects die off, leaving Winship and Tart to face the real killer. Don Knotts, Tim Conway, Trisha Noble, Bernard Fox. The Private Eye Partners. Directed by Lang Elliott.

Don Knotts and Tim Conway were teamed up for the first time in Disney's 1975 comedy The Apple Dumpling Gang and really "clicked" together. Knotts, who always played the sidekick to Andy on The Andy Griffith Show, did a wonderful job of switching to the straight man and allowing Conway to take the laughs. The Private Eyes is a bit on the wacky side but it has its moments of humor, especially in the running gags throughout the film. 

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Blonde Fever ( 1944 ) 14k

A happily married couple who own a restaurant outside Reno finds their marriage on the rocks when a blonde bombshell who was hired as a waitress begins to split them apart. Mary Astor, Philip Dorn, Gloria Grahame, Marshall Thompson. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures. Directed by Richard Whorf.

Gloria Grahame was making her film debut - along with Marshall Thompson - in this light-hearted comedy from MGM. With their performances, both of them steal the show from the pros Mary Astor and Philip Dorn. The story, which was based on a play, was tight and the film had its moments, but overall, it is quite forgettable and not up to MGM's usual standards when it comes to comedies. However, the great character actor Felix Bressart is in the movie, and his presence alone makes it worth watching!

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Five Little Peppers and How They Grew ( 1939 ) 14k

The wealthy Mr. King wishes to buy out the poor Pepper family's 50% share in a copper mine he owns but once he gets to know the family better and comes to love them, he changes his mind and invites them to live with him in his mansion. Edith Fellows, Charles Peck, Tommy Bond, Clarence Kolb. Columbia Pictures. Directed by Charles Barton. 

This first entry in what was to become a four-film series about Margaret Sidney's Pepper family, is very unassuming and quite entertaining. It packs in quite a bit of plot in its 58-minute runtime. There is some youthful romance between the rich Mr. King's grandson Jaspar and Polly Pepper, a good deal of drama during a family bout with measles, and innocent humor from the children's activities - especially from Dorothy Ann Seese who was quite a scene-stealer. 

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The Golden Blade ( 1953 ) Elect.

The young Harun enters Baghdad seeking information about the group of men who ransacked his tribe and murdered his father. In a quaint bazaar he purchases a magic sword and discovers that Fate has led him to aid the princess Khairuzan in order to discover the group he is after. Rock Hudson, Piper Laurie, Steven Geray, George MacReady. Universal Pictures. Directed by Nathan Juran. 

"Out of Bagdad's mystic past thunders the adventure of all ages!" So proclaims the poster to The Golden Blade. The screenwriter was banking on audiences ignorance of "Bagdad's mystic past" and decided to mix medieval and Mongolian ( ?) elements into the screenplay, making the film a pastiche of styles. Nathan Juran, an art director who would later direct the Ray Harryhausen classics The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and First Men in the Moon was just learning the ropes at this time so the film is rather bland in spots but not bad for a Sunday afternoon's viewing. 

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The Pink Jungle ( 1968 ) 14k

A photographer and his model get stranded in the South American jungle when their pilot takes off without them. There, they meet an adventurer who talks them into buying a treasure map and hunting for diamonds with him. James Garner, Eva Renzi, George Kennedy, Nigel Green. Universal Pictures. Directed by Delbert Mann.  

The Pink Jungle is one of many fun adventure films that were released in the mid-late 1960s and it plays out like an American version of That Man from Rio with non-stop action and comedy. Oddly enough, it is little known today despite its great cast and witty script. James Garner was ideal for parts like this and should have made more similarly themed films. Eva Renzi, a real fashion model, and George Kennedy were also perfect. 

From the Archives: Watusi ( 1959 )

What wild beast could be lurking in the African bush? George Montgomery ( the "Great White Hunter" ) is on a safari with Taina Elg and David Farrar and a bevy of native carriers when they encounter a dangerous animal in MGM's Watusi ( 1959 ). This film gave the studio an opportunity to reuse footage - lots of it - from King Solomon's Mines ( 1950 ). 

From the Archives is our latest series of posts where we share photos from the Silverbanks Pictures collection. Some of these may have been sold in the past, and others may still be available for purchase at our eBay store : http://stores.ebay.com/Silverbanks-Pictures

Johnny Tremain ( 1957 )

George Stevens and Frank Capra were two directors who really knew how to capture onscreen the essence of what being an American is all about. They made films about the love of one's hometown, one's family, about freedom and about helping one's neighbor. But when it comes to making films about American history, it is Walt Disney who deserves the accolades. His films sparked that pride we feel in being American and the thrill you get when you hear a stirring tale of American patriotism. 

Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, he brought many tales from American history textbooks to the motion picture screen - most of which were first adapted for television production, such as The Swamp Fox, Elfego Baca, Davy Crockett, and Johnny Tremain. 

Johnny Tremain was filmed as a two-part series for the Disney TV show, each segment lasting 40 minutes. Even though most people across the States had black-and-white television sets, Disney wanted the film to be shot in Technicolor so it could be issued in theatres as well. Since the production was so good, it ended up being released in theatres first - on July 4, 1957 - and then airing on television shortly after. 

Based upon Esther Forbe's 1943 novel of the same name, Johnny Tremain tells the story of an apprentice silversmith who comes to learn the true meaning of liberty and having "the rights of free men" through an encounter with some of America's founding fathers. The young lad finds himself wrongfully imprisoned for stealing a silver cup from a nobleman. He is touched when one of Boston's finest lawyers takes his case without fee, representing him solely for the sake of justice. It is then that he discovers that throughout Boston men are uniting throughout the city to fight against tyranny and injustice from the British. He joins these men, known as the Sons of Liberty, and helps take part in the Boston Tea Party and in the colonist's stand against British soldiers at Lexington Green. 

Actor Hal Stalmaster was a relative newcomer when Disney cast him as the lead character in Johnny Tremain. He has the same winsome ways about him as another Disney child-actor, Bobby Driscoll, but unfortunately, he only did a handful of other television productions ( including three episodes of The Swamp Fox ) before he retired from acting. Also in the cast is Richard Beymer, Whit Bissell, Sebastian Cabot, Jeff York ( as James Otis ), Luana Patten, Rusty Lane ( as Samuel Adams ) and Walter Sande ( as Paul Revere ). 

"Johnny Tremain is about the nameless, unsung patriots whose hunger for freedom made possible the independence that is enjoyed in America today." - Walt Disney

Walt Disney never watered down or changed the storylines of his films to make them more appealing to children. He knew that children would find them interesting if they could only relate to the main character and rightly so. Johnny Tremain unfolds at a slow pace but it is quite engrossing in spite of this and much of the credit for its entertainment can be attributed to the fine performances of all the actors and to director Robert Stevenson. This old British pro was making his debut with Disney studio and would go on to make 18 films for Disney over the next 20 years. 

Also contributing much to the production of Johnny Tremain was Peter Ellenshaw's beautiful matte paintings. These matte shots saved the studio unnecessary expenses and added a particularly charming touch to the film, making the scenes of historic Boston seem like a living painting. One scene in particular really stands out, that of the Liberty Tree in Old Boston aglow with lanterns hanging on its boughs. If you want to see a similar tree in person, complete with the lanterns, simply take a trip to Disney World, where within Liberty Square a 100-year old Liberty Tree proudly stands holding 13 lanterns to represent the original 13 colonies.