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BROADWAY
Effects drive the car in kid-friendly 'Chitty'
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CHlTTYCHITTY BANG BANG
Directed by Adrian Noble
Starring: Raul Esparza, Erin DiIIy and Philip Bosco
The lobby of the newly renamed Hilton Theater resounds with the kind of aggressive merchandise-hawking only rivaled on Broadway at "The lion King" across 42nd Street, which seems entirely appropriate for a show with an automated heart. The good news is that "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" is a lot more diverting than the near unwatehable MGM movie and far tighter in its Broadway incarnation than in the belabored London staging that spawned it. While the car floats and flies, the unapologeticaUy quaint musical soars mainly in its technical displays. But it offers cheery clapalong distraction for the under12s and more than a modicum of charm for those forced to accompany them.
Based on James Bond creator Ian Fleming's children's book about an eccentric, widowed British inventor with a magical car, the 1968 movie's story was expanded by co-screenwriter Roald DaM to include the inventor's tales of the sinister empire of Vulgaria, where infants are outlawed. Despite its thinly veiled satire of Jewish persecution under the Nazis, there was little evidence of the sly wit of 007 in this lumbering epic of cutesy, toodle-pip British preciousness. The film is remembered mostly for the nightmares inspired by Robert Helpmann's grotesquely campy Childcatcher.
The Sherman brothers' English music hall-style songs are a pallid echo of their work on "Mary Poppins," including the title tune and "Truly Scrumptious," surely two of the most insidious ditties ever written, guaranteed to loiter in the head for days. Even in 1968, the movie separated the cool kids from the geeks.
It's surprising, then, that after a plodding first act overstuffed with songs entirely dispensable to the narrative, the stage musical yields some genuinely enjoyable moments in its more streamlined Broadway version. While the performers are secondary in importance to the mechanics of the show, part of the fun is due to the superior cast assembled, led by one of Broadway's most dynamic young musical talents, Raul Esparza, somewhat oddly cast and underused as...