Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Caractacus Potts (Dick Van Dyke), an eccentric inventor, always seems to be at a loss for money but never at a loss of love for his children, Jeremy (Adrian Hall) and Jemima (Heather Ripley). When they return home one day with news that their favorite play toy, an old Grand Prix racecar they’ve nicknamed Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, is about to be sold for scrap, their father agrees to buy it himself and restore it to its former glory, if only he can raise the needed funds. Toward that end, Professor Potts tries to sell everything from haircuts via an automatic haircutting machine to a candy that whistles, before unintentionally ending up onstage with a song-and-dance troupe where he is such a hit that the audience lauds him (and them) with enough tribute to buy Chitty and fix her up. On their first trip in the newly repaired Chitty, the Potts family heads for the seashore for a picnic, but not before first running Miss Truly Scrumptious’ (Sally Ann Howes) own car off the road en route. They convince her to join them as a means of making amends, and while at the beach, the eccentric Professor regales both his children and Truly with a wild tale of a magical flying car, a faraway land, scavenging pirates, inept spies, a kidnapped grandfather, a child-hating baroness, a wily child catcher, a kindly toy maker, and two children who, along with their father and his lady friend, save the day for all.