Saving Mr. Banks

Name: Saving Mr. Banks
Genre: Comedy, Drama, History
Released: 2013-11-29
Duration: 2 h 6 min
Rating: 7.5
Cast: Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Colin Farrell, Paul Giamatti, Ruth Wilson

Where her book ended, their story began.

Saving Mr. Banks (2013)

Timing: 2:6 (126 min)

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7.3/10
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7.5/10
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Everything about the movie

Video 8

Photo 45

Actors and characters

Video for the film Saving Mr. Banks — Saving Mr. Banks Official Trailer

2:54

Photo 45

Release date

2013-11-29

Country

Australia, United Kingdom, United States

Production

Walt Disney Pictures, BBC Film, Hopscotch Features, Ruby Films, Essential Media and Entertainment

Genre

Comedy, Drama, History

Budget

$35 000 000

Box office

$117 867 984

Website

Director

John Lee Hancock

Actors

Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Colin Farrell, Paul Giamatti, Ruth Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Bradley Whitford, Annie Rose Buckley, B.J. Novak, Kathy Baker
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Sue Smith, Kelly Marcel

Producer

Philip Steuer, Alison Owen, Ian Collie, Andrew Mason, Christine Langan, Paul Trijbits, Troy Lum

Camera operator

John Schwartzman

Composer

Thomas Newman

Artist

Michael Corenblith

Audition

Editing

Mark Livolsi
Whole Team (46)

Short description

Author P.L. Travers looks back on her childhood while reluctantly meeting with Walt Disney, who seeks to adapt her Mary Poppins books for the big screen.

What's left behind the scenes

124 pages of various drawings created between 1961 and 1964 were provided to the filmmakers, including sketches, rough drafts, storyboards, design layouts, and advertising posters.
Actor Jason Schwartzman is 32 years old – exactly the same age as his character, Richard Sherman, was in 1961 when this story took place. Actors B.J. Novak and Robert B. Sherman were also "the same age" in 1961 – they were 34.
Some of the actual 'Oscar' statuettes can be seen in scenes in Walt Disney's office.
The actors and crew had the opportunity to listen to approximately six hours of audio recordings of meetings between P.L. Travers and the crew of the original "Mary Poppins" (1964) film, provided by the Walt Disney Studios Archives. The negotiations were recorded from April 5th to 10th, 1961. You can clearly hear the author expressing her peremptory judgments and suggestions. Her interlocutors included songwriters Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, screenwriter Don DaGradi, and the studio’s story department head Bill Dover (who also organized Travers’s trip to America).
While working on the film, the filmmakers gained access to a unique source: the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. The museum was opened in October 2009 by Walt’s daughter, Diane Disney, and his grandson, Walter Elias Disney Miller. The exhibition is managed by the Walt Disney Family Foundation, a non-profit organization. Covering an area of over 3,700 square meters, it houses samples of cutting-edge technology, historical materials, and artifacts documenting Disney’s achievements.
The Walt Disney Archives provided over 150 digitized images of various characters from that era – souvenir guides to Disneyland, postcards, catalogs of merchandise, stickers, and invitations to the film premiere. All of this was used in the filming of the movie.
After receiving the film’s script, Disney representatives retrieved over 500 pages of various documents from the archive – ranging from initial storyboards and the screenplay to correspondence between key members of the film crew.
The film’s art directors visited the "Treasures from the Walt Disney Archives" exhibition at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum. Among other exhibits, it featured elements of office furniture from that era. The art directors measured and photographed all the interior items in order to recreate exact replicas, including Walt Disney’s desk, side tables, and bookshelves. Archive staff even provided the art directors with the signage from that time that had been displayed in the Disney Studio premises. The same signage adorned the corridors in the film. The film’s decorators were also able to carefully study photographs of Walt Disney’s official and home offices as they were in the 1960s. The founder of the Walt Disney Archives provided precise measurements of each piece of furniture and a detailed inventory of all the interior items.
To achieve an even greater resemblance to her character, P.L. Travers, the author of "Mary Poppins", actress Emma Thompson obediently allowed herself to have a perm, forgoing a wig. Tom Hanks, in turn, grew his own mustache to more closely resemble Walt Disney.
The first American-British project of Walt Disney Pictures, which created this film in collaboration with BBC Films.
To accurately capture Walt Disney's manner of speech, Tom Hanks listened to archival recordings of Disney in his car and practiced the voice by reading newspapers.
In 2011, Kelly Marcel's screenplay was recognized as one of the best unsold screenplays in Hollywood. And in early 2012, Walt Disney Pictures acquired the rights to adapt the screenplay.
The father of "Mary Poppins" author P.L. Travers was a banker. He served as the prototype for one of the main characters in her book – Mr. Banks. It is to him that the fictional nanny comes to the rescue.
Recreating the pavilion of The Walt Disney Studios, Disneyland park, and the premiere of "Mary Poppins" (1964) at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, which took place in the early 1960s, the crew reviewed over 500 photographs stored in the Walt Disney Studios Photo Archive (part of the Walt Disney Archives). The photographs captured corridors and offices of the building, the amusement park from various angles, and aerial shots.
While on a scouting trip to Australia, director John Lee Hancock and producer Alison Owen visited Maryborough, Queensland. This town was where Pamela Travers spent her childhood.
To prepare for the role, Tom Hanks visited the Walt Disney Museum in San Francisco several times and spoke with some of Disney's relatives, including the famous animator's daughter, Diane Disney.
The film was shot almost entirely in Los Angeles. Key locations included Disneyland in Anaheim; the TCL Chinese Theatre (formerly Grauman’s Chinese Theatre) in Hollywood (where the film "Mary Poppins" premiered in 1964); the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, which has been operating since 1939 (the 1964 film was shot entirely on this lot); and the 40 square kilometer Big Sky Ranch in Simi Valley, which replicated the Australian landscape of the early 20th century.
Walt Disney began his “crusade” for the rights to adapt Pamela Travers's book *Mary Poppins* in 1938. It took Disney 20 years to reach an agreement with the author. Nevertheless, the rights were eventually transferred to the studio, and the film was made.
This is the first film from Walt Disney Studios to feature a character of Walt Disney himself.
Since Colin Farrell, who played Pamela Travers’ father, only filmed scenes for the Australian flashbacks, he did not have the opportunity to meet the other actors playing characters in 1961.
Richard M. Sherman, who, along with his brother Robert, wrote the songs for the film "Mary Poppins" (1964), served as a consultant during the filming of "Saving Mr. Banks" (2013). His stories about that time, as depicted in the film, were truly invaluable to both the actors and the crew. He recalls that Walt Disney particularly loved the song "Feed the Birds." The maestro fully appreciated the song's key idea – that giving love isn't so difficult. Disney often called the Sherman Brothers, asking them to come by and sing the song again. They would come to his office and give impromptu concerts. Ultimately, this ritual repeated almost every Friday.
According to the film's plot, Pamela Travers, played by Emma Thompson, opens the door to her hotel room in Beverly Hills and discovers the room is filled with all kinds of Disney-themed souvenirs. The room became a source of pride for set decorator Susan Benjamin, who filled the space with everything she could get her hands on – from a two-meter-tall Mickey Mouse to balloons. In turn, Sean Bailey, president of film production at The Walt Disney Studios, decided to do the same with Emma Thompson. He personally “decorated” her room in a Los Angeles hotel with all possible souvenirs. About a week later, Bailey received a thank-you card from Thompson, in which she also inquired – was a hidden video camera installed in the room to capture her genuine astonishment?
The film was shot almost entirely in Los Angeles. Key locations included Disneyland in Anaheim; the TCL Chinese Theatre (formerly Grauman’s Chinese Theatre) in Hollywood (where the premiere of 'Mary Poppins' took place in 1964); the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, which has been in operation since 1939 (the 1964 film was shot entirely on this lot); and the 40-square-kilometer Big Sky Ranch in Simi Valley, which replicated the Australian landscape of the early 20th century.