Cline’s also a passionate advocate for the preservation of these priceless cultural artifacts and brings genuine joy to what she calls her dream job. We had a chance to chat with her about the tireless but never boring work of an archivist, how her job has changed alongside filmmaking technology, and the movie that ignited her enchantment with all things Disney. Adriana Caselotti was the live-action reference model for the character of Snow White To re-create that base, Cline hired well-known designer Kevin Kidney in 2007. No stranger to designing for Disney, Kidney has worked on everything from theme park show props to collectible merchandise. “The original snow globe was handmade by one of my art heroes—Disney Legend Rolly Crump,” says Kidney.“The glass portion with the cathedral was on display in the Archives, but the metal base had been missing for nearly 50 years. I was able to re-create it from production stills and screen shots.”

Mary Poppins is the Disney film hat holds the record of having the longest in-print status on video. It was released on VHS in 1981, and has been re-released several times since, so much so it has managed to stay in stores since then. Not once has Mary Poppins been out-of-print on video/DVD. Disney rented a house for Andrews and her family in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles during the production. Andrews referred to the production of Mary Poppins as unrelenting and physically exerting but said that it was the best introduction she could’ve had to the film industry. A very large part of our job is the conservation and preservation of assets and making them available. But one of our directives is to help the company keep its history alive and to make sure it’s accurate. We rely on our history so much—when you think about a film like Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, that came out in 1937. That’s a very old film, but because it’s animation and because it’s still so relevant to children today, whether it’s theme park attractions or streaming on Disney+, it’s really important that the history of that film is still available to our filmmakers, to our marketing and press and publicity and publishing people, to the people who make toys, and those who do attractions at the park. A well-indexed collection of our history is really important to Disney, probably more so than anywhere else I can think of. Color still depicting a press release for Walt Disney’s animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Courtesy Disney; Walter Elias, Lillian Bounds I’ve always thought that Mary Poppins is David Tomlinson’s movie as much as it is Julie Andrews’. When, as Mr Banks, he gets his hat punched inside out and his bosses destroy his umbrella, he plays the scene with a pathos that, to a child of seven or eight, does terrible violence to the notion of parental infallibility. Tomlinson is the great heart of the movie, the warmth to Andrews’ splinter of ice, who, while sustaining the film’s line in jokey verbosity, still manages to be moving.The author of the Mary Poppins books, P.L. Travers approved of the casting of Julie Andrews after hearing speak over the telephone. Andrews granted the interview from her bed after the delivery of her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton. The film Mary Poppins was based upon the first novel in P.L. Travers’ Mary Poppins series. It was because Walt Disney‘s daughters loved the book so much that their Father promised to make a film based upon it. In the book, Mrs Banks is the one to interview Mary Poppins for the nanny position rather than Mr Banks.

The word "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" was not created for Mary Poppins. A variation was first used in a 1949 song by Gloria Parker and Barney Young. They did sue Disney for plagiarism, but lost after the lawyers showed that a similar word had been used by Helen Herman in the "Syracuse Daily Orange", a college newspaper, on March 10, 1931. Herman wrote: "Several years ago, I concocted an expression which, to me, includes all words in the category of something wonderful...I believe that I am the sole originator of it, or at least, I have my own interpretation of its pronunciation… it implies all that is grand, great, glorious, splendid, superb, wonderful." P.L. Travers demanded any suggestion of a romantic connection between Mary Poppins and Burt be scrapped as their relationship was purely a platonic friendship. Pre-production of Mary Poppins and song composition took around two years to complete. The Sherman Brothers (Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman) came up with the idea of Mrs. Winnifred Banks (Glynis Johns) being involved in the suffragette cause to explain why she should be so neglectful of her children. Let’s talk about the nitty-gritty of the work you do, especially considering what a deep archive Disney has. What’s an average day like for you? The short old lady in the park at in the beginning of Mary Poppins with her two tall daughters is named Mrs. Corry. In the original book, she ran the sweet shop in the park and in the Broadway show they buy the letters to make the word "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" from her.Enough of this complexity made it into the movie, however, to preserve its original flavour and even, perhaps, to deepen it. I have a theory that the Bird Woman is Poppins’s alter ego: despised and destitute, the mad old bat whom women like PL Travers were expected to become – invisible, husbandless and in need of a chin wax. She is the crone in the snow globe whom Poppins compels us to see. David Tomlinson was allegedly nervous about not being good enough for the part of Mr. George Banks, as he had never sung professionally before. There are some differences between the characters in P.L. Travers’ book Mary Poppins and the Walt Disney film.