Saving P. L. Travers

       Connie, David, and I saw Saving Mr. Banks today.  I did it somewhat grudgingly.  I loved Mary Poppins when my mother read it to me as a child...the take-charge-of-the-kids-and-household, not-to-be-stopped whirlwind of governess Mary Poppins.  I agreed with author P. L. Travers the movie was too saccharine.

       Oh, yes, they showed Mary Poppins' author as stern and resistant to seeing her book adapted a la Hollywood, and they made a plausible psychological case for Travers' reluctance to let the Disney team lighten the movie, practically giving her a therapeutic catharsis right before your eyes.  But I still felt the two Disney movies did the same thing, taking the guts out of Travers as they had out of Mary.  These were Disney's stories, not Mary Poppins' and not Mrs. Travers'.