Susan Granger’s review of “The Boys: The Sherman Brothers’ Story” (Walt Disney)
Do you even know who the Sherman brothers are? Perhaps not, but you’ve sung “Chim Chim Cher-ee” and “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” from “Mary Poppins” and
”I Want To Be Like You” from “The Jungle Book,” right?
These songs, among many others, were written by the first songwriting team ever hired by Walt Disney. The prolific, six-decade collaboration between Robert B. and Richard M. Sherman produced over 50 movies and more than 1,000 songs for film, television, records, stage and theme parks, including “It’s A Small World (After All).”
Yet, behind the scenes, the brothers were estranged for years, keeping their non-working lives entirely separate. Bob and Dick literally lived within blocks of each other in Beverly Hills, yet their families never knew one another…until, in 2002, at the “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” premiere in London, Gregory (Richard’s son) and Jeffrey (Robert’s son) decided to delve into their fathers’ bizarre relationship. Simply put: conflict was their crucible of creativity. And that’s the ironic crux of this fascinating Hollywood documentary.
Along with reminiscences from Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, Angela Lansbury, Hayley Mills, Ben Stiller, Annette Funicello, John Williams, Randy Newman, Alan Menken, Stephen Schwartz, Kenny Loggins and Roy Disney, there are perceptive historical insights from TCM’s Robert Osbourne, Samuel Goldwyn Jr. and John Landis, among others. And fascinating anecdotes: how “Just A Spoonful of Sugar” got its name from the Salk polio vaccine which was, at first, dispensed to school children in drops on a sugar cube; that British author P.L. Travers was never pleased with “Mary Poppins”; and why “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” recalled the passion for kite-flying that Al Sherman passed along to his two sons, along with sage songwriting advice: “Keep it simple, singable and sincere.”
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “the boys: the sherman brothers story” is an evocative, intriguing 8, spiced by lush, radiant movie clips and their glorious legacy of music.
