The Original Mary Poppins

P.L. Travers and Walt Disney (from the Washington Post)

Appearing this Christmas season from Walt Disney Pictures, “Mary Poppins Returns” is the long-awaited sequel to the beloved Julie Andrews film. It’s surprising that audiences had to wait 54 years. The original was the most popular film Walt Disney ever made.

Combining live action and animation, the 1964 movie told of an extraordinary nanny (played by Andrews) who came down from the skies in 1910 to care for the Banks family in London and whose friends included Bert (played by Dick Van Dyke), a chimney sweep given to dancing on rooftops. With songs like “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and “A Spoonful of Sugar,” the musical fantasy was such a success that Walt Disney was able to purchase land in Florida for his second theme park.

Critics and the public loved the film; “Mary Poppins” received 13 Academy Award nominations (including best picture) and took home five. And folks still love it. As film critic Leonard Maltin observed, the movie was “the pinnacle of [Disney’s] already fantastic career.”

A movie adaptation is a sure boost to the sales of the book it is based on. Every cinematic installment of Harry Potter, for example, sent fans back to J.K. Rowling’s novels. But the situation was more complicated in 1965, according to a…