Who's Missing From "Saving Mr. Banks"

Now before I get too far into this, I should make it clear that I haven't seen the new Disney film "Saving Mr. Banks" yet, about the contentious making of the 1964 Disney classic "Mary Poppins." However, I couldn't help but notice as I read over the cast list that an important figure from the "Mary Poppins" crew appeared to be missing from the new film. There were the credits for Walt Disney and author P.L. Travers, the Sherman brothers who composed all the songs, writer Don DaGradi, and actors playing "Poppins" stars Julie Andrews and Dick van Dyke. But where was that film's director Robert Stevenson? After checking early reviews and audience reports, apparently he's nowhere to be found in "Saving Mr. Banks." And that's a serious omission.

As you might have heard, iconic Hollywood Golden Age actress Joan Fontaine passed away over the weekend. My favorite of her films was the 1943 version of "Jane Eyre" that she co-starred in with Orson Welles. The film was co-written and (despite rumors that Welles was running the production) directed by Robert Stevenson. He began his career in the UK and was best known for action films and historical dramas like "King Solomon's Mines" and "Tudor Rose." He was signed briefly with David O. Selznick when he first transitioned to Hollywood productions, but his career faltered in the 40s and he kept being shuttled around among the major studios, and at one point went off to Europe to make war documentaries.

After two decades in film, he moved into television in the '50s, where he was especially prolific, overseeing dozens of productions. He returned to filmmaking when Disney hired him to direct "Johnny Tremain" in 1957. Stevenson subsequently spent twenty years with the studio, directing some of the most famous live-action Disney films including "Old Yeller," "Darby O'Gill and the Little People", "The Absent-Minded Professor," "The Love Bug," "Bedknobs and Broomsticks," and of course "Mary Poppins," which earned him a Best Director nomination from the Academy. He developed a particular facility with effects-driven films, a skill that put him in high demand, but he never left Disney. Thanks to his association with the studio, he was one of the most commercially successful directors of the '60s, and one of the highest paid. When I first looked up his filmmography, I discovered I'd seen a dozen of his films and never realized it. And I don't think there's a single one I haven't enjoyed.

Was he one of the filmmaking greats? No, but Stevenson established the template for the family-friendly comedic fantasy feature that Disney and many others still use to this day, and his work is far more influential than most people realize. Despite this, he has remained sadly under the radar. Sure, Stevenson was inducted into the Disney Legends in 2002, and he got a very nice obit in the New York Times when he passed in 1986, but he's hardly discussed at all in cinematic circles. There are the usual explanations for this: his work was considered too mainstream and commercial, his best known films were aimed at children, and the Disney branding overshadowed his personal contributions to his films. However, even in discussions of "Mary Poppins," his name barely comes up. This makes his exclusion from "Saving Mr. Banks" especially frustrating, because he was clearly a major player in the creation of the film.

"Mary Poppins" was a massively complicated production, full of special effects, animation, and multiple dance and musical sequences. It was the largest scale film Disney had ever attempted at the time. It was also by turns funny and whimsical, adventurous and exciting, reflective, thoughtful, and in the final sequences with Mr. Banks, melancholy and dramatic too. Stevenson managed to balance all these things, delivering a film that has been universally praised. It retains such a sterling reputation and has held up so well over the years that Disney is still profiting handsomely from its success after five decades.

I'm sure the "Saving Mr. Banks" filmmakers didn't exclude Stevenson on purpose - the focus of the new film is on P.L. Travers and her meetings with Walt Disney before "Mary Poppins" actually went into production - but like too many others they were remiss in overlooking Robert Stevenson's contributions.

Or to quote Billy Crystal, "Did this film direct itself?"

With the release of "Saving Mr. Banks," many are taking the opportunity to revisit "Mary Poppins," and I'm hoping this will also spark more interest in its forgotten director. Walt Disney deserves plenty of credit for his close involvement in the filmmaking process, for spearheading the project, and for convincing P.L. Travers to sign over the rights to her character in the first place, but I seriously doubt that the finished film would have come together as beautifully as it did without Robert Stevenson.
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