The "Child Catcher" is WAY to scary for 3-5 year olds
I vaguely remembered this from my childhood and rented it to watch with my 3 and 5 year olds. It was HORRIBLE. The first half of the movie was fine, but the second half was WAY to scary for them. Even though I fast forwarded through most of the second half, and then finally just skipped to the last chapter to see the ending, my 5 year old kept asking "why did the kid catcher guy have lollipops? why did he put the kids in the cage? What was he going to do to the kids?" I took it as an opportunity to talk about strangers, but he was crying and scared to go to sleep after the movie. There was also a lot of slapstick violence, shooting canons at people, and as I was fast forwarding, I caught some women dancing in "sexy" clothing. Absolutely horrible film. There was also some mildly boring parts such as the "what a lovely lonely man" song. Now I know why I only vaguely remember this one- my mom probably saw it once and that was it for us watching it. We are going to stick to Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music - those are the classics I really remember. And the music is much better in those movies too.
My 4 and 6 year olds were scared by the kid catcher and broke down in tears. We couldn't finish the movie! My kids are sensitive and don't watch much TV, but I thought they'd have been ok with this.
Our 4 year old loves this movie! She started watching it 6 months ago. We would play it up until the intermission and then turn it off. We thought the kid catcher might be too scary. Just this week we let her see the whole thing.... She was fine and really loved the dancing and songs in the second half.
Great film, but watch together and skip scary parts if necessary
I loved this movie and decided to share it with my daughter as her first movie, knowing we would have to skip over parts such as the child catcher. She loved it and now at 4.5 even enjoys the scary parts.
"Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", the stage musical, has been packing houses in New York and London, but even if you live nowhere near Broadway or the West End and you can't wait until the national tour flies into your city, you can drive (or walk) over to your local video store and rent or buy this family classic with action as only Ian Fleming could create it and tuneful, toe-tapping music as only the Sherman Brothers can compose it. About the only disappointment is the lack of extras, other than the original theatrical trailer and the exit music, but the fine four-fendered fun more than makes up for it. Warm up the popcorn and buckle up for safety, "Chitty" is still the most fun car on the road, and you don't need to make a huge down payment!
Easily as good as Mary Poppins. In fact many kids (most likely boys) will like it better than Poppins. The Ol' Bamboo dance number in Chitty is even better than the chimney sweep number in Poppins.