9 Films "Based On True Stories" That Missed Out The Best Part

2. "The Ship Has Sailed" - Saving Mr. Banks

Showing Walt Disney drinking and implying he was smoking was a surprising move in Saving Mr. Banks. Produced by Walt's studio, it didn't shy away from showing their founder not as a pure, squeaky-clean God (although they didn't go as far as to even hint at recognition of his anti-semetic views). It was a move that made the film more than just an attempt to increase the DVD sales of Mary Poppins; it was, for the most part, a probing look at P.L. Travers that didn't over-simplify the clashes she had over the famed adaptation of her beloved novel. The one part where it begins to stumble is the premiere of Poppins, which Travers has been convinced to attend by Disney himself; in a complete reverse of the popularly accepted version of events she is reduced to tears by how the film kept the main theme of Mr. Banks (and by proxy her father) alive. It smacks of corporate led revisionism, which the rest of the film had so successfully avoided. That works within the film; we know Travers found elements of the film that she liked, albeit later on. But what's annoying is that one of the best parts of her showdown with Disney wasn't featured. Finding the animation obnoxious she told Walt he had to remove it, to which he replied "Pamela, the ship has sailed". Dismissive and almost unfulfilling, it's a more downbeat sense of compromise that would have tied up the themes of the film, but was probably too much for the studio.