Saving Mr. Banks (2013)

Bradley Whitford: Don DaGradi

Photos 

Quotes 

• Don DaGradi : [to Travers]  So this is the rest of your team, Dick and Bob Sherman! Music and lyrics.

  [to the Shermans] 

  Don DaGradi : Boys, this is the one and only Mrs. P.L. Travers, the creator of our beloved Mary!

  P.L. Travers : Poppins.

  Don DaGradi : Who else?

  P.L. Travers : Mary Poppins. Never, ever just Mary.

  [to the Shermans] 

  P.L. Travers : It's a pleasure to meet you. I fear we shan't be acquainted for very long.

  Richard Sherman : Why is that?

  P.L. Travers : Because these books simply do not lend themselves to chirping and prancing. No, it's certainly not a musical. Now, where is Mr. Disney? I should so much like to get this started and finished as briskly as is humanly possible.

• P.L. Travers : Why did you have to make him so cruel? He was not a monster!

  Don DaGradi : Who are we talking about? I'm confused.

  P.L. Travers : You all have children, yes? And do those children make letters for you? Do they write letters? Do they make you drawings? And would you tear up those gifts in front of them? It's a dreadful thing to do. I don't understand. Why must Father tear up the advertisement his children have made and throw it in the fireplace? Why won't he mend their kite? Why have you made him so unspeakably awful? "In glorious Technicolor"? "For all the world to see"? If you claim to make them live, why can't he... they live well? I can't bear it. Please don't. Please don't. I feel like I let him down again.

• P.L. Travers : [reading the script]  'Scene one, exterior, Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane, Day.' Yes, that's good. That can stay.

  Richard Sherman : That's just a scene heading.

  P.L. Travers : Though I do think we should say 'Number Seventeen,' instead of just 'Seventeen.'

  Don DaGradi , Robert Sherman : No one's going to see it!

  P.L. Travers : *I* will see it.

• [last lines] 

  [the authentic recordings of the rehearsals are being played on tape] 

  P.L. Travers : Now, who's reading? And go slowly.

  Don DaGradi : You start and I'll take over.

  Robert Sherman : "Autumn. In the early part of the 20th century, 1910. London. At Number 17 Cherry Tree Lane, the Banks household is in an uproar."

  P.L. Travers : Hold it. Now, I see that Cherry Tree Lane as not too townified on one side of the park. And we'll get you a photograph of 50 Smith Street, in order to see that the house is really quite like that. But it has more of a garden than my house had. But it might be useful and amusing to put it in as my house. You see?

  Don DaGradi : "Upstairs in the nursery, where Mary is measuring up the children with a long row of tape measure, Mary reads off the tape that Jane is..." Well, first she says, "What kind of material have we got to work with?"

  P.L. Travers : No, no. That, we cannot have. That would be quite un-English.

  Richard Sherman : Mrs. Travers, basically what we want to do here is use pretty much what you have in the book.

  P.L. Travers : Yes, yes. Now, I want this tape measure to be used, because it was a tape measure that my mother had when she was a little girl.

  Richard Sherman : Mmm-hmm.

  P.L. Travers : And I think it would be very nice.

  Don DaGradi : "At the end of the chorus..."

  P.L. Travers : Read me all that, now.

  Don DaGradi : We were going to.

  P.L. Travers : Read it. No, no. You read it.

  Don DaGradi : Do you want to bear us?

  [Chuckles] 

  P.L. Travers : No. Go on.

  Don DaGradi : This is torture!

  [Chuckles] 

  P.L. Travers : Now, go on. "At the end of the chorus..." There ought perhaps to have been people in this countryside, you see? Are you making note of it? And they would be the Pearly people. They'd be arriving and they'd come nearer and they'd see, "Ah. Hmm." They know they are not grand enough to eat at this table. Have you got this on tape? Because I think it's important. I'm not going to do this film unless I'm available for it.

  Robert Sherman : Well, there are these tapes also, you know.

  P.L. Travers : No, it's not enough.

  Robert Sherman : We, uh... We have to feel the impact of it.

  P.L. Travers : Yes, yes. Well, anyway, it brings about whatever it is. Mr. Banks, um, is able. He has a tender, good heart, not a change of heart, because he's always been sweet, but worried with the cares of life.

  [the tape ends] 

• Don DaGradi : We were hoping to give you a little tour of the studio.

  P.L. Travers : No, thank you.

  Don DaGradi : Walt just wanted to show the place off.

  P.L. Travers : No one likes a show-off.

• Don DaGradi : A word of advice, Mrs. Travers, if I may.

  P.L. Travers : You may. Whether I mind it or not will be another matter entirely.

  Don DaGradi : Well, it's just that he can't stand being called Mr. Disney. We're all on a first name basis here.