Outdoor Movie Idea: Bedknobs and Broomsticks

The 1971 musical Bedknobs and Broomsticks makes a great selection for your next outdoor movie — whether you’re inviting thousands of community members to your local park or simply spending an evening with family and friends in your own backyard. The film mixes animation and live action, so it makes a bold, bright image that looks clean and really great on an outdoor movie screen. It stars Angela Lansbury, David Tomlinson, Roddy McDowall, Cindy O’Callaghan, Roy Snart, and Ian Weighill, among others. Bedknobs and Broomsticks has enchanted generations of children, and it will bring magic and joy to your community.

In 1940s Kent, England — significantly affected by the war, with most of the young men sent off to fight — Eglantine Price (Angela Lansbury) wants to help the war effort, particularly in protecting Kent, so she enrolls in a witchcraft correspondence course to learn a spell or two. Against her will, she is assigned three young children from London who have escaped the Blitz; they quickly discover her witchcraft and threaten to tell.

In exchange for their silence, Price casts a spell on the knob of an old bed, causing it to take its traveler wherever they wish, real or imaginary. But she has her own agenda: she is seeking a special spell called “substitutiary locomotion” that makes inanimate objects move on their own. The group sets out on a fun-filled journey full of suspense and action that will keep your whole community entertained and bring back fond memories for the parents who loved this movie as children.

Even though most of your community members have likely seen Bedknobs and Broomsticks before (and probably really love it), experiencing the film on the big screen is an opportunity many have never had. If anyone has screened Bedknobs and Broomsticks as an outdoor movie, tell us your story by posting in the comments section below. We’d love to hear it!