It stars Dick Van Dyke, Sally Ann Howes, Lionel Jeffries, Gert Fröbe, Anna Quayle, Benny Hill, James Robertson Justice, Robert Helpmann, Heather Ripley and Adrian Hall.

The film is based on the 1964 children's novel Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: The Magical Car by Ian Fleming, with a screenplay co-written by Hughes and Roald Dahl.

[6] In rural 1910s England, the two young children of widowed unsuccessful inventor Caractacus Potts, Jemima and Jeremy, are enthralled by the wreck of a champion racecar.

A Toymaker harbours Caractacus' group in his shop, and they disguise themselves as jack-in-the-boxes to hide in plain sight from Bomburst's Child Catcher.

At Caractacus' signal, the Vulgarian children swarm the banquet hall, overcome Bomburst's guests, and capture the Baron, Baroness, and Child Catcher.

Caractacus does not answer; later, he tries to apologize for his children when he drops Truly off at her manor, saying that the difference in their social status would make a relationship between them ridiculous, offending Truly.

Returning glumly to his cottage, Caractacus is surprised to encounter Truly's father Lord Scrumptious, who is revealed to have been Grandpa Potts' former brigadier.

Overjoyed that he has finally made a successful invention, Caractacus rushes off to tell Truly, but her house staff has already told her the news, and she meets him halfway.

[7] After Ian Fleming had a heart attack in 1961, he decided to write a children's novel based on the stories about a flying car that he used to tell his infant son.

[8] John Stears supervised the film's special effects, and Caractacus Potts' inventions were created by Rowland Emett.

An article about Emett that appeared in Time magazine in 1976 mentioned his work on the film, saying that no term other than "'Fantasticator' [...] could remotely convey the diverse genius of the perky, pink-cheeked Englishman whose pixilations, in cartoon, watercolor and clanking 3-D reality, range from the celebrated Far Tottering and Oyster Creek Railway to the demented thingamabobs that made the 1968 movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang a minuscule classic.

United Artists promoted the film with an expensive, extensive advertising campaign, hoping to reproduce the success of The Sound of Music (1965), and it was initially released on a roadshow basis.

His review is not without criticism, stating that "these two hours of fun are surrounded by about another 45 minutes of soppy love songs, corny ballads and a lot of mushy stuff.

Persistent syncopation and some breathless choreography partly redeem it, but most of the film's sporadic success is due to director Ken Hughes's fantasy scenes, which make up in imagination what they lack in technical facility.

She called the screenplay "remarkably good" and said the film's "preoccupation with sweets and machinery seems ideal for children", and ended her review on the same note as Time saying: "There is nothing coy, or stodgy or too frightening about the film; and this year, when it has seemed highly doubtful that children ought to go to the movies at all, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang sees to it that none of the audience's terrific eagerness to have a good time is betrayed or lost.

"[30] Although the film was the tenth-most popular at the U.S. box office in 1969,[31] because of its high budget, it lost United Artists an estimated $8 million during its initial theatrical run.

"[33] Filmink stated: "It's a gorgeous looking movie with divine sets, a fabulous cast and cheerful songs; it's also, like so many late '60s musicals, far too long and would have been better at a tight 90 minutes.

"[37] Neil Jeffries of Empire gave the film four out of five stars, describing it as a " too long at well over two hours, but the effects are impressive for the time and the musical numbers zippy.

[39] In a 2024 respective, Alex Larman called the film "a piece of harmless fun" that "was riddled with inexplicable darkness and chaos", noting the troubled production and the director's misgivings, noting that the film "was generally met with disappointment, with the undistinguished songs and generally over-busy storyline being cited as the reasons for family audiences refusing to take this particular adventure".

[42][43] Jessika Rieck found it "difficult to imagine that the director and producer were unaware of the Holocaust implications of the Child Catcher and his scenes, which makes me wonder what they hoped to convey with these choices.

"[44] Aimee Ferrier said that the character "bears many anti-Semitic stereotypes, most notably, his large prosthetic nose, which appears like a caricature.

On 24 February 2004, a few months after MGM released a two-disc "Special Edition" DVD package of the film, Varèse Sarabande reissued a newly remastered soundtrack album without the dialogue tracks, restoring the original 1968 LP format.

[46] Perseverance Records re-released the Kritzerland double-CD set in April 2013, with new liner notes by John Trujillo and a new booklet by James Wingrove.

It basically followed the film's story, but there were some differences in tone and emphasis; for example, the novelisation mentioned that Caractacus had difficulty coping after the death of his wife and made it clearer that the sequences including Baron Bomburst were fantasy.