I think the only reason it made it in this country was because of all the sexy girls on it.
(is sexy a swear word?)
I read the book, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, as a child, and enjoyed it, however, when the movie came on television, it was such that I didn’t even attempt to sit through it.
The movie was not well reviewed critically at the time of its release, and I think it is overly long, clunky, and undelightful relative to the book, but I was a simple enough kid to enjoy the Hollywood razzle-dazzle, and not notice such things as charm and deftness of directorial touch.
I think I “resolved” that problem by just not reading the book beforehand. To tell you the truth, I am not even sure I knew there ever WAS a book!!! 
How is THAT for simple!
Well, now you know, and it’s a great trivia question too, since not everyone realizes that Ian Fleming wrote a children’s book.
While admittedly I have no idea what you’re talking about on the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang subject…
Avanutria, for playing on a candy whistle, that was very impressive. Wow.
I knew about Ian Fleming,but Benny Hill being involved..now that’s news to me!
Poor old Benny died a lonely death and left behind a long disputed fortune. His humor,what there was of it, was a very English thing although I do remember reading somewhere that long after his show was finished in England,it became a huge hit on American Cable T.V.
Their was also some problem with royalties,if I remember well, but then again the Benny Hill Show did introduce us to the delightful Daphne from “Frazier”, a big T.V. show from across the pond.
Slan,
D.
Sometimes he ran around to a 5-string banjo tune, played by Keith Nelson, who went to a friend’s wedding, I think it was, in England in 1967, and never did come back to live in California. Keith once said that long after the show had gone off the air in the UK, he was still getting residuals from PBS re-broadcasts.
Never could stand the Benny Hill show.
Amazing!!! 
It was the epitome of British comedy, I’m sure.