The film version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was released in 1968, and the song “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” was nominated for an Oscar the follwing year. The plot of the film goes like this:
After saving Chitty Chitty Bang Bang from the junkman’s fiery furnace, Caractacus Potts (Dick Van Dyke), a somewhat crack-pot, absent-minded inventor, gets the broken-down old racing car roadworthy again and sets off for a day at the seaside with his two children, Jeremy (Adrian Hall) and Jemima (Heather Ripley).
On the way they pick up Truly Scrumptious (Sally Ann Howes), the beautiful daughter of Lord Scrumptious (James Robertson-Justice), who joins the outing.
After a picnic on the beach, Potts, who is something of a daydreamer, begins to tell the youngsters a story about pirates when a tugboat appears on the horizon.
Potts immediately weaves the boat into his story. It is not a tugboat, he says, but the yacht of Baron Bomburst (Gert Frobe), the most evil man in the world who has come all the way to England from Vulgaira to steal Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
No Sooner has he spoken than they realize that the tide has come in, cutting them off from the beach, and that the Baron’s yacht is bearing down on them, canon at the ready.
It is then that they discover that Chitty is a magical car. Suddenly her engine roars into life and she becomes a hovercraft, skimming them across the waves to safety.
But Baron Bomburst is hysterically intent on having the car for himself and sends two spies ashore, who mistake the children’s eccentric Grandpa (Lionel Jeffries) for the inventor, Potts, and summon the Baron’s zeppelin to kidnap him while he is in his privy, which they believe to be his laboratory.
As soon as Potts, Truly, and the children spot the zeppelin gliding overhead trailing Grandpa and the privy beneath it on the end of a rope, they give chase. And once again Chitty comes to their aid with her magical powers. Potts drives the car so fast in pursuit that he is unable to stop when they reach the cliff edge and they plunge over the edge towards the rocks below. But suddenly Chitty sprouts over a pair of wings and a propeller, pulls neatly out of her deathdive and soars across the sky after they airship.
They follow the zeppelin to the Castle if Vulgaria and land Chitty near the local village, where they discover that Baroness Bomburst (Anna Quayle) hates children so much that she has ordered that they all be killed on sight.
The village toymaker hides Jeremy and Jemima while he and Potts investigate the area, but on their return they learn that Vulgaria’s evil Childcatcher (Robert Helpman) has captured the youngsters and hauled them off to the castle, where Chitty, too, has been chained in captivity.