If you have loved “Mary Poppins” since childhood, you might hear the above quote as Dick Van Dyke half-sung it at the beginning of the now classic Disney film, released in 1964.

“Saving Mr. Banks,” written by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith, opens with those same well-known words; and you embark on a journey. A journey to 1906 Australia where P. L. Travers, author of the “Mary Poppins” books, lived in her early years, and Los Angeles where Travers finally meets with Walt Disney.

Disney tried to convince Travers to sign over the rights to the Poppins books for 20 years prior to her acquiescing in 1961. According to the film, her agent convinces her to do it after explaining that she is out of money.

Emma Thompson stars as the author and is “practically perfect in every way” seeming to channel the soul of P. L. Travers.

While she is in California, Travers relives childhood memories, fond and painful, of her imaginative, beloved father (Colin Farrell). Travers' father was an alcoholic unable to hold down a job to provide for Travers, her two sisters and emotionally unstable mother.

The memories take hold while she is on the plane to Los Angeles. She closes her eyes and recalls her family on an “adventure” as her father called it. What had really happened was they had to move from their “urban” home to the Australian countryside to a new home with chickens and an old white horse.

The Disney Studios team, and Disney himself, meet an uncomprimising author who has no intention of allowing Mary Poppins to be Disney-fied. Travers firmly requests that all rehearsals, meetings, etc. with the creative team be taped. And it is during those moments the most humorous bits occur. The scenes with the song writing team of Richard Sherman (Jason Schwartzman) and Robert Sherman (B.J. Novak) as they try to cope with Travers are funny. The Sherman brothers find themselves both in awe and contempt for this English woman obstructing their creativity — and God forbid, standing up to Disney.

When Travers hears them sing Bert the chimney sweep's first song she stops them at the word “responstable” (to rhyme with constable), saying, “Responstable is not a word!” Smiling they reply in unison, “We made it up!” Travers’ reply? “You can un-make it up.”

Upon hearing her reaction to a made-up word, Richard thinks it best to tuck the sheet music for “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” at the bottom of a pile of pages.

Walt Disney finds himself caving in to Travers' demands that no animation or the color red be in the film, that Mr. Banks not be portrayed as a mean man, and most important of all, that she has final approval.

“I won't have you turn her into one of your silly cartoons,” Travers tells Disney at one point.

Audiences will enjoy hearing some songs from “Mary Poppins,”: “Let's Go Fly A Kite,” “Feed the Birds” and “Spoonful of Sugar.”

For those audience members who love Mary Poppins, “Saving Mr. Banks,” will be a bit of an emotional experience. It will feel as though Travers is not the only one reliving childhood memories. Or memories of the first time they read the book and the first time they saw the Disney film.

Disney does not give up on his promise to his daughters (to make a movie out of their favorite book, “Mary Poppins”), even though it takes him 20 years.

Tom Hanks' Disney is warm and likeable, although it is rumored the real Disney was not so. And Farrell gives a fine performance as Travers' father.

Only some details from the author's past are used in the film. Most of which was derived from a biography, “Mary Poppins, She Wrote: The Life of P. L. Travers,” written by Valerie Lawson (an Australian journalist).

“Saving Mr. Banks” is playing at the Harbor Theater, Friday, Jan. 10, Saturday, Jan. 11, Wednesday, Jan. 15 and Thursday, Jan. 16 at 7 p.m. and at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 12.