Bedknobs & Broomsticks (1971)

The Plot

It's 1940 in England, and children are being evacuated from London to the surrounding towns and villages. Three such children, Charlie, Carrie, and Paul, are sent to Dorset to live with Eglantine Price, an eccentric spinster.

Eglantine has a secret, however: she is an apprentice witch. She's been taking lessons by sending away to a correspondence course for witchcraft. She's searching for the spell of substitutiary locomotion, which will endow inanimate objects with life. She enchants the knob from the end of a bedpost with a spell to travel anywhere, and they head to London to look for the head of the witches' college, Professor Emelius Brown.

Professor Brown turns out to be a con artist who created the correspondence course by writing down things from old books. He accompanies the group on their quest for the spell, which takes them to a criminal called the Bookman, then to Naboombu, an island of intelligent animals which were created by the wizard Astaroth, who also created the spell of substitutiary locomotion. (Astaroth did not survive creating the animals of Naboombu, however, as they rose up and killed him--shades of the Island of Dr. Moreau.)

Eventually, Eglantine, Emelius, and the kids get the spell, just in time for Eglantine to use it to repel a Nazi invasion of Dorset by animating all the old arms and armor in the local museum. In the chaos, however, Eglantine's spellbook is destroyed and, her memory being rather terrible, she can no longer do magic. The kids still have the magic bedknob, however.

Fitting it into the WW4C

Since this was the movie I watched which inspired the whole enterprise, Bedknobs & Broomsticks is ground zero for the WW4C. Everything else revolves around it. Here's how it affects the setting:

• Magic runs on belief. In order to cast a spell, you must know the spell, believe in magic, and believe that you can do magic.
• Most wizards and witches do not need to cast spells from spellbooks. Eglantine needed a spellbook because she couldn't remember her spells otherwise.
• The spell of substitutiary locomotion is one possible explanation for Herbie the Love Bug and other sentient vehicles.
  
• The island of Naboombu is inhabited by anthropomorphic animals that speak English and are mad for football (soccer). An animal from Naboombu who ventured out into the world would potentially be an excellent superhero or ally to a superhero, similar to Mister Tawky Tawny from Captain Marvel.
• The magic bedknob is still around waiting to be used by a hero or villain.
  

It's also worth noting that this movie helps define my philosophy for what counts as "live-action." Bedknobs & Broomsticks has live-action plus cartoons. If the movie were remade today, the animals would be done in CGI and, likely, made to look realistic (much like the Narnia movies). When that is the case (as it also is in Pete's Dragon), I'm including the movie as a live-action film. If it were a pure cartoon, I would not.