Factual error: In the scene where the young Helen Goff is traveling by train with her family, it's obvious that an American engine and coaches have been used, instead of a Queensland Rail locomotive of the era. None of the QR locomotives had flared smokestacks like on the one seen in the movie. The coaches are also incorrect - as far as I know, none of the Queensland Rail wood coaches had clerestory roofs with a set of windows in them like seen in the movie. When Helen looks out the back of the train, it's also obvious that the tracks are spaced at 'standard gauge' (4' 8.5"). They should be closer together, as railways in Queensland are built to 3'6" gauge instead. There is also no such company as the 'Queensland Victoria Railway Co', as marked on the coaches, as all railways in Australia are state owned.
Saving Mr. Banks (2013)
Directed by: John Lee Hancock
Starring: Tom Hanks, Colin Farrell, Emma Thompson, Ruth Wilson
Factual error: The scene at LAX incorrectly has signage for Trans World Airlines as Trans World Airways.
Factual error: When Mrs. Travers arrives at the airport, there's a driver holding a name-card with a Warner Bros. Television logo on it. It's a far more modern version of the logo, however - in fact, the word 'Television' didn't appear in the ribbon across the shield until 1994. (00:10:10)
Trivia: Tom Hanks is the first actor to play Walt Disney in a mainstream feature film.
Trivia: In the final scene from Walt Disney's office when P.L. Travers has arrived for the premiere you can spot a map of Florida with a marked area of where today's Walt Disney World is located. Walt Disney was indeed planning WDW in 1961 and it was in the early stages of development on the drawing board. Ultimately, Walt died before the new park opened. (01:50:40)
P.L. Travers: I will not have her called Cynthia, absolutely not. It feels unlucky. It should be something warm, a bit sexy. How about Mavis?
P.L. Travers: Poor A. A. Milne.
Ralph: Welcome, Mrs. P.L. Travers, to the city of angels.
P.L. Travers: It smells. Of...
Ralph: Jasmine?
P.L. Travers: Chlorine, and sweat.
Question: Was P.L. Travers left-handed, as Emma Thompson portrays her when she is shown writing?
Answer: I do not know the actual answer to your question. However, I would like to point out as a lefty myself that we often have to use our right hand for certain activities just due to the fact that left handed options are not readily available. Scissors and shears are a great example of this. Very often you cannot just switch them to your left hand and have them work. They actually have to be put together to be left handed to work properly. Also, many left handed writers are also ambidextrous. For example I golf right handed but bat left handed so the two swings don't negatively affect each other.
Question: Who is Mr Banks in the film saving Mr Banks?
Chosen answer: The name refers to George Banks, the father in the Mary Poppins story. P.L. Travers, the author, based the character on her own alcoholic father.
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Chosen answer: It seems P. L. Travers was, in fact, right-handed. With just a bit of research, I found this YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeiEumLxTcM. At time reference 4:05, archive video shows Ms. Travers in her garden, holding a basket hooked on her left arm, and making clippings with a scissors in her right hand. Feeling convinced, I stopped, though I suspect further research (it's a six part biography) would yield other examples of P. L. Travers engaged in right-handed activities.
Michael Albert
Only problem with the assumption that travers was right-handed because she trimmed plants with her right hand is that there were no (to my knowledge) scissors for lefties. I was born in 1955 and I am a lefty who cuts right-handed, wear my watch on my left wrist, and made other adaptations due to the fact that left-handers were ignored, and travers was born over 50 years earlier.