Disney Got Witchy in the ’70s With ‘Escape to Witch Mountain’ & ‘Bedknobs and Broomsticks’

BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS, from left: Cindy O'Callaghan, Angela Lansbury, Roy snart, Ian Weighill, 1971 — Everett Collection

Long before Kim Richards was arguing with her sister on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, she was one of Disney’s biggest child stars. In 1975’s Escape to Witch Mountain, an 11-year-old Richards played Tia, an orphan with strange psychic powers who travels with her brother Tony as the pair try to figure out where they really came from. Her younger sister Kyle even appears as a younger version of Tia, making the movie a very early chapter in the Richards sisters’ long Hollywood story.

Disney was having a bit of a witchy moment in the ’70s. Four years earlier, Bedknobs and Broomsticks gave audiences Angela Lansbury as an actual witch-in-training, complete with spells and a black cat. Tia and Tony offer very different explanations for their powers, but both movies mix magic, mystery, and children in danger with surprisingly dark stories about who adults can actually be trusted. Let’s dive into each film and be sure to tell us which one is your favorite in the comments.

Escape to Witch Mountain

OK, so orphaned twins Tia (Kim Richards) and Tony (Ike Eisenmann) are not actually witches; however, their odd telekinetic abilities lead others to think they are, and Tia even has a black cat. (There’s also Witch Mountain, named such because of mysterious occurrences there.) Based on a sci-fi novel by Alexander Key, Escape to Witch Mountain is an underrated film about the dark side of humanity.

The children, who are actually extraterrestrials who left their dying planet on a spaceship that crashed on Earth — then unfortunately forgot about it — are as innocent and naive as Hansel and Gretel, the brother and sister who get tricked by a witch who lives in a gingerbread house in the classic Grimm fairy tale.

Similarly, both stories seem like cautionary tales about trusting humans. Just about every adult who crosses Tia and Tony’s path wants to use their powers for their own interests, including in the 1978 sequel, Return From Witch Mountain (in which Christopher Lee plays the main antagonist). But with the help of a few good earthlings — the crotchety widower Jason O’Day in the original film, and a group of kids calling themselves the Earthquake Gang in the sequel — the brother-sister duo manages to defeat all their enemies.

There are also two of them, which helps not only because they work together to stay alive, but also because their love for each other keeps them grounded. If there’s anything we’ve noticed about evil witches, they’re usually fairly isolated and often miserable too.

Both Kim and Ike will be reuniting at the Hollywood Show this October. Read more about it here!

Bedknobs and Broomsticks

Everett Collection

Another good witch (in-training) is Miss Eglantine Price, who is reluctantly saddled with three young children who have escaped London during the 1940 Blitz. Miss Price is learning witchcraft with aspirations of helping the British war effort against the Nazis, so she may be the most well-intentioned onscreen witch there ever was!

After a series of adventures (and many memorable songs), she also comes to love the children in her care. It is probably no coincidence that she is no longer a witch by the end of the movie, when she officially adopts the three children and moves in with a charismatic street magician named Mr. Emelius Browne, since prior to the 21st century, witches were nearly always single women.

Interestingly, Angela Lansbury, who plays Miss Price, also voiced Mrs. Potts in another movie with a witch, Beauty and the Beast, as well as the Dowager Empress Marie in Anastasia. This 1997 animated film could almost be considered a witch movie as well, since the main antagonist, Rasputin, was based on the real-life Russian mystic and holy man who befriended the last emperor of Russia and who was infamously difficult to kill. Several murder plots against him failed before one was successful. (Perhaps because … he was an actual wizard?)

Additional writing by Zhanna Slor.

This article originally appeared in the October 2023 Witches issue of ReMIND Magazine. You can purchase the full issue at the link below.