<P> Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a 1968 British musical adventure fantasy film, directed by Ken Hughes and written by Roald Dahl and Hughes, loosely based on Ian Fleming's 1964 novel Chitty - Chitty - Bang - Bang: The Magical Car . The film stars Dick Van Dyke, Sally Ann Howes, Adrian Hall, Heather Ripley, Lionel Jeffries, James Robertson Justice, Robert Helpmann and Gert Fröbe . </P> <P> The film was produced by Albert R. Broccoli, the regular co-producer of the James Bond series of films . John Stears supervised the special effects . Irwin Kostal supervised and conducted the music, while the musical numbers, written by Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman of Mary Poppins, were staged by Marc Breaux and Dee Dee Wood . The song "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" was nominated for an Academy Award . </P> <P> Set in the 1910s, the story opens with a montage of European Grand Prix races in which one particular car appears to win every race . In the final race, the car crashes and catches fire, ending its racing career . The car ends up in an old garage in rural England, where two children, Jeremy (Adrian Hall) and Jemima Potts (Heather Ripley), have grown fond of it . However, a man in the junkyard intends to buy the car from the garage owner, Mr. Coggins (Desmond Llewelyn), for scrap . The children, who live with their widowed father Caractacus Potts (Dick Van Dyke), an eccentric inventor, and the family's equally peculiar grandfather, implore their father to buy the car, but Caractacus can't afford it . While playing truant from school, they meet Truly Scrumptious (Sally Ann Howes), a beautiful upper - class woman with her own motor car, who brings them home to report their truancy to their father . After she leaves, Caractacus promises the children that he will save the car, but is taken aback at the cost he has committed himself to . He looks for ways to raise money to avoid letting them down . </P> <P> The next morning, Potts discovers that the sweets produced by a machine he has invented can be played like a flute . He tries to sell the "Toot Sweets" to Truly's father, Lord Scrumptious (James Robertson Justice), a major confectionery manufacturer . He is almost successful until the whistle attracts a pack of dogs who overrun the factory, resulting in Caractacus's proposition being rejected . </P>

Who played the part of mr potts in chitty chitty bang bang