"Lovely Lonely Man" is a song from the 1968 musical film

Musical film

The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...

, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (film)

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a 1968 musical film with a script by Roald Dahl and Ken Hughes, and songs by the Sherman Brothers, loosely based on Ian Fleming's novel Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car. It starred Dick Van Dyke as Caractacus Potts and Sally Ann Howes as Truly Scrumptious. The...

. It was written by Richard & Robert Sherman and sung by Sally Ann Howes

Sally Ann Howes

Sally Ann Howes is a British actress and singer, who currently holds dual British-American citizenship. Her career on stage, screen and television has spanned over six decades...

 as "Truly Scrumptious

Truly Scrumptious

Truly Scrumptious is a fictional character in the 1968 film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, based on the children's novel of the same name by Ian Fleming.She does not appear in the book. In the film the character is portrayed by singer/actress Sally Ann Howes....

". In the song she pines for eccentric inventor, Caractacus Potts

Caractacus Potts

Caractacus Potts is one of the main characters in the family film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. He is an eccentric inventor who lives with his twin eight-year-old children, Jeremy & Jemima, and Grandpa Potts, on the Potts' hilltop farm...

 (played by Dick Van Dyke

Dick Van Dyke

Richard Wayne "Dick" Van Dyke is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer with a career spanning six decades. He is the older brother of Jerry Van Dyke, and father of Barry Van Dyke...

).

Trivia

When producer, Cubby Broccoli first heard this song he was so moved that it reportedly brought him to tears. It became his favorite song from the film.

Reasons for being cut

• Due to the length of the motion picture and the need to accommodate standard TV broadcast practices, entire sequences are often cut for television programming purposes. Because the song is a cutaway from the main plot line of the film, and its absence is not missed as much, it is often cut from TV broadcasts. The other song which is also sometimes cut from American
  United States
  The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
  
   broadcasts is "The Roses of Success
  The Roses Of Success
  "The Roses of Success" is an "up tempo" song and musical number from the popular 1968 Cubby Broccoli motion picture, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. In the film it is sung when "Grandpa Potts" is caught in the Vulgarian inventors' workshop and is forced to modify a car that both floats and flies or face...
  
  ".

• The song was cut from the 2002/2005 stage version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang due to length and plot changes to the book by Jeremy Sams
  Jeremy Sams
  Jeremy Sams is a British film director, writer, translator, orchestrator, musical director, film composer, and lyricist....
  
  . The songwriters fought for the song's inclusion, but were eventually swayed by director Adrian Noble
  Adrian Noble
  Adrian Keith Noble is a theatre director, and was also the artistic director and chief executive of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1990 to 2003.-Education and career:...
  
   that its inclusion was impossible.

Literary sources

• Sherman, Robert B. Walt's Time: from before to beyond
  Walt's Time: from before to beyond
  Walt's Time: from before to beyond is a 252-page autobiographic, full color book by Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman. It was edited by Imagineers Bruce Gordon, David Mumford and Jeff Kurtti and was published in 1998 by Camphor Tree Publishers who are out of Santa Clarita, California...
  
  , Santa Clarita: Camphor Tree Publishers, 1998.