Fun Friday–The Hills Are Alive . . .
“These are a few of my favorite things. . . .”
So far, I’ve covered my top four movie musicals:
1. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
2. State Fair
3. The Music Man
4. De-Lovely
Today, I add #5:
TRAILER
Yes, that’s right; cliche as it may seem, The Sound of Music rounds out my top five movie musicals. We had the LP of the music from the movie when I was growing up, and as soon as we got our first VCR (1982ish), it was one of the first things I recorded off TV. I was obsessed with this musical. I found out in my teens that there’s good reason for this: going to see The Sound of Music in the movie theater is the first date my parents ever went on.
The Sound of Music was the highest grossing film of 1965, making over $158 million in the U.S., crushing the previous box-office champion, Gone with the Wind. The film is based on the Broadway play by the same name, which itself was inspired by the book, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria von Trapp. With music by Rodgers & Hammerstein (State Fair, Carousel, The King & I), the film was directed by Robert Wise (The Day the Earth Stood Still, West Side Story, Star Trek: The Motion Picture) and filmed on location in Salzburg, Austria, and the Bavaria region of southern West Germany. The movie was awarded the Oscar for Best Picture of 1965, and the cast album was nominated for a Grammy for Album of the Year.
In the early 1960s, Julie Andrews was receiving rave reviews as Guinevere in Lerner & Loewe’s Broadway production of Camelot. However, Jack Warner at Fox didn’t think she had enough presence to make it as a movie actress, so he cast Audrey Hepburn as Liza Doolittle in My Fair Lady (even though Audrey Hepburn’s singing had to be dubbed by famous vocal-double Marni Nixon). Andrews, instead, was “relegated” to taking the role of a singing nanny—in Disney’s Mary Poppins. Walt Disney himself had seen Andrews in Camelot and saw the star potential in the young Brit. Andrews initially declined—she was pregnant. Walt apparently responded, “We’ll wait for you.” In 1963, after the birth of her daughter, Andrews began filming the musical that would launch her career.
For Mary Poppins, Andrews won the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Actress. She ended her Golden Globes acceptance speech by saying, “And, finally, my thanks to a man who made a wonderful movie, and who made all this possible in the first place, Mr. Jack Warner.”
When the casting process for The Sound of Music began, Jack Warner remembered Julie Andrews and asked to see the dailies of Mary Poppins. Upon seeing her in the rough footage, he realized she did have screen presence and cast her in the role of Maria von Trapp. The role of Captain von Trapp would go to Canadian actor Christopher Plummer, though for a while Warner considered casting Yul Brynner (best known for his role in The King & I), Sean Connery, or Richard Burton. Weeks of auditions went into casting the six von Trapp children. Among those who auditioned were Kurt Russell, Richard Dreyfuss, Veronica Cartwright, Patty Duke, Mia Farrow, and the four oldest Osmond brothers (Alan, Jay, Merrill, and Wayne).
Finally, in early 1964, filming began.
Lyricist Oscar Hammerstein passed away several years before the film production began. Though most of the songs from the stage version are used in the film, Richard Rodgers wrote two new songs for the film: “Something Good,” which replaced “An Ordinary Couple”; and “I Have Confidence,” which was written as a bridge to get Maria from the Abbey to the von Trapp home. During one of the street scenes in “I Have Confidence,” the real Maria von Trapp can be seen walking through the background with one of her daughters. They had chosen that day to visit the set and director Robert Wise offered them this “walk on” role.
Not only does the story/plot in the film differ from the stage play, but both took great liberties with the real story of the von Trapps—who had been married for nearly ten years before the Anschluss and who “escaped” Austria by boarding a train to Italy, then taking a boat to London and later to the U.S.
The song “Edelweiss”—thought by many to be a traditional Austrian song, or even the national anthem—was actually written for the musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein; in fact, according to some sources, it was the last song Oscar Hammerstein wrote. The film released in the U.S. on March 2, 1965. My parents went to see it on their first date in early OCTOBER of that year—talk about a long theatrical run!
Finally, in closing, here’s a screen-capture collage of my favorite scene in the movie.
And in case anyone’s interested, because I was bored yesterday, I updated my “Best On-Screen Kisses” post with video clips from You Tube.
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KayeDacus.com 
mmm I always loved Sound of Music, and I just learned so much more about it than I ever knew. We used to watch it as kids it was one of the few movies my parents owned that they would let us watch.
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I used to not watch this movie because my mom hated it – I thought that there was something wrong with the movie – but then I later realized my mom is weird (she’d rather watch Die Hard than Legally Blonde)
I’m not sure if I’ve ever watched it all the way through from start to finish though. Need to do that one of these days.
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This is the first movie I can remember actually going to the theatre to see. It was out in rerun (I wasn’t born when it first aired) and people from our church were NOT supposed to go to movie theatres. The Fox Theatre in downtown Salina, Kansas was one of the old kind where you stood on the street and the ticket seller (Only one ticket seller as there was only one screen) sat in a booth. I can remember wondering if someone from our church would go by on Santa Fe Street and see us going into the theatre. Sad to think that there were people who would condemn us for going to see this wonderful family film.
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I’m not a fan of musicals, but The Sound of Music is one I’ll sit through even after all these years, because I love the setting and story.
Does The Little Mermaid count as a musical? I like that one, too!
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I looovvvveee this movie. Haven’t watched it in ages though (bad Ruth!).
I’ve really enjoyed this “Fun Friday” series…here’s to hoping you have 6-10 lined up. 😉
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One of the musicals I will admit to liking. Love the spoof that was done on this. Cue the hills are alive music, sweeping vista of the Alpine meadow. Figure in the middle turning toward camera and it turns out to be the Pink Panther in the novice habit with striped apron. Just cracks me up!
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My all-time favorite movie, musical or not:) I’ve loved it since I was ten, I know it backwards and forwards, yet it still has magic every time. Like so many other people, it’s also the film that made me fall in love with Julie Andrews, another love affair that continues to this day.
And CJ, I love that Pink Panther spoof even more because the original Pink Panther films were written and directed by Blake Edwards who is married to…Julie Andrews:)
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Hard to love musicals and not like this one. Movie is a bit long for me. Wouldn’t have been hurt by a good edit. But the soundtrack is wonderful and how can one not get caught up in the performance/escape scene at the end?
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It’s a classic to be sure. It’s just… so long. So, so long.
Really good music though.
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Boy! some of you make me feel like a grandmother–oh, well, I am one! I was in HS when the Sound of Music came out and it is my fav. Our youngest daughter played the part of Brigitta (Played by Angela Cartwright in the movie I think) in regional summer theatre one summer, so we all heard it many, many times!
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You know, I never got to see the ending – it was always on way past my bedtime. To this day, I still don’t think I’ve seen past where the Von Trapp family performs… my memory is foggy. I need to re-watch this one!!
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I liked your “best kisses.” The best kiss for me was always in “Young at Heart,” when Frank Sinatra kisses Doris Day when she’s making gingerbread men. It’s only on the cheek, but it’s so sudden, and so innocent it’s sexy.
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