I will always associate this movie from the time they showed it in 1989 and the New York city station broke in during “The Hill are Alive” to announce former Yankee manager Billy Martin was killed in an auto accident going home from a bar.
O2 Arena - what used to be called the Millennium Dome - here in London. It should be good, though apparently after everyone had bought their tickets she went on TV and said actually she won’t be singing as such, she’ll be “sing-speaking”, whatever that may mean. She’d better sing! I wouldn’t have paid this much if I’d known they were tickets to see her talking along to the Royal Philharmonic!
Who am I kidding… of course I would. It’s Julie Andrews!
I thought she had her vocal chords ruined by bad surgery. Off to Wikipedia…
Upon checking Wikipedia, I guess she got her voice mostly back, but maybe that’s why she was trying to dampen down expectations with the “sing-speaking” stuff.
Heh. I went to a very daffy, public, fun sing-along, shout-whatever-you-want showing of The Sound of Music a few years ago. When the nuns closed the gate behind Maria as she began her walk down the aisle, someone called out, “Dead nun walking!”
A friend of mine watched TSOM every Easter when it was shown on TV throughout her childhood. She didn’t realize until she was grown that the movie continued beyond the wedding; her mom always turned the TV off at that point so that she could go to bed on time.
I read an interview a few years ago with Charmian Carr, the actress who played the eldest daughter. She said Christopher Plummer kept hitting on her during the shoot! Here’s another interview with her: Liesl at 64 going on 70
Also, the Master speaks on Capt. von Trapp’s previous naval service: In The Sound of Music, how can Capt. von Trapp be a veteran of landlocked Austria’s navy? - The Straight Dope
Remember the Simpsons scene when they were in Christmastown and Homer hit a deer:
Homer: D’oh
Lisa: A deer
Marge: A female deer.
That ties in perfectly.
Whoa. I mean, I know she was 23, and he wasn’t ACTUALLY her father. But it still feels wrong!
I didn’t know she decorated MJ’s ranch. Curiouser and curiouser! Thanks for posting.
Or maybe it *really *was because the latter half of the movie involved Nazis and her mother thought that was too dark for a little kid to handle.
I read that in Germany when they show it on TV, they just cut it off after the wedding so it’s just a happy movie with no Nazis.
Richard Rodgers wrote some gorgeous liturgical music for the stage show, most of which was sliced out of the movie. (You can hear the beginning of the delightful Alleluia sung by the nuns in an early scene at the abbey.) The “Rex Admirabilis” would make a dignified and plummy processional, although I’d probably opt for an instrumental lest it seem to imply extraordinary powers on the part of the bride. (Or raise questions of gender. . .) 
:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
A film that is NOT a documentary doesn’t adhere to the facts? Oh noes! What’s this world coming to? Why, the next thing you know some movie will imply Charlton Heston delivered his “from my cold, dead hands” line at an NRA meeting in Denver shortly after the Columbine shootings!
Another thing that annoys me: the song “Something Good” (sung by Maria & Georg as they plight their troth) includes the phrase “in my youth, or childhood…”. Seems kind of redundant.
I’ll give Hammerstein a lot of slack – sometimes you gotta hit a line with a hammer to make the scan or the rhyme work.
But what bugs me is how Julie & Chris split the line in the last chorus. She says “in my youth…” and he gently taps her on the nose and says “or childhood” like it’s somehow significant. If I was Julie Andrews I’d be rolling my eyes and saying “right, Chris, thank you for clearing that up.” I blame the director.
I just read on IMDb that Christopher Plummer’s singing was dubbed - something I’d never heard before.
Yes, I do. My sarcasm has flown under your radar. . .
Tripler
It’s stealth.
I’m pretty sure Hammerstein had nothing to do with this song…having been dead for a couple of years at the time.
The play had several songs that were deemed not good enough (cute enough, syrupy enough, oomphy enough, I dunno) to go into the movie: “No Way to Stop It,” which adds to the characterization of Max vs. von Trapp, and a few others. Removing these songs made the movie only 4 hours long instead of the necessary 5 (okay, okay, I exaggerate), so the movie folks asked for a couple more. Since Hammerstein, being dead and all, was no longer capable of lyricizing, Rodgers took on the task of doing both words and music. One of these was “Something Good.” So, blame him.
Also, that song begins with Maria theorizing that she might’ve had a “wicked childhood.” You’d think that in a 5-hr movie with so many references to Maria being a demon, having a wicked childhood, etc., that they’d’ve put some, you know, stories in about specific things she did…but NOOOOO…
Years ago I read one of the books about the making of the movie, I think it was Charmain Carr’s. Throughout they talk about how Plummer took voice lessons and really wanted to do his own singing, and was told that if he liked it in the final cut they’d keep it. I always thought his voice sounded a bit thin, so every time the book brought up his voice lessons, etc., I was all “A-ha!” Then I get to the part where even he realized it wasn’t good enough, so they dubbed his singing.
WHAT!?!?! His voice was even worse than that? I mean, not that the dubber was bad or anything, but compared to Julie Andrews and the kids, it was just always so weak and small to me. I figured it had to be because it was really him and he wasn’t naturally a singer.
Exactly. I always figured it was really him, because if they were going to bother to dub, why wouldn’t they have gotten a better voice? When I was young, I thought his singing voice was supposed to be thin due to so many years of supposed disuse.
You’re right, it did fly under my finely attuned radar. The funny thing is, I remember reading that although they only show Liesl and Rolfe kissing in the gazebo, the two were supposed to have done much more “collaborating” not actually shown.
Nazi collaberation? In deed. Witness these lyrics:
One little girl in a pale pink coat heard
Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo
She yodeled back to the lonely goatherd
Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo
Clearly the girl is a communist. She’s wearing a pink coat.
Soon her Mama with a gleaming gloat heard
Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hmm hmm
What a duet for a girl and goatherd
Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo
See, the girl’s mother is pimping her out to the Nazis . Pink coat is going to have Nazi babies. Mom is proud, see.
Happy are they lay dee olay dee lee o …
… yodeling …
Soon the duet will become a trio
Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo
So, the evil plan is done. The communist goat girl has procreated. Now Nazi goats are everywhere. That is until Georg Von Trapp and his family can stop them.
Stay tuned for more…
I do remember that the play version gave a lot more attention to the romance between the Captain and the Baroness. For example, they had a duet called “How Can Love Survive” - you can hear its melody in the music being played by the orchestra in the beginning of the party scene when the kids are out on the patio watching the grownups dancing. It seems like the movie version really trimmed down the parts of Max and the Baroness to focus more on Julie Andrews.
The 2 songs written for the movie which were not in the play are “Something Good” and “I Have Confidence”. I agree with you that “Something Good” is pretty weak.
I am one of those who cut the movie off at the wedding whenever showing it to my youngster. Even if she hadn’t been scared, she would have been bored.