I recently came across the tape from the Original Movie Soundtrack Recording of the 1956 movie “The King and I.”
On the tape, there are two numbers that I know were in the Broadway show, but I never saw in the movie any of the tens of times that I’ve seen it. The numbers in question are “My Lord and Master” and “Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?”
At first, I thought I had the recording from the show, because I never saw these numbers in the movie. But looking at the liner notes, I see that Rita Moreno and Deborah Kerr* were credited with singing the numbers, and Kerr was not in the Broadway show.
This leads me to wonder if maybe these numbers were originally in the movie but were later cut to make it fit into a television broadcast. And if so, is there a version (on DVD maybe?) that has it with these numbers restored?
Zev Steinhardt
*Yes, I know that it was really Marni Nixon and not Deborah Kerr doing the singing.
Many, many years ago(at least thirty-five), I saw the movie on television. It was my first acquaintance with the show, in any form. I remember those numbers, but have no cite. This was back when one bought records of soundtracks! Remember records, those big black CD’s? With needles? When I had the soundtrack I recognized “Lord and Master” and “Shall I Tell You”
So at one point they must have been in a televised version of the movie. How it’s been handled since I can’t say.
That’s cool, Baker, that you got to see a version of the movie with those songs. It’d be neat if they’d release a “director’s cut” on DVD. I know that a lot of musical soundtracks contain songs that were cut from the movie and I always assumed that’s what they did with The King and I. They did the same thing with the Grease soundtrack.