DVDs: Hills Alive Again
In 1948, Austrian Maria von Trapp 1905-1987 published the saga of her eventful life in the book The Story of the Trapp Family Singers. It was made into two German-language films, The Trapp Family 1956 and The Trapp Family in America 1958. Paramount purchased the U.S. rights with the intention of starring Audrey Hepburn in a Hollywood version.
But director Vincent J. Donehue, who was working at Paramount at the time, saw the German films and decided they would make a fine stage vehicle for Mary Martin, who had been directed by Donehue in Annie Get Your Gun and The Skin of Our Teeth. Martin agreed, and her husband Richard Halliday, along with co-producer Leland Hayward, purchased the rights to the German films.
Martin and Halliday initially envisioned their show as a play that would use the actual songs the von Trapps performed. Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse were hired to write that play, and Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were asked to write a single original song. Instead, the hugely successful musical team asked to compose a whole new score, a proposition that no one involved could resist.
The resulting stage musical, The Sound of Music, opened at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on November 16, 1959 and ran 1,443 performances, with Martin and her show both earning Tony Awards. In June, 1960, Twentieth Century-Fox purchased the film rights to The Sound of Music for a record $1.25 million. In March, 1961, the two German films, combined into one The Trapp Family and dubbed into English, were released in the U.S. A Sound of Music film could not be released until the end of 1964, or until all major productions of the musical had closed.
At the time, Fox was not making big, expensive pictures, as the studio was in dire financial straights owing to such costly failures as the Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton Cleopatra. So committing to The Sound of Music, a show that had received very mixed reviews on Broadway, was an act of bravery on the part of the studio.
The film was initially to have been directed by William Wyler. But ultimately it marked a reunion from the triumphant screen version of West Side Story of director-producer Robert Wise, screenwriter Ernest Lehman, and associate producer Saul Chaplin. Lehman had previously adapted for the screen another Rodgers and Hammerstein hit, The King and I.
Julie Andrews was the only actress seriously considered for the role of Maria. When Christopher Plummer turned down the role of Captain von Trapp, mentioned as replacements were Peter Finch, Yul Brynner, Sean Connery, and Richard Burton. Then Plummer, who reconsidered, almost quit the project when he learned that his songs would be dubbed. To placate Plummer, they allowed him to record his own tracks and shoot to them, and to re-record the tracks after the completion of shooting. But even then, Plummer's singing was ultimately judged not strong enough to hold up next to Andrews' vocals, and his singing was dubbed by Bill Lee.
The stage material was substantially altered for the film. Dropped were both of the Elsa-Max songs, "How Can Love Survive?" and "No Way to Stop It." A new number, "I Have Confidence," co-authored by Rodgers, Lehman and Chaplin, was added, and another new, all-Rodgers song, "Something Good," took the place of "An Ordinary Couple."
The order of the first two numbers, the Preludium and the title song, was reversed. "My Favorite Things" was moved from its early position as a Maria/Mother Abbess duet to the storm scene, as a number for Maria and the children. "The Lonely Goatherd," sung in the storm scene on stage, was shifted to a new scene, a puppet show featuring the Bil Baird marionettes. The title song and "Do Re Mi" were opened up to take advantage of the location shooting, and "Do Re Mi" was shifted to later in the action and became an elaborate montage sequence indicating the passing of time. When one views the Sound of Music film today, one particularly admires how screenwriter Lehman was not bound by the stage script, and how successfully he reimagined the material for the screen.
Filmed in Todd-AO, almost all of the exteriors were shot in or near Salzburg, Austria. Most of the interiors were shot on the Fox lot in Los Angeles. Maria von Trapp herself can be glimpsed as an extra in the "I Have Confidence" number.
Like the show, the 1965 film was greeted with mixed reviews, with strong notices in the West Coast papers, less good ones from New York and other East Coast critics. But no matter. The film became the top box-office champ of all time to date, and probably the most successful musical film ever. It turned around the fortunes of Twentieth Century-Fox, and did smash business everywhere except in Austria and Germany. Nominated for ten Academy Awards, the film took, among others, the Best Director and Best Picture Oscars. With Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music in release, Andrews became one of Hollywood's biggest draws.
The 2000 double-DVD release of The Sound of Music included Wise's feature-length audio commentary; a 1965 documentary with the film's Liesl, Charmian Carr, showing off Salzburg: Sight and Sound; and a 1994, ninety-minute documentary, The Sound of Music: From Fact to Phenomenon, covering the history of the property and movie, and featuring interviews with Andrews, Plummer, Carr, Wise, Chaplin, and others.
The new, fortieth-anniversary, double-DVD reissue lacks the latter two documentaries, so one will wish to hold on to the first Sound of Music DVD release. But the new set does offer a slew of new bonus features. The first disc kicks off with an introduction by Andrews, who offers reasons for the film's extraordinary popularity. While Wise's commentary is still included, there's now a second track of audio commentary, disappointingly intermittent, featuring Andrews, occasionally joined by Plummer, Carr, choreographer Dee Dee Wood, and Johannes von Trapp, Maria's youngest child.
Andrews comments on the difficulties involved in getting the opening shots; the trouble she had with the "I Have Confidence" lyrics; and the weather problems. Although he eventually grew to like the children, Plummer calls them "little monsters" and says he enjoyed treating them sternly. He also says that Eleanor Parker was so perfect for the role of the baroness that "I nearly dumped Julie for her," and thanks Lehman for deepening the character of the Captain from what it had been in the stage version.
Charmian Carr says that, at twenty-one, she had a hard time acting sixteen, and notes that DVD technology has erased the ankle bandage she sported during "Sixteen Going on Seventeen." And von Trapp states that his father was a much warmer person than the film's Captain, even if he did use a whistle to summon his children.
There's a new, one-hour documentary, "My Favorite Things: Julie Andrews Remembers," with the star backed by Plummer, Carr, Wood, von Trapp, Ted Chapin, and even Andrew Lloyd Webber. Included is footage of the location shoot, and there's a clip from the 1962 TV special "Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall" featuring the Sound of Music spoof in which Andrews participated. Plummer states that Mary Martin asked him to play the Captain on stage, even though he was too young at the time. Von Trapp says the film's palatial von Trapp mansion is an exaggeration, and that the family did not escape over the mountains. All discuss Lehman's smart alterations, and how the "Do Re Mi" montage was created. Unfortunately, this documentary repeats many of the comments heard on the new commentary track.
Andrews and Plummer share an affectionate, twenty-minute fireside chat reminiscing about the picture. They recall in particular the difficulties of shooting the love scene in the gazebo, and note that they both worried about the saccharine nature of the property. Another twenty minutes are devoted to "On Location with The Sound of Music," a new short that features Carr returning to Salzburg to tour the spots where the film was shot.
"From Liesl to Gretl" offers a sweet half-hour reunion of the seven children, all of whom seem to have turned out well. They say that they never saw Andrews lose her temper or make a mistake, while Plummer remained somewhat aloof so as to maintain his onscreen relationship with the kids. And they enjoy pointing out mistakes they made that remain in the film and that have haunted them over the years.
"When You Know the Notes to Sing" offers a glimpse of the 2005 Hollywood Bowl Sing-A-Long Sound of Music event, the largest one ever, with 18,000 people joining in. There's the excellent A&E Biography hour documentary on the real von Trapp family. We get a clip of Mia Farrow's screen test for Liesl, with the young actress warbling not too well a bit of "Sixteen Going on Seventeen." And another short compares the various restorations the film has undergone.