The hills are alive with history as we celebrate “The Sound of Music” arriving in theaters on this day in 1965!
A poster for Robert Wise’s 1965 drama ‘The Sound of Music’ starring Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, and Eleanor Parker. (Photo by Movie Poster Image Art/Getty Images)
Starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer and based on the Broadway musical of the same name about the real-life Van Trapp family, “The Sound of Music” has been a family favorite for decades.
The film earned 10 Oscar nominations and won five, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Editing, Best Scoring of Music – Adaptation or Treatment, and Best Sound.
And you may know the songs, you may know the moments, but here are five fun facts you didn’t know about “The Sound of Music!”
WINDY CONDITIONS
Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music.”{ }(Courtesy: 20th Century Fox)
During the movie’s iconic opening scene of Julie Andrews singing the titular song, we see her spinning in a field from a high vantage point to fully take in the stunning landscape. The only problem? The wind from the helicopter kept knocking Andrews over.
“This was a jet helicopter,” she told the AFI in 2016. “And the down draft from those jets was so strong that every time the helicopter circled around me and the down draft just flattened me into the grass. And I mean flattened. It was fine for a couple of takes, but after that you begin to get just a little bit angry And I really tried. I mean, I braced myself, I thought, ‘It’s not going to get me this time.’ And every single time, I bit the dust.”
MARIA TO THE RESCUE
The boat scene almost ended in disaster in “The Sound of Music.” (Courtesy: 20th Century Fox)
After a day of singing and prancing through Salzburg, Maria and the kids all pile into a boat that topples over in front of Captain Von Trapp, in a comical and charming scene.
However, behind-the-scenes, the scene proved dangerous for the youngest member of the cast, Kym Karath, who played Gretl, because she couldn’t swim. Andrews recalled on “The Graham Norton Show” in 2019 that “At the very last minute, just before the scene, the assistant director said, ‘The little one can’t swim, so when you fall out of the boat, can you get to her quickly!'”
Andrews tried to fall the right direction to get to her, but “of course, I fell back instead of forward and I had to swim like mad to get to her. The poor kid. I could see her flailing away. She went under at least twice, came up and then threw up!”
Ultimately her co-star Heath Menzies, who played Louisa, was able to rescue Karath, who reportedly ended up with a lifelong fear of water.
ESCAPE ROUTE
Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer are flanked on all sides by their children, all members of the singing Von Trapp family, in this publicity handout from the 1965 adaption of the Rogers and Hammerstein musical, The Sound of Music.
It makes for a dramatic finale, with the Von Trapps climbing over the Alps to safety after escaping the Nazis. But it didn’t happen. The Von Trapps actually escaped via train to Italy just before the borders were closed.
“We did tell people that we were going to America to sing. And we did not climb over mountains with all our heavy suitcases and instruments. We left by train, pretending nothing,” daughter Maria Von Trapp (whose name was changed to Louisa in the film) told Opera News in 2003 (per the National Archives).
NOT A FAN
HOLLYWOOD, CA – MARCH 26: Actors Julie Andrews (L) and Christopher Plummer attend the 2015 TCM Classic Film Festival Opening Night Gala 50th anniversary screening of “The Sound Of Music” at TCL Chinese Theatre IMAX on March 26, 2015 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by David Buchan/Getty Images)
True to his character’s nature as a stern and stoic individual, Christopher Plummer wasn’t a fan of the movie. He told The Hollywood Reporter in 2011 that his role in the film was one of his toughest “Because it was so awful and sentimental and gooey. You had to work terribly hard to try and infuse some minuscule bit of humor into it.”
“It’s a very good picture [for] what it is,” he added.
Maybe he just needed to hear “Lonely Goatherd” a few more times to soften him up?
GETTING THE GIGGLES
Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer in a promotional portrait for ‘The Sound Of Music’, directed by Robert Wise, 1965. (Photo by Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images)
It ended up being a romantic dreamy scene, but Andrews admitted she couldn’t stop laughing during her scene with Plummer while singing “Something Good.”
She told “Today” in 2005, “Christopher would be looking into my eyes and saying ‘Oh Maria I love you,’ and there’d be this awful raspberry coming from the lights above us,” she said, referring to the huge arc lights used in the scene.
In the same interview, Plummer admitted he also got the giggles because he thought their faces being so close was silly, saying, “The whole idea is so insane, why do people sing like that? You don’t sing to somebody that close! So of course, we got the giggles.”
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