Do-Re-Mi… Oh My!

Salzburg, Austria, a day-trip destination from our recent Viking River Cruise, is a popular draw for tourists.  On most days you’ll find more internationals roaming Salzburg’s Old Town than you’ll find Austrians themselves.  The compact city is famous for its historic buildings: churches, palaces, and fortresses dating back 1,000 years or more.  Mozart was born here.  But try as they might, Austrians will never be able to separate Salzburg from what attracts many to its streets: The Sound of Music.

I can think of only one movie we forced our kids to sit down and watch while they still lived under our roof.  Close to Christmas one year (an arbitrary connection because of the lyrics of “My Favorite Things”), the five of us spent three hours together in front of our not-so-big-screen TV watching the somewhat true story of the von Trapp family.  I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve followed Maria, the Captain, and those seven engaging children as they outwit the Nazis.

For all of the movies I’ve watched in my life (and I’ve watched quite a few), The Sound of Music stands alone.  I’d describe it as a jewel you display in an elegant glass box on the shelf, taken down every once in a while to appreciate up close. The Sound of Music is a feel-good story – if not accurate – produced in 1965 at the end of the Hollywood’s Golden Age.  It remains the most successful movie musical of all time (adjusted for inflation), but I question whether today’s movie-goers would appreciate it as much as I do.

Salzburg, Austria

Most tours of Salzburg include references to buildings and locations included in The Sound of Music.  Our own tour – cut well short because of the flooding of the Danube – was a brisk walk around the Old Town, with only an occasional mention of the movie.  What surprised me was not how little of The Sound of Music was actually filmed in Salzburg (most was done on sound stages back in the States) but rather the Austrians’ utter disdain for the movie.

Salzburg’s Nonnberg Abbey

Consider, when it was first released The Sound of Music was only twenty years removed from the end of WWII.  The Nazi overtones of the film didn’t sit well with citizens of Austria and Germany.  Reviews (and box-office receipts) were not favorable in either country.  Coupled with the liberties the producers took with the story, you can see why Salzburg residents don’t exactly “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” to claim the movie as their own.

You’ll find endless trivia about The Sound of Music at IMDB.com and elsewhere.  Most facts are meant to point out discrepancies between the film and the actual story.  Here are fifteen of “My Favorite Things”:

1) Julie Andrews was cast as Maria, of course, but only because Audrey Hepburn declined the part.  Hepburn also denied Andrews the opportunity to play Eliza Doolittle in the movie version of My Fair Lady.  Each played the opposite role in the original stage adaptations on Broadway.

2) Andrews kept getting knocked off her feet in the famous opening scene where she sings and spins in an Alpine meadow.  She couldn’t keep her balance because the hovering helicopter used to film the scene generated too much wind.

Not as easy as it looks!

3) Andrews’ hair was meant to be worn longer but a bad color job forced the pixie cut, which Andrews kept for most of her acting career

4) Christopher Plummer was not a fan of The Sound of Music.  He reluctantly agreed to the part of Captain von Trapp and regretted every moment on set, especially those with the children.  He described working with Julie Andrews as “being hit over the head with a big Valentine’s Day card, every day”.  He nicknamed the movie The Sound of Mucus.  Much later he acknowledged the film’s worldwide success, as well as the Oscar-nominated talent of Andrews.

5) Plummer regularly drowned his acting sorrows in Salzburg bars and restaurants.  As a result his outfits needed to be resized towards the end of filming to accommodate his added weight.

The gazebo (moved from its original location). The interior scenes were filmed In a much larger stage set reproduction.

6) The von Trapp children are Rupert, Agathe, Maria, Werner, Hedwig, Johanna, and Martina… not Liesl, Friedrich, Louisa, Kurt, Brigitta, Marta, and Gretl.  Also, none of the nine leads are Austrian (which certainly didn’t help the appeal of a film based in Salzburg).

7) Auditions for the parts of the von Trapp children included the four eldest Osmond brothers (not Donny), Kurt Russell, and Richard Dreyfuss.

8) Kym Karath, who played Gretl, the youngest of the von Trapp children, created her fair share of challenges.  She had a cold during much of the filming.  She almost drowned in the scene where the boat overturns in the lake because she didn’t know how to swim.  And she ate enough sweets on set to where her weight was too much for Christopher Plummer.  As a result, in the final scene walking over the Alps, Plummer is carrying a stand-in actress instead of Karath.

9) Nicholas Hammond, who played Friedrich, was not a natural blonde so his hair was bleached for the movie.  The coloring process caused some of his hair to fall out, which is why you see him wearing a “Tyrolean Traditional Alpine” hat when he’s seen singing “Do-Re-Mi”.

10) The day after the real von Trapp family left Austria (by train to Italy and then to the U.S., not on foot over the Alps to Switzerland), the Germans shut down all of Austria’s borders.

Salzburg’s Schloss Leopoldskron, where lakefront and garden scenes were filmed

11) The real Maria von Trapp is on screen at the beginning of the movie.

12) The real Maria also claims, if you can blieve it, her own personality was livelier than Andrews’ on-screen version.

13) The real Maria taught Julie Andrews how to yodel.  Watch the lesson here.

14) The film’s production demanded 4,500 extras, including those in the sold-out theater for the music festival.  The audience sings “Edelweiss” as if they know the song, but only because they spent time beforehand learning the words.

15) Despite the aforementioned Austrian disdain, The Sound of Music is played nonstop on the televisions of most Salzburg hotels.

Maybe all of this trivia changes your opinion of The Sound of Music.  Not mine.  There are countless reasons this film includes the tagline, “The Happiest Sound In All The World”.  The Sound of Music will always be that jewel in a glass box, waiting patiently to be enjoyed once more.  Suffice it to say, I’ll never say “So Long, Farewell” to the adventures of the von Trapp family.

Some content sourced from the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

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Author: Dave

Five hundred posts would suggest I have something to say… This blog was born from a desire to elevate the English language, highlighting eloquent words from days gone by. The stories I share are snippets of life itself, and each comes with a bonus: a dusted-off word I hope you’ll go on to use more often. Read “Deutschland-ish Improvements” to learn about my backyard European wish list. Try “Slush Fun” for the throwback years of the 7-Eleven convenience store. Or drink in "Iced Coffee" to discover the plight of the rural French cafe. On the lighter side, read "Late Night Racquet Sports" for my adventures with our latest moth invasion. As Walt Whitman said, “That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” Here then, my verse. Welcome to Life In A Word.

29 thoughts on “Do-Re-Mi… Oh My!”

  1. No they have not changed my opinion. Sound of Music is one of my favourite movies. The others being Roman Holiday, My Fair Lady, Goodbye Mr Chips, To Sir wil Love and some more 😊

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  2. This is wonderful. I remember driving from our small town to go see The Sound of Music in the theater in a big city! Of course as a little girl I adored all of it. I wasn’t aware that the Nazi overtones of the film didn’t sit well in Austria and Germany.

    My one trivia fact about the movie is: Anna Lee, the actress who played Lila Quartermaine on General Hospital, was one of the nuns who stole the spark plugs.

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    1. I was three years old when The Sound of Music came out. I was left behind with my aunt and uncle while my parents went to the premiere. Sure glad the movie had enough staying power to let me get old enough to watch it!

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  3. Well, that was interesting reading. I love the movie, but have to admit, I never knew the back story on filming, how the actors interacted, etc. LOL – Plummer’s anger at acting in the film was good, he certainly portrayed an upset man. How funny that he didn’t care for July Andrew’s cheery ways.

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  4. One of my favorite movies as well. I enjoyed your trivia… didn’t know some of them. Did you get to see the gazebo from the movie while you were in Salzburg?

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  5. Super fun trivia! I’ve actually been to Salzburg twice. It’s one of two European cities I know my way around. (Rome being the other.) Lovely place. Hilarious about the helicopter wind knocking her over. Too bad about Plummer.

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  6. We did the full Salzburg tour when we were there, which included lunch and a performances of the songs by local youth (college age). I would like to go back there and just stay in a hotel and be able to walk around at my own pace.

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    1. Our tour was meant to be as you described, Andrew – a full day enjoying the city and the surrounding environs. Instead, we sat on a bus for hours just to catch a quick glimpse. We’ll go back some day.

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  7. I always watched The Sound of Music around Easter, they seemed to alway splay it on tv. This brought good memories of our time in Salzburg on a little DIY tour. We sort of had to sneak in to their backyard because it’s now a hotel with a gate, but we managed because there was a wedding being set up. What a place to get married!

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  8. Sound of Music is one of my all-time favorite movies also. Greatly enjoyed reading through your curated trivia, Dave–about the actors, the filming, etc. I knew that Audrey Hepburn had been chosen for the movie version of My Fair Lady over Julie Andrews; I DIDN’T know the opposite had occurred for this film. ‘Had to watch the video of Julie and Maria singing the yodeling song together–very cute. I was wishing they’d sung more!

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    1. I enjoyed the research on this one if only to learn so much trivia I never knew about the making of the movie. It was hard to choose a curated list (your words) from the dozens of details. Now I’m chomping at the bit to watch it again!

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  9. Dave, I liked all your factoids. I saw the movie with my parents when it came out and have watched it a few times on TV. I think I know the Do-Re-Mi song by heart. Austria is pretty and I regret I never got to Salzburg. We spent time in Tyrol, having driven from Frankfurt, Germany. I came home with a Tyrolean hat, a walking stick with medal shields nailed on from the cities we visited and hiked and also an Alpine cow bell on a flowered strap to hang on my car’s rearview mirror.

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    1. We came home with one of those cowbells as well, only from Switzerland when we were there a few years ago. The Old Town district of Salzburg is quaint and full of character. I only wish we had more time to explore it. Would’ve loved a closer look at the Abbey and to tour the mountaintop fortress. We’ll go back to Vienna and Munich some day, so there’s our opportunity to give Salzburg the time it is due.

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  10. Love the 15 facts of the Sound of Music. I’m a fan of the film but never digged in for the facts. The weigh-gaining was hilarious! Coincidentally I was in Salzburg couple of weekends ago. Not sure when your guys went or else would have bumped into you 🙂

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  11. I grew up in NJ, 30 minutes from Manhattan, and a friend of my brother’s was an understudy, so we went to see the show on Broadway when he was in it. So fun to have someone to meet at the stage door afterward!

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  12. I count this movie as the very end of classic Hollywood. I have always found it strange that as popular as this film was, the big budget musical seemed dead by 1967.

    I loved the trivia! Strangely, I like musicals far more than my Mrs does, and I have not seen this one in years. But I know the music well because my mother played piano and sang the songs often from a SOM music book she had.

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    1. I agree with you, J P. The movies of that era had an innocence and charm you can’t find anywhere in today’s films. And speaking of musicals, it was a bit of a coincidence I chose to watch “Mama Mia” on a recent flight. I can’t tell you the last musical movie I watched (probably Les Miserables, come to think of it). “Mama Mia” was a lot of fun and a creative weaving of music and story, but nowhere near the elegance and scale of SOM. Also, Julie Andrews or Meryl Streep in a musical? No contest.

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