By Chris Hughes

 

In 1965 at the Rivoli Theatre, New York, The Sound Of Music had its world premiere. The audience, for the first time at a public screening, feasted their eyes on the breathtaking panoramic shots of Austrian hills it opens with. As the camera zoomed in on a sole figure that was ultimately revealed to be Julie Andrews, they all sensed they were present at the unveiling of something special as she exuberantly burst into song.

The rapturous response they gave the sparkling screen musical that evening was duplicated by packed houses in cinemas worldwide. Critics were not quite so ecstatic about the new blockbuster which often strayed into fiction in presenting a story its publicists were keen to emphasise was founded in fact.

The idea for the musical that polarised critics and the public was born in the late fifties when theatre director, Vincent J. Donehue was working for Paramount Pictures.
Tasked with developing projects for film and TV, he was shown two German movies, Die Trapp-Familie and its sequel, Die Trapp-Familie In Amerika. They were based on the memoirs of Maria Von Trapp of the Austrian vocal troupe, the Trapp Family Singers.

Paramount’s brief was to examine whether an English language version had potential. Donehue reached the view that it did but not on the big or small screen. Rather, he envisioned a stage musical, a vehicle for theatre star, Mary Martin, headliner of such greats as Annie Get Your Gun and South Pacific.
Martin was sold on the concept when it was pitched to her. With the enlistment of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II providing respectively music and lyrics, a show was created that took some liberties with the contents of Maria Von Trapp’s books. The 1959 Broadway production won six Tony Awards including one for Mary Martin for her ebullient turn as Maria.

Its popularity soon invoked the interest of Hollywood with 20th Century Fox winning the bidding war for the rights to make a movie adaptation. When they began work on it in 1962, the studio was in a state of crisis, reeling from losses incurred by Cleopatra which had spiralled disastrously over budget.

Famous for the off-screen relationship of its two stars, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, the epic had practically bankrupted the company and they needed a hit badly. A lot was therefore riding on The Sound Of Music and Fox knew the casting of its main character, Maria, was vital to its success.
Mary Martin was ruled out as her fame as a stage performer meant little to film fans. Doris Day, then a major box office attraction, was considered along with the likes of Anne Bancroft, Leslie Caron and Shirley Jones. Julie Andrews’ name popped up in discussions regularly but kept being dismissed as she, like Martin, was then known primarily in theatre circles.

When Robert Wise, who was to direct The Sound Of Music, discovered she had completed work on two movies which had yet to be released he was intrigued. After viewing footage of one of them- Mary Poppins, he knew he had found his Maria.

He was keen to assign the co-starring role of Baron Von Trapp, the patriarch of the Von Trapp clan, to Christopher Plummer, a Canadian actor acclaimed for his credits in classical theatre. Plummer was not drawn to the part, considering it dull. Ernest Lehman, who would write the screenplay, convinced Plummer his script would give the Baron more depth than he had been afforded in the play.

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