"'Cause they taped it on only one day..." - NBC's The Sound of Music

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...The NBC-TV remake of Rogers & Hammerstein's THE SOUND OF MUSIC as a " live play " production's airing is about one month in the past now , and I meant to post about it here before that ! But I didn't...

  With 18 million viewers IIRC , it certainly qualified as " a hit " . NBC even repeated it a week-and-a-halfish later .

  I saw it both times:-) .

  It was meant to be a " TV play/live production " in the mode of the PLAYHOUSE 90/BELL TELEPHONE HOURs of yore , NBC claiming " For the first time in fifty years..." . I , myself , on the West Coast of the continguous 48 states of the USA (California) saw it as an immediate taped repeat , anyway , being 3 time zones to the west of the Eastern Time Zone , where it would have indeed shown live ~ along with the Central Time Zone .

  The Mountain Time Zone , especially for such a " holiday special " as this , I am not so sure about . Anyone ?????

  Has it shown outside of the U.S,. yet ~ I know we have Australian and Canadian residents here , others ???

[ClarkKent_DC]

Richard Willis said:

 

* A year or two ago I saw a live production of West Side Story. Some of the songs lyrics are a little more suggestive than the film version. I'm willing to bet the stage version I saw was using the original lyrics.

Wikipedia lists various differences between the movie and the stage version "West Side Story: Differences from the stage show", including changed lines in some of the lyrics, the songs and some of the scenes are at different moments, there are a couple of characters new to the movie, etc. 

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...There is a paperback novelization of WSS too (dating from the stage version , not the movie) which includes comic book references !!!!!!!!!

[Richard Willis]

Emerkeith Davyjack said:

Are you saying that in the movie the " 16 Going On " young Nazi almost turns them in more up-frontly than in the NBC ?

I mixed up my words a little. As I recall the movie version softens his character more.

BTW , what consequrnces , if you know , does any fuller version spell out for Max's streching out of the announcing of the winners of the singing competition , which allows the von Trapps to escape ?

I don't remember Max's delaying tactics in the movie, but I haven't watched it in awhile.

Clearly , as the Nazis rush the stage , they are at least suspicious of Max's actions .

I think Max had a problem with the Nazis after the von Trapps escaped. It's not like they would have to prove their suspicions, being Nazis.

You don't understand what I'm saying about chest shaving ?

I thought I was agreeing with you. A recent local stage version of South Pacific had a hairy-chrested Billis while all the other Seabees had shirts or T-shirts. Incidentally, I recently came to the conclusion that the Tonkinese characters of Bloody Mary and her daughter hailed from North Vietnam, AKA Tonkin. Bloody Mary was based on a real person Michenor knew. There is more elaboration on this in this Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pacific_%28musical%29

I seem to recall reading of a recent-ish production of WSS (done when Authur Laurents was till alive) that had the Spanish characters singing in Spanish (generally , anyway) when they were alone and may have had Maria's lyrics become a little more " simplistic/innocent " and less " Broadway/clever " to reflect the " more naive/FOB type of person " she is . Was that what you saw ?????

I didn't see the bi-lingual production. The one I saw had the lyric "on their knees praying" implying a different reason for being on their knees. It was in a family-friendly theater, so I don't think this was changed from the original. They're not allowed to deviate in stage plays like they do in the movies.

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...You mean a sexual " knees " reason ? What song ? I forgot . I recall reading " America " was considerab;y extended in the movie .

  Saying " f*ck " was still pretty taboo then (as , heh , is is here still !!!!!!!!!!!) , re the end of " Gee , Officer Krupke " .

  This Spanish-ized version I mentioned is detailed (somewhat) in Laurents's WEikipedia entry .

  I don't know if this " simplification " of Maria's lyrics was actually done , or just talked about by Sondheim as a " If I did it to-day..." .

  OK , ha , 'bout chest-shaving .

  It's quite common now , was likely rare then , methinks , certainly among enlisted USN seamen !

  Yeah , Gillis has tatoos , that's even in Michene's book IIRC , the PBS I saw had (clearly " artificial "/drawn-on/temporary tattoos , of the decidedly OLD-old-school type , upon the actor who played Gillis's chest .

  I meant Max's tactics in the NBC I haven't seen the Fox film for a long time either .

  The division of " North/South Vietnam " didn't exist in the 40s , when Vietnam was French-colonized , but , I presume you know that .

[Richard Willis]

Emerkeith Davyjack said:

You mean a sexual " knees " reason ? What song ? I forgot . I recall reading " America " was considerab;y extended in the movie .

I just did a lot of digging without turning up this difference. If/when you watch the movie again there is a reference to girls being on their knees, I think by Anita.

Saying " f*ck " was still pretty taboo then (as , heh , is is here still !!!!!!!!!!!) , re the end of " Gee , Officer Krupke " .

According to what I just read there were no actual four-letter words in either version. There were some close calls, which they tweaked for the movie.

The division of " North/South Vietnam " didn't exist in the 40s , when Vietnam was French-colonized , but , I presume you know that .

What is now Vietnam was for a long time (19th century to 1954) three provinces of French Indochina:

Tonkin, Annam and Cochinchina (see map). When I was there in 1969 I was a little more than half-way up the former Annam portion, north of Hue, about ten miles from what was then North Vietnam.

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...Yeah , for " Krupke " , it's , what , " Krup you ! " ???????????

[Richard Willis]

Apparently that's the same as the stage play. I think they have a different Jet singing it for some reason.

Emerkeith Davyjack said:

...Yeah , for " Krupke " , it's , what , " Krup you ! " ???????????

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...Please allow me to point out that I did try to drag some funnybook into this , with the header ~ Of course , taken from the immortal MAD PARODY of TSOM  - parodied/changed appropriately , of course , the original was " Cause they filmed it on five different days " , IIRC...When I was a kid I think I thought that was , maybe , a reference to how long it took for the entire FILM to be filmed !!!!!!!!!

  When I thought the old blog function here was still on , I thought I could have some sub-headings , too , such as " Only sell reserved seats - Turn most people down " and , of cours , the immortal - " But Austria is a landlocked country !!!!!!!!!!! " !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

???????????????????????????????????

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...MAD magazine's old parody . " The Sound Of Money " .

www.madmagazine.com/blog/2013/12/05/classic-mad-sound-of-money

Well , try entering " Mad magazine the sound of money " into Yahoo! (!)

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

You dropped a slash. Here's a link.

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...Thank you . Whether I did or didn't .