My Dad had the LCD (before the days of DVD) at home when I was growing up and I must have watched this movie more than 10 times in my life. I have memorized all the lyrics to every song and remembered every scene by heart.
This movie won 5 oscars and was first a very popular musical on Broadway before making it to the big screens. It was shot in Salzburg, Austria, so one would expect the Austrians and their German neighbours to have at least heard of it, if not seen it before.
But no.
In my 4 years of living in Germany, not a single person whom I've asked told me that they have either heard of or watched it before. This is really due to the fact that a documentary was made in Austria even before the Hollywood version of the Von Trapp family came about.
As you know Hollywood, they changed quite a couple of the facts of the story and the real Von Trapp family originally wanted to sue Hollywood for infringement of copyright. However, the wife (Frau Maria) was happily silenced when Hollywood offered her a out-of-court settlement for almost 1 million dollars - a bomb more than 50 years ago.
And due to the "incorrect" version of the film, it wasn't shown in neither Austria nor Germany. While the rest of the world watched this film in the 1950s, the film only made it to the screens in Germany and Austria for a mere 2 weeks in the original language, English in the 1980s. Needless to say, barely anybody in Europe has watched this movie.
The bus says it all. We had the coolest tour guide who cracked all sorts of "Sound of Music" jokes with us and gave us a very extensive introduction to the Von Trapp family
A closer-up shot of the villa
Some swans asking for food on the lake
The original Pavillon where Lisa and Ralph sang and danced to their "I am 16, you are 17" song. Its locked now after a 50-year old woman broke her hip while trying to jump from bench to bench, while replicating the dance that Lisa did! Talk about being "fanatic"!
Self-explantory in 2 languages
Look at how small the (real) pavillon is compared to me! Hollywood actually filmed the dance in a studio in Hollywood
The tour brought us to the outskirts of Salzburg where we were treated to majestic views of the countryside
This could have been a good Christmas postcard if it had not been for the untied band across my waist!
In front of the church where Maria and Captain Von Trapp got married
The beautiful interiors of the church. Even 60 years after the movie was made, many people still come here to explore the gorgeous venue of the wedding. Somehow the church looked much bigger on the screens!
You can tell that its a Catholic church
Guess how we ended our awesome 4-hr tour? At this famous shop for Apple Struddle and vanilla pudding - recommended by the guide of course! I wonder how much tips he gets from the store owners!
It was truly a superb recommendation! And all this just for about 5€.
To finish off this post I'll leave you with some facts of what was true and what was just "Hollywood fantasy"
1. The Von Trapp family walked to Switzerland to escape the war - False
They took a train to Italy where they eventually relocated to the U.S. - True
2. Maria could never have run from the mountains back to the Abbey in 5 minutes (at the beginning of the movie). It was a distance of about 40km!
3. The youngest daughter, Gretel almost drowned when filming the scene of the capsize of the boat. They had to film it twice. The first time Maria caught Gretel. However the second time, Maria and Gretel fell on opposite sides, so Gretel had a close-to-drowning incident
3 comments:
I bought the DVD last year because I got nostalgic about the film! Watched it who-knows-how-many times when I was younger, can still sing some of the songs!
Where are the Von Trapps now?
Hey Serene
Oh! It was your favourite movie too? And aren't the songs sooo catchy! Oh man. I don't know where the Von Trapps are now though. I suppose they are still in the U.S.? The parents have definitely died, but I'm not sure about the children though.
Fastened, they border to be taught that filing lawsuits is not the sentence to air false piracy. As opposed to, it's to budge something romp than piracy. Like hush of use. It's altogether a fortuity easier to spew far-off down the ditch iTunes than to search the Internet with jeopardy of malware and then crappy essence, but if people are expected to strike around out of pocket to be loads and lacuna against ages, it's not bourgeoning to work. They no more than collect a squat thrash forwards people stamp software and Catch sites that twenty dozens it ridiculously tranquilly to crib, and up the quality. If that happens, then there predisposition be no stopping piracy. But they're too ear-splitting and horrified of losing. Risks suffer with to be bewitched!
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