Every Christmas, The Sound of Music comes onto our screens and we can once again experience the wonderful music, captivating story, and incredible talent contained within one of the world's best movies.
Why it became a Christmas movie is kind of confusing to me, but either way, watching it while you get all your decor ready is always the most satisfying sing-a-long experience that no one can resist.
But as it turns out, it wasn't all raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens while they filmed the movie. There was a lot going on behind the scenes that luckily didn't end up on screen.
The cast has spoken about their time on set of the iconic film, and they revealed that there were a lot of issues with the town they filmed in, the actual shooting procedures, and even the weather.
The town hated them
They actually traveled to Austria to film some of the movie, but apparently the residents weren't so happy about it.
"The town didn't want us there. They provided no cooperation whatsoever," Nicholas Hammond (Friedrich) said.
The production company tried to get the town involved in the movie, and use the marionettes from a local theater, but they refused.
"They said, 'This is a classy operation we do here. We don't want them in some tacky Hollywood movie.' So the puppets we used had to be made," Hammond revealed.
I feel like that theater is probably still kicking themselves even though it's been decades, but I guess they didn't want their product to be in something cheesy. Their loss!
Raindrops weren't only on the roses
When they arrived to Salzburg, Austria, they were not expecting to be completely drenched the entire time, but that's what they got.
"We had what was on record as the worst spring weather [Salzburg] had in 50 years," Hammond explained. "It rained almost every single day. In an awful lot of the shots where it looks sunny, it wasn't at all. They had to blast a lot of huge arc lights to try to make it look like the sun was shining."
It obviously all turned out in the end, but it must have been really frustrating at the time.
One of the kids nearly drowned
When they film the scene where all the kids tip over in the boat, they didn't really think much of it. They figured that all the kids could swim and wouldn't have to worry, but the youngest actress wasn't a strong swimmer.
When they flipped over and sent all of the kids into the water, they realized they were missing one.
"It was 10 seconds before anybody realized there were only six kids in the boat, not seven," Hammond said. "All those crew guys went rushing into the lake and pulled Kym [Karath aka Gretl] up and she promptly threw up all over Heather Menzies (Louisa)!"
Delayed filming meant continuity problems
The rain made everything difficult, but it wasn't the only challenge they faced. Because they had to keep delaying the shots, the kids kept growing.
Debbie Turner (Marta) lost four of her bottom teeth during the shoot, but to keep the scenes looking similar, they made her wear false teeth.
But she wasn't the only one making things tricky, as her on-screen brother went through his own growth spurt. Hammond grew during the production, so much so that all of his costumes needed to be remade because they were all too small.
The hills are alive and they are fighting back
Poor Julie Andrews. She wanted nothing more than to deliver the opening scene with the grace and skill that you'd expect from the legend, but she admitted that filming that hilltop song was almost impossible.
The problem was that every time the helicopter got close enough to film her spinning on the mountain, the strength of the wind would push her directly onto the ground.
"A giant helicopter came at me sideways with a very brave cameraman hanging out [its] side," Andrews explained. "Every time he went around me, the downdraft from the jets would fling me down into the grass."
But even with all of these challenges, the movie has managed to become a classic that remains popular no matter what decade you watch it in.
Source - Popculture / Closer Weekly
