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Tim_Tex
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23 Dec 2012, 6:32 am

It's the holiday season, and one of the most long-lasting holiday traditions on television is the annual showing of the Sound of Music (although it has sometimes been shown on Easter weekend). It debuted on television in 1976, and has been a holiday staple ever since. In the U.S., it currently airs on ABC.

However, there are major differences between the events portrayed in the play/movie, and the true story of the Trapp Family Singers.

1. In the movie, Georg and Maria married in 1938, at the time of the Anschluss (German annexation of Austria). In reality, they married in 1927.

2. "Edelweiss" was specifically written for the movie, and not a traditional Austrian folk song.

3. In the movie, Rolf (Liesl's ex-boyfriend) try to force Georg to accept his naval position at gunpoint. In real life, Georg was never in any danger of being arrested by the Nazis. In fact, after fleeing Austria, they visited a few more times.

4. In the movie, a boy was showing ringing the abbey bell by hand (immediately after Georg and Maria's wedding). This was built for the movie, but the nuns liked it so much that they agreed to keep it in place in the abbey.

5. Maria was portrayed as a governess for all seven children. In reality, she was a tutor for Maria Franziska (portrayed as "Louisa", the third-oldest child) who suffered from scarlet fever at the time.

6. None of the names of the kids used in the movie corresponded with their real life names. Their real names:

Liesl = Agathe
Friedrich = Rupert
Louisa = Maria Franziska
Kurt = Werner
Brigitta = Hedwig
Marta = Johanne
Gretl = Martine

Also, Rupert was older than Agathe, not the other way around, as in the movie. Maria Franziska is the only one still alive (she's 98 years old, btw).

7. The Trapp Family Singers were put together because Georg was in dire financial straits due to some poor investments, not for entertainment purposes.

8. Georg was not the strict disciplinarian portrayed in the movie.

9. While still pretty big, Georg's villa was not as big as the palace shown in the movie.

10. At the end of the movie, the Trapps were shown hiking to Switzerland in the middle of the night. This never actually happened. In reality, they traveled by train in broad daylight and the path not only entered Germany proper, but was within sight of Hitler's vacation home at Obersalzburg. The path then re-entered Austria and into Italy. Georg was born in present-day Croatia, which at the time was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Between World War I and the formation of Yugoslavia, Italy ruled that area, and thus, Georg had Italian citizenship. From Italy, they traveled to England, and then the U.S., where they built a ski resort in Vermont. The resort is still operated by the family. (Georg and Maria had three children, in addition to the seven Georg had with his first wife.)

11. There were three songs that appeared in the original Broadway production, but not in the movie: "How Can Love Survive", "An Ordinary Couple", and "No Way to Stop It". Likewise, there were two songs from the movie that were not in the play: "I Have Confidence" and "Something Good"


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CindySara
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24 Dec 2012, 8:11 am

Our special interest is classic films, and we go through phases of certain films we're most interested in. "The Sound of Music" topped our list when we were 11 and we still love it today. Thanks for the enlightening facts you posted. We have a few more, which you probably already know, but we'll put them anyway.
1) In the "I Have Confidence" scene, look carefully in the background right before Maria is about to pass the fountain and you'll see an older woman in the background dressed in a traditonal German dirndl type of dress. That's the real Maris von Trapp--she was an extra in the movie!
2) Marni Nixon, who played Sister Sophia, dubbed Natalie Wood's singing voice in "West Side Story" and Audrey Hepburn's in "My Fair Lady."
3) Look carefully at Liesl's right ankle in the gazebo dance scene and you may notice it looks a bit thicker than her left. This is because she has a flesh colored ace bandage around it. While rehearsing the scene, she slipped on a bench and crashed through a wall of the gazebo, injuring her ankle in the process. She was a real trouper and continued with the dance anyway, hurt ankle or no ankle.
4) Like his character in the movie, Christopher Plummer was not very warm toward the kids on the set and didn't have the comaraderie with them that Julie Andrews had.
5) The boy who plays Rolf apparently had dark brown hair but had it bleached to look more like an "Aryan youth." The same goes for Nicholas Hammond (Friedrich). By the way, Hammond went on to play Superman on TV! He apparently was growing so fast during the making of the film that Charmian Carr began to appear shorter than him and the camera crew had to make the floor lower where Hammond stood in order to make him still appear to be the little brother.
6) Charmian Carr was 22 when playing the sweet sixteen Liesel. In order to appear younger, Robert Wise (the director) had her gain about 20 pounds of "baby fat." She said that th other cast members jealously looked on as she ate two helpings of the yummy chocolate cake you see the von Trapps eating at the dinner when Maria sits on the pine cone.
We hope you and any other far out "Sound of Music" fan enjoyed these facts--even if they already know them. :)


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