Fun facts about The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music is that film you can watch over and over again without getting bored.
The 1965 American musical drama stands out thanks to its loving cast, the phenomenal soundtrack and storyline.
Starring the beloved Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, here are five fun facts you did not know about the movie.
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Julie Andrews almost wasn’t cast as Maria
Richard Rodgers said that Julie Andrews would be perfect for the role of Maria but no one else agreed.
It was only after the crew saw Mary Poppins that they noticed how everybody loved her.
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Julie Andrews kept falling over on the mountain
The opening scene where Maria is dancing on the mountain saw Julie Andrews fall multiple times thanks to the helicopter hovering above.
“This was a jet helicopter,” Andrews said.
“And the downdraft from those jets was so strong that every time … the helicopter circled around me and the downdraft just flattened me into the grass. And I mean flattened. It was fine for a couple of takes, but after that you begin to get just a little bit angry… And I really tried. I mean, I braced myself, I thought, ‘It’s not going to get me this time.’ And every single time, I bit the dust.”
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Christopher Plummer hated the movie
Our beloved Captain von Trapp hated the film to the point where he actually called it “The Sound of Mucus”.
“Because it was so awful and sentimental and gooey,” he said.
“You had to work terribly hard to try and infuse some minuscule bit of humor into it.”
Because he hated the film so much, Plummer would sit eating and drinking in excess which caused him to gain so much weight.
In the DVD commentary, Plummer also confessed that he was in fact drunk during the filming of the music festival.
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Young Gretl was traumatised during the boat scene
In the scene where Maria had taken the von Trapp kids out to town and were spotted by the Captain in the boat outside their home traumatised young Gretl.
Gretl did not know how to swim and therefore it was agreed that Maria would fall forward when the boat flipped.
When the boat flipped, Maria instead fell backwards which saw Gretl struggle and inhale a lot of water. She eventually vomited on the actress that played Louisa.
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Friedrich grew 15cm during filming
Nicholas Hammond played Friedrich and grew an incredible 15cm during filming.
Because he was supposed to appear shorter than Liesl but taller than Louisa - at the start of the film Hammond had lifts on his shoes and by the end of it they were gone.
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