The Sound of Music

[skillet]

Okay, I know I'm probably risking the wrath of many people, and possibly being drawn and quartered, cyber-speaking, that is.

This past weekend, as many of you probably already know, the Family Channel aired "The Sound of Music" on both Saturday and Sunday night. Now, I can recall having watched this when I was younger; and categorizing it in the same league as "Gone With the Wind"; those movies which are so beloved that to harbor any criticisms is akin to heresy and sacrilege. Well, I watched this last night, and I thought to myself, "wtf?". I guess I should be viewing it from the context of its day; I just couldn't appreciate it and had to turn it off.

I just couldn't handle Captain Von Trapp "whistling" for his children, and then becoming the other extreme, too emotional even for Alan Alda; the kids behaving "perfectly" and wearing identical clothing.......etc. Now I loved "The King and I" and "Camelot", but this was just too much.

I'm sorry; I don't mean to offend anybody, but is anyone else there a non-conformist like me?-cheers

[niggersarelowlife]

I 'Lubbs" any movie that is nigger free. Or in the case of GWTW, showing how a nigger needs to 'axe'.

thumbsupthumbsupthumbsupthumbsup

[blackmetal84]

The only part of "The Sound of Music" that I enjoyed were the Nazi's.

[Massa Charlie]

Man, you really picked a humdinger of a fucked-up film. I used to have nightmares about The Sound of Music, but I had a different experience with it.

In my first year of college, I was trying to get the same classes as a chick I was dating, so my course schedule was all fucked up — I was taking Industrial Engineering at one extreme (because that was the career I wanted to pursue), and I was signed up for Theatrical Drama at the other extreme (because the chick was taking Drama).

So I ended up in Drama, working backstage as a combination Property and Stage Manager, which was physically the hardest job in the theatre. I had to not only supervise construction of props and entire sets, but I had to coordinate lighting and sound and the movement and positioning of set pieces and send the actors onstage and all sorts of shit, and do all of this in a matter of seconds, between scene changes.

Anyway, our first year Drama project was The Sound of Music, because the director found out we had a half-dozen really excellent singers in our class — and one of these singers was, like, opera quality, she could really sing her ass off. The opera girl easily won the role of The Mother Abbess, right, and her big moment in the spotlight was going to be the song "Climb Ev'ry Mountain"...this bitch could send chills up your spine when she hit that crescendo, "til you find your dream," and everybody knew it was going to be the hit of the first act.

So, I worked on this motherfucking stage musical for a couple of months, building the shit that you don't ever want to build, all these ornate walls and fireplaces and bookcases, and a fucking giant curving staircase on wheels that had to be stable enough to support several kids running up and down. Goddamned nightmare.

What made it worse was that, while my property team was working backstage, we had to listen to rehearsals for hours every day...the same fucking dialogue and songs over and over, until even the stagehands had memorized every tiny bit of the script.

About 7 weeks into production, after we'd assembled and painted all the props and finished the costumes and wired the lights and sound system and rehearsed our asses off, we had our first mishap. The guy who played Admiral von Schreiber took a dive in the orchestra pit and broke his forearm in a couple of places, so he came back wearing a big cast and sling, which meant he was fucking out of the show.

Our gay director was shitting green weenies. See, there are only two speaking roles for Nazis in this musical — there's Rolf (a teenage Hitler Youth or something), and there's Admiral von Schreiber, a heavy who arrives at a pivotal point in the second act and orders Captain von Trapp to report for duty with the German Navy. So you need a commanding, menacing Nazi fucker to walk onstage, deliver a few lines, then exit stage right.

Problem was, the director didn't cast a stand-in for the asshole who broke his arm, and we were opening the show in two days.

And that's when my girlfriend insisted that I volunteer to play Admiral von Schreiber. I knew every prop, every costume, every line of dialogue, every song, and every curtain by heart — and she just knew knew that I could walk onstage in costume and deliver the Nazi dialogue in the second act, then resume my backstage duties without missing a beat.

Seemed like a simple solution and a cool opportunity. But, motherfucker, if I was going to be a Nazi for a few brief moments in the limelight, I decided I was going to be the King Hell Nazi of all time. Fuckin-A... My girlfriend was working in Costume & Makeup, and I convinced her to turn me into Adolf Hitler, from the two-finger mustache and swastika armband right down to the jack boots and riding crop. The director was stunned at first, then angry, then receptive, then ecstatic. This can work! This can work!

So... Opening night. This was a big deal, a major production. A full-blown money-making musical advertised in all the papers, and the parking lot was crazy and the house was packed.

I was managing backstage, directing actors to their fucking positions, cuing the lights, the sound, the curtain...and I was doing all of this shit in my Adolf Hitler costume, so I could step onstage smoothly in the second act and deliver my lines.

Okay, so now you have the picture of this very frightening Hitler-like fellow charging around backstage, hissing, whispering and pointing forcefully, making imperative gestures, moving staircases, lifting sofas, scaring children and so forth. Out front of the curtain, the actors were delivering their lines, leading into one song after another. And the whole thing, this monstrosity called The Theatre was functioning like a well-oiled machine, like a fucking Swiss watch, right?

So here comes the end of the first act, the scene in which Maria returns to the abbey, and the Mother Abbess bursts into song with Climb Ev'ry Mountain.

As the curtain started to open on the Mother Abbess's office, out the corner of my eye I saw that a fucking flat was missing from the set (a "flat" is a big portable section of wall). And, wouldn't you know, it was the flat, the crucial one containing a framed portrait of Jesus of Nazareth and a big rosary hanging on a peg — this was the flat directly behind the Mother Abbess as she sang Climb Ev'ry Mountain straight into the spotlight.

Holy fuck. It was her backdrop. And it was missing.

COMMAND DECISION: I moved quickly, grabbed the flat and lifted it into position just as the curtain opened and the scene started. And the deed was done...I was stuck. So I had to hold up a fucking wall through this entire scene, no way out of it.

The heat of the limelight was coming through the flat, and a few inches away from me, on the other side of the wall, the Mother Abbess exchanged lines with Maria and cued the orchestra for Climb Ev'ry Mountain...

It was hotter than hell in my costume and makeup and I was starting to perspire, with little trickles of oily sweat seeping into my eyes, making them sting. The fucking song was taking forever, and the opera girl with the golden voice was pouring it over the audience like an invisible liquid, oh shit, she was givin' it to 'em, and the crowd was soaking it up.

And at this point I realized that I wasn't paying attention to my immediate task: Holding up a fucking wall.

The flat moved away from me and went into zero-gravity for a moment, and then it started very...slowly...leaning...forward. This bitch is going to fall, I thought. It was moving like a clock's minute hand — you can't see it happen, but it's moving alright. I had built that flat, I knew its ingredients. The thing contained about 100 pounds of lumber, a couple dozen three-inch nails, yards and yards of painted canvas, and one million staples. And the whole fucking thing was on its way.

I had nightmares about this shit later on, so you know it was traumatic, bitch.

I had recurring visions of the Mother Abbess singing Climb Ev'ry Mountain with a golden voice, looking up into Heaven's light (which is a lot like a 750 watt limelight), reaching the crescendo of the song — 'TIL YOU FIIIND YOUR DREEEEEEM — and then the gott damned wall caves in and crushes her ass, and the audience screams, and where the wall once stood is fucking Adolf Hitler, taking that spotlight full in the face! ARRRGGH! Holy shit, Adolf Hitler killed the Mother Abbess! This isn't the way the first act is supposed to end!! Chaos ensues, there is great lamentation, many are hospitalized. Mother...Fucker.

That was exactly the shit going through my mind at that moment.

But a kind of miracle happened. Somehow, inexplicably, my fingertips found micro-traction on the painted canvas surface, and I very, very, very gradually, very slowly regained my grip on the wall and brought it back from killing the Mother Abbess, allowing her to finish the song and close the first act to thunderous applause and...curtain.

After the show, our gay director came backstage, and he was just tickled pink (because gay people like pink). He was congratulating everyone, and when he got to me he couldn't say enough about the "special effects" and he asked how I did it.

And I said what special effects?

And he said during Climb Ev'ry Mountain...the thing with the rosary (which was hanging on a peg attached to the wall).

And I said WTF??

And he said, during Climb Ev'ry Mountain, the rosary fucking levitated off the wall as the Mother Abbess sang. You could see the shadow, see the crucifix slowly rise and then settle back. It was a spiritual moment for everyone in the first ten rows. "How did you do that?"

So I told him what had actually happened, explained how close we came to a goddamned catastrophe, and this gay motherfucker almost had a seizure, started coughing up dicks he sucked ten years ago. Hilarious.

Which is the reason I have not seen nor listened to The Sound of Music in about 29 years. Frightening memories.

:hnk

[skillet]

:rofl, you have to publish that somehow, or at least try to do a comedy standup routine!thumbsup

[Taylor]

Well, I watched this last night, and I thought to myself, "wtf?". I guess I should be viewing it from the context of its day; I just couldn't appreciate it and had to turn it off.


Naahhh. Honestly, it sucked even back then Skillet. I think it was 1964, the same year that "Goldfingermania" was sweeping the country. And that Godamned soundtrack score was EVERYWHERE. Many, many times I would have to leap at the AM radio and quickly change the station when "The hills are alive......" came on. Granted, I was a kid back then so there was no way I could ever sit through this schmaltz. But even when I grew older and the testosterone leveled out a bit, I tried to watch it and just couldn't. But you know, "Camelot" was just as sappy, but I still watch it all the time and never tire of it. Richard Harris was brilliant.

And thanks for sharing that totally excellent story Charlie, funny stuff for sure...

[LaTrine Jakscoon]

:rofl, you have to publish that somehow, or at least try to do a comedy standup routine!thumbsup

I agree, its really funny, and you have a great way of telling it, I am still laughing as I picture the scene :rofl

[Southern Belle]

But a kind of miracle happened. Somehow, inexplicably, my fingertips found micro-traction on the painted canvas surface, and I very, very, very gradually, very slowly regained my grip on the wall and brought it back from killing the Mother Abbess, allowing her to finish the song and close the first act to thunderous applause and...curtain.



And so, in the stillness of the night, Massa Charlie teenie heart grew 4 sizes and suddely, he had the strenght of 100 nigger haters! He pulled dat muddafukkin wall back n held dat fucker!!

OMG Massa, I about peed on myself from laughing so hard, Dat mudderfukkin story is right up dere with Mapuh Bacon if you ask me!

[SST]

The photography was excellent.