| The King and I | |
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original film poster by Tom Chantrell |
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| Directed by | Walter Lang |
| Produced by | Charles Brackett Darryl F. Zanuck (uncredited) |
| Written by | Ernest Lehman Margaret Landon (novel) Oscar Hammerstein II (play) |
| Starring | Deborah Kerr Yul Brynner Rita Moreno Martin Benson Terry Saunders |
| Music by | Richard Rodgers |
| Cinematography | Leon Shamroy |
| Editing by | Robert L. Simpson |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | June 28, 1956 |
| Running time | 133 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The King and I is a 1956 musical film made by 20th Century Fox, directed by Walter Lang and produced by Charles Brackett and Darryl F. Zanuck. The screenplay by Ernest Lehman is based on the Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II musical The King and I, based in turn on the book Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon. The plot comes from the story written by Anna Leonowens, who became school teacher to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in the early 1860s. Leonowens' story was autobiographical, although a recent biographer has uncovered substantial inaccuracies and fabrications.[1]
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Three actors in the film had their singing voices dubbed by other people. The dubbed voices belonged to:
The cinematography was by Leon Shamroy, the art direction by John DeCuir and Lyle R. Wheeler and the costume design by Irene Sharaff.
Mrs. Anna Leonowens (Deborah Kerr), a widow from Wales, arrives in Bangkok with her young son, Louis, to teach English to the children of the royal household of King Mongkut (Yul Brynner). She is escorted to the palace by the King's sinister right-hand man, the Kralahome, of whom she is very apprehensive - she and her son must disguise their fear ("Whistle A Happy Tune"). She is greeted, but told she will stay in the palace, although the king promised her she would have a house. She demands to see the King and does see him. The King is pleased with her, and takes her to meet his wives and his fifteen children that live in the palace (he has sixty-seven more). She is charmed by the children, and agrees to stay and teach them. Here she meets a new, young wife - a Burmese girl named Tuptim, who arrived shortly before Anna did. She is unhappy living at the castle, because she is in love with Lun Tha, the man who had brought her to Siam from Burma.
The King's wives come to help Anna settle in to her new home, and discover a photo of her husband. Anna reminisces about her days with Tom, and gives her blessing to other young lovers, who are like they used to be, ("Hello Young Lovers").
The King is troubled - he craves truth, but how can he learn the truth when different cultures say different things? ("Is A Puzzlement")
As Anna teaches her lesson to the children, she explains that getting to know people is her favorite thing to "teach" ("Getting to Know You"). The lesson goes on and the children start to not believe in the things she is teaching them, such as snow and Siam's small size. The King intervenes and scolds his children for not believing her.
Late one night, the King summons Anna to talk to her about the Bible, and how Moses says the world was created in six days. The King of Siam thinks Moses is a fool - he thinks that the world took many centuries to create. They have a small argument about the Bible in which Anna stands above the King. Due to the Siamese custom that no one's head should be higher than the King's, Anna is forced to sit on the floor as the King has her write a letter to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, telling him he will send male elephants to America to help with the Civil War. Anna tries to tell him that the elephants will not last long if only male elephants are sent, but the King loses interest and tells her to finish the letter herself. Before this, Anna has to have her head lower than the king's, which she first refuses, until the king loses his temper, forcing her to kneel and lie on the floor. Anna goes outside, where she meets Lun Tha and learns that he and Tuptim have been meeting in secret. He asks Anna to fetch Tuptim. Anna refuses at first, afraid of the consequences if the lovers are caught, but, remembering her own happy days with her husband, Tom, she relents. The lovers meet ("We Kiss In A Shadow"), and Lun Tha promises that when he comes again, he and Tuptim will escape from Siam.
Later, the King is told that England thinks him a barbaric leader, so he and Anna plan an English style feast for many European officials. Anna helps to make some of the ladies' European dresses, and also orders food and teaches the orchestra European music. She is appalled to find that she only has one week to do this in, but the King reminds her that according to Moses, the whole world was created in one week.
Anna dresses the ladies up in English clothes, but forgets to give them undergarments. She is horrified on discovering her mistake, and entreats the ladies to keep their backs to the wall when presented to the Ambassador. But at the sight of the Ambassador's spyglass, the ladies flee in panic, exclaiming that he has the head of a goat. The Ambassador arrives, along with his aide Sir Edward Ramsey, with whom Anna was in love before she met Tom - in fact, Edward did once ask for her hand in marriage. He waylays Anna as she goes to help the King with the seating, and they reminisce and dance together, which the King walks in on and is highly jealous. The King offers his arm to her and leads her to dinner, where the guest are entertained by the King's intellectual observations, and Tuptim's theatrical version of Uncle Tom's Cabin, which she narrates. When the play is over, however, she escapes with her lover. Anna and the King talk after the feast, and he gives her one of his rings as a present. Anna is quite taken by this gesture. It is here that the movie seems to show that they have fallen in love with each other, even though the King rejects the idea. The king recites a poem, known as the "Song of the King" where he states that women are "blossoms" and that men are "like Honeybees", and declares that "honey bees must be free" to "Fly from Blossom to Blossom", however, "blossoms must not ever fly from bee,to bee to bee". Anna laughs at the poem, however. She then teaches him how to dance the polka ("Shall We Dance"). However, they are interrupted by the Kralahome, who explains that Tuptim has been found and the King is told of her lover. He decides to whip her, but Anna calls him a barbarian, and says that he has no heart. He is unable to beat Tuptim and runs off in humiliation, and Anna gives back the ring and decides to leave Siam. Tuptim is led off in tears after an official announces that the corpse of Lun Tha has been discovered in the river. She is not seen again in the film.
Anna, thinking that she can no longer be of any use, is just about to leave Siam when she is told that the King is dying. His health has steadily declined ever since Anna called him a barbarian, and he has refused any help. She goes to his bedside and he gives her back the ring, pleading with her to wear it and saying that she has always spoken the truth to him. She decides to stay in order to help his young son, the Crown Prince Chulalongkorn, rule the people. As the prince is making his first statements as King, declaring the end of slavery in Siam, and stating that the King's subjects will no longer bow down to him but rather stand at attention, the King dies, only Anna and the Kralahome noticing. The film ends with Anna laying her head on his hand.
The film makes Tuptim's ultimate fate more ambiguous. In the stage version, when she hears of Lun Tha's death, she exclaims "Then I shall join him soon", implying that the King's soldiers will execute her (which is what happens to her in the film Anna and the King of Siam and the 1999 Anna and the King). In the 1956 film version of The King and I, Tuptim, when hearing of Lun Tha's fate, exclaims "Dead! Oh, no!", and begins weeping uncontrollably as the soldiers drag her off. She is not seen in the film again.
Otherwise, the film makes almost no changes from the stage version, other than the deletion of several songs and the addition of a choral finale.
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The musical was written for Gertrude Lawrence and her appearance in the film was contractually guaranteed. However, she was diagnosed with cancer while playing the role on Broadway and died during the run. Dinah Shore, a singer as well as an actress, was considered for the role of Anna in the movie. Maureen O'Hara, who had a pleasant soprano voice, was originally cast, but Richard Rodgers did not agree to the casting. It was Yul Brynner who pressed for Deborah Kerr to play the role. Marni Nixon provided Kerr's singing for the film. Nixon and Kerr worked side-by-side in the recording studio for songs which combined speaking and singing. Nixon also dubbed Kerr's singing again for the film An Affair to Remember.
An interview with actor Carlos Rivas (Lun Tha) included in the 50th anniversary edition DVD mentions that originally Dorothy Dandridge was under consideration for the role of Tuptim, but for reasons unknown to Rivas, was not cast. Rita Moreno, who was under contract to the studio producing the film, was invited merely for a test, but impressed the producers enough that she was selected for the part.[2]
Several of the musical's songs were deleted before the film's premiere[3] (though three are on the soundtrack album: "Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?" "I Have Dreamed" and "My Lord and Master".) "I Have Dreamed" and another song that was not used in the film, "Western People Funny", survive in the released film as orchestral underscoring. The first half of the "Song of the King" was turned into ordinary spoken dialogue in the film, but survives as it was actually written on the soundtrack album. A special 50th Anniversary edition was released in 2006, which promised to restore the lost numbers, but it included only the audio for "Shall I Tell You?" This would seem to indicate no footage exists of these numbers. An off-screen choral reprise of "Something Wonderful" was added to serve as the film's finale (the play ends with musical underscoring, but no singing). None of the other reprises of the songs were retained in the film version.
The film was one of the only two films (the other being Carousel) shot in the then-new 55 mm CinemaScope 55 format. Although the promotion for the film made much of it being shot in CinemaScope 55, it was only released in the standard 35 mm CinemaScope format, with 4-channel stereo instead of the 6-channel stereo originally promised. CinemaScope 55 was never used or promoted again after this production.
The film was a huge success upon release, both critically and financially. However, due to the representation of King Mongkut of Siam, the film is banned in Thailand. Today, it is one of few films to receive a 100% approval rating on the film critic website Rotten Tomatoes.
In 1961, it was re-released for the first time in the Todd-AO 70 mm format, under Fox's Grandeur 70 trademark.[4] For this release, the six-channel version of the stereo soundtrack was finally used. In 1966, it was re-released again,[4] this time in Cinemascope, before being sold to television in 1967.
As mentioned above, the soundtrack album, first released on Capitol Records, restored three songs recorded from the film but not included in the final release print. Added to the original LP and CD releases of the film was a seven minute overture not heard at the beginning of the film. The album was first issued only in mono in 1956, but, as with the Rodgers and Hammerstein films Oklahoma (1955) and Carousel (1956), the sound on the film had been recorded in what was then state-of-the-art stereo, which made it possible, with the advent of stereo on records, for Capitol to release a stereo version of the soundtrack album in 1958. As with Oklahoma! and Carousel, the record grooves of that time made it necessary for part of the album to be omitted in the stereo version, so half of Getting To Know You was cut in that edition.
The film soundtrack album of The King and I was issued on CD first by Capitol and then by Angel Records. The first two editions of the CD were exact duplicates of the LP, but in 2001, as with the Oklahoma! and Carousel soundtracks, Angel issued a new, expanded edition of the album, which not only featured all the songs (including the ballet "The Small House of Uncle Thomas"), but some of the film's incidental music, as well as the original main title music. The Overture heard on the LP version and on the first two editions of the CD was included as a bonus track.
The soundtrack album was an instant success and continues to be a best seller to this day.
| Chart | Year | Peak position |
|---|---|---|
| UK Albums Chart[5] | 1956 | 1 |
| 1957 | ||
| 1958 |
| Preceded by Oklahoma! by Original Soundtrack Rock 'n' Roll Stage Show by Bill Haley & His Comets Rock 'N' Roll by Elvis Presley This Is Sinatra! by Frank Sinatra This Is Sinatra! by Frank Sinatra This Is Sinatra! by Frank Sinatra This Is Sinatra! by Frank Sinatra Oklahoma! by Original Soundtrack The Tommy Steele Story by Tommy Steele Loving You (OST) by Elvis Presley Pal Joey by Original Soundtrack |
UK Albums Chart number-one album 13 October 1956 - 27 October 1956 3 November 1956 - 10 November 1956 17 November 1956 - 2 March 1957 9 March 1957 - 16 March 1957 23 March 1957 - 30 March 1957 6 April 1957 - 27 April 1957 4 May 1957 - 15 June 1957 22 June 1957 - 20 July 1957 10 August 1957 - 31 August 1957 16 November 1957 - 2 February 1958 22 March 1958 - 29 March 1958 |
Succeeded by Rock 'n' Roll Stage Show by Bill Haley & His Comets Rock 'N' Roll by Elvis Presley High Society by Original Soundtrack This Is Sinatra! by Frank Sinatra This Is Sinatra! by Frank Sinatra This Is Sinatra! by Frank Sinatra Love Is the Thing by Nat King Cole The Tommy Steele Story by Tommy Steele The Tommy Steele Story by Tommy Steele Pal Joey by Original Soundtrack Pal Joey by Original Soundtrack |
The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won five.[6][7]
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