Production
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.
Donald Bogle's biography of Dorothy Dandridge claims the Oscar-nominated African-American singer/actress was offered the role of Tuptim in partial fulfillment of her 3-picture contract with Twentieth Century-Fox, but Dandridge allowed Otto Preminger (her undercover boyfriend at the time) to talk her out of it because it was not the lead role. Rumors also circulated that Dorothy did not want to play a slave.
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. Moreno later stated in an interview that France Nuyen was also up for the part and believed Nuyen would get the part, but since Nuyen was not a contract player with Fox, she was not cast.
Three songs recorded for the film's soundtrack were never filmed and do not appear in the motion picture (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 only 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.
In 1961, it was re-released for the first time in a 70 mm format, under Fox's Grandeur 70 trademark. For this release, the six-channel version of the stereo soundtrack was finally used. In 1966, it was re-released again, this time in Cinemascope, before being sold to television in 1967.
Read more about this topic: The King And I (1956 Film)
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“It is part of the educator’s responsibility to see equally to two things: First, that the problem grows out of the conditions of the experience being had in the present, and that it is within the range of the capacity of students; and, secondly, that it is such that it arouses in the learner an active quest for information and for production of new ideas. The new facts and new ideas thus obtained become the ground for further experiences in which new problems are presented.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)
“Constant revolutionizing of production ... distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“The society based on production is only productive, not creative.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)