The King and I **** (1956, Yul Brynner, Deborah Kerr, Rita Moreno) – Classic Movie Review 2193

Director Walter Lang’s much loved five-Oscar-winning 1956 film of the Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (lyrics) all-time great stage triumph, based on Margaret Landon’s book Anna and the King of Siam, is hugely entertaining movie musical and a marvellous record of the show.

Yul Brynner’s beloved Best Actor Oscar-winning performance as The King of Siam is captured here for ever, fortunately, and Deborah Kerr (dubbed in the songs by Marni Nixon) makes a sweet and spirited ‘I’, the prim and proper English young widow Mrs Anna Leonowens whom he takes on as live-in governess to his myriad of children.

Hoping for a success that they achieved in bucketloads, the 20th Century Fox studio provides the most attractive and lavish production that money could buy, helping to ensure four more Oscars for art direction/set decoration (Lyle R Wheeler, John DeCuir), sound (Carl Faulkner), costumes (Irene Sharaff) and scoring (Alfred Newman, Ken Darby). The studio pushed this movie instead of their Carousel, promoting it heavily at both the box office and the Oscars, a trick that worked a treat.

The glorious show tune favourites work their magic over and over again, especially ‘Hello Young Lovers’, ‘Getting to Know You’, ‘The March of the Siamese Children’ and ‘Something Wonderful’.

Lang’s filming style is brisk and efficient if rather plain and uncharacterful. But Ernest Lehman makes an excellent job of the screenplay adaptation, like he did with the not too dissimilar The Sound of Music. Rita Moreno plays Tuptim, Martin Benson is Kralahome, Alan Mowbray is Sir John Hay and Geoffrey Toone is Sir Edward Ramsay.

Morgan Creek Productions remade it as a Warner Bros animated feature in 1999, and Brynner spun off a 13-episode TV series Anna and the King as The King with Samantha Eggar as Anna Leonowens in 1972.

The original Broadway production opened at the St James Theatre on March 29 1951, ran for 1246 performances and won the 1952 Tony Award for Best Musical.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2193

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