keystring I watched the original "Die Trapp Familie" recently, and then watched a documentary. Even the Maria there is made too sweet and passive. The original Maria was feisty, headstrong, with a temper, and the Baron's calm manner kept the family in even keel.
I watched both "Die Trapp Familie" (1956) and "Die Trapp Familie in Amerika" (1958) recently, shortly after the Sound of Music (1965). I see there are some differences in the story telling and how they developed the character. Especially how Maria developed. I watched a 20 minute documentary as well, and keystring made a good summary about it.
keystring The "feelings of Bavarians" sort of puzzled me, since it's part of Germany (at one point it did want to separate),
Wait - what??!?!
We failed?
I don't know if the German versions from 1956 and 1958 are available in English ( I doubt, because overdubbing foreign movies is not common in US. No, in the US there is the trend to remake successful movies from other countries, and they did with the Sound of Music. Now I have 3 different stories:
- Sound of Music (Spectacular escape from Nazis, oldest child was a girl with a love affair)
- Die Trapp Familie (Less Hollywood style, children as in real life, a priest was drilling the children to sing.)
- Documentary (The husband is the calm one. Maria is resolute. The children were very musical before Maria arrived. It was a priest, who taught the Children to sing perfect. The escape from Nazi-Austria was unspectacular. It was closer to the 1956 German version.)
If I had to choose my favorite, it would be part 2 of the German version from 1958: "The Trapp Family in America". In this one, Maria was way less naive than in both the other movies. During the storytelling, she developed into a businesswoman.
But the very best was the priest (he had the role of the conductor): Absolutely convinced that singing chorals and J.S.Bach is the very best they can do. He always convinced the family to sing those pieces. And always the audience bored out quickly. But if they did some Austrian folk music or American country music (the priest rated this music as unworthy) they got a lot of attention and applause from all over the place. This pattern repeated so often in the movie, but somehow nobody of the characters made a useful conclusion about it. Except at the very end, because it had to be happy ending. ^^
The least appealing movie was part 1 of the German version. It was probably most accurate to the real story, but in comparison to the Sound of Music, the storytelling was a bit boring. Maria was too naive for my liking. And she was way too friendly. On the other hand, I loved to hear the original Austrian/Bavarian dialect.