Singin' and Dancing Back in Time.: julie andrews

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Wednesday, October 5, 2011

It will be Julie Andrews vs Julie Andrews in the 60's era final match

Good news for Julie Andrews fans as her two films, The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins will face each other in the final match of the 60's era. The winner earns the last spot in the final four. Both films won by identical scores. Music beat Funny Girl 13-6 while Mary Poppins beat The Music Man 13-6. This reminds me of what Judy Garland did in the 40's era round as her two films Easter Parade and Meet Me In St. Louis battled one another. Anyway Julie will have one of her films make it to the final four. The question is, will it be Sound of Music or Mary Poppins? Me..I gotta go with Mary. The match starts immediately and runs thru Saturday mid-day EST. Good luck to both films.

1 THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965)

3 MARY POPPINS (1964)

Friday, October 15, 2010

The Sound of Music (1965).

The Sound of Music(1965). Directed by Robert Wise. Cast: Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. The film is based on the Broadway musical The Sound of Music, with songs written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, and with the musical book written by the writing team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. Ernest Lehman wrote the screenplay.

The musical originated with the book The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria von Trapp. It contains many popular songs: "Edelweiss", "My Favorite Things", "Climb Ev'ry Mountain", "Do-Re-Mi", "Sixteen Going on Seventeen", and "The Lonely Goatherd", as well as the title song.

The movie was filmed on location in Salzburg, Austria and Bavaria in Southern Germany, and also at the 20th Century Fox Studios in California.

Maria, who is always in trouble with the nuns, life changes when a widowed navy captain, Georg von Trapp needs a governess for his seven children. Mother Abbess, unsure of Maria's suitability, asks her to take the position on a temporary basis.

Maria finds that the captain keeps his household in strict shipshape order. While the children at first very hostile to her, they warm to her when she comforts them during a thunderstorm . Liesl, who is Sixteen, sneaks into Maria's window, after a secret meeting with the messenger boy. At first she insits that she doesn't need a governess, but, Maria instead offers to be her friend.

Later, the Captain entertains, Baroness Elsa Schraeder, a wealthy socialite from Vienna, along with Max Dettweiler, who is looking to find the perfect musical act for the, Salzburg Music Festival.

The Captain becomes aware that Maria has been taking the children on a boat on the lake. Maria, standing up in the boat, loses her balance the boat capsizes, throwing everyone into the water. He sends the children home and orders her to return to the convent.

When he hears the children singing “The Sound of Music” for the Baroness, he changes his mind. Maria has brought music back into his home, and he asks her to stay. Maria and the children perform a puppet show ("Lonely Goatherd"). Max announces that he has entered the children in the Salzburg Festival.

At a dance held in Schraeder's honor to celebrate her engagement to the Captain, Maria sees eleven-year-old Kurt trying to dance and tries to teach him the steps. The Captain cuts in and he Maria perform the dance perfectly. Maria breaks off and says something about not being able to remember any more. The children perform “So Long, Farewell” to say goodnight to the guests, and the Baroness, jealous of Maria, convinces her to return to Nonnberg. Will Maria ever return to the Von Trapp family?

This is a beautiful musical. From the cinematography,
acting, costumes, music, choreography. The film is family friendly and a sweet story.

Dame Julia Elizabeth Andrews, is an English film and stage actress, singer, and author. She is the recipient of Golden Globe, Emmy, Grammy, BAFTA, People's Choice Award, Theatre World Award, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award honours. Andrews was a former British child actress and singer who made her Broadway debut in, My Fair Lady(1954) and Camelot, and in musical films, Mary Poppins (1964), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress, and The Sound of Music (1965).

Andrews big comeback was in the films: The Princess Diaries (2001), its sequel The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004), and the Shrek animated films (2004–2010). In 2003 Andrews revisited her first Broadway success, this time as a stage director, with a revival of The Boy Friend at the Bay Street Theatre, Sag Harbor, New York (and later at the Goodspeed Opera House, in East Haddam, Connecticut in 2005).

Andrews is also an author of children's books, and in 2008 published an autobiography, Home: A Memoir of My Early Years.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Why It's Mary Poppins......

Classic Disney fantasy film about the nanny Mary Poppins who works her magic for two unhappy children in London, England. Julie Andrews is simply outstanding in her film debut. She positively glows when she is onscreen. I can see why she won the Best Actress Oscar that year. It is easily one of the best screen performances of all time. Of course, Mary Poppins is a hard act to follow and she would never come close to matching it except for maybe The Sound of Music. Anyway, a childhood classic that still holds up with a lot of song and dance, some humor, and some ok special effects. The flying sequences hold up better than the other effects. And Dick Van Dyke is a plus as chimney sweeper Bert. The songs are still amazing to this day. Julie Andrews had a terrific voice and every song she sings is truly music to your ears. Dick Van Dyke holds his own as Bert with a terrific number of his own. Dyke starts off the cheery song Chim Chim Cher-ee and is quite good, but when Julie comes in towards the end, the song really takes off. And when she sings Feed The Birds (Tuppence a Bag), it's a showstopper. Mary Poppins is a film that everyone can enjoy. A true classic.
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Mary Poppins: Our first game is called "well begun is half done."
Michael: I don't like the sound of that.
Mary Poppins: Otherwise entitled, "let's tidy up the nursery."
Michael: I told you she was tricky.

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Bob Fosse

Was a musical theater choreographer and director, screenwriter and film director. He won an eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction. He was nominated for an Academy Award four times, winning for his direction of Cabaret. He was identified with his third wife, Gwen Verdon. She was both the dancer/collaborator who he choreographed much of his work and, together with dancer/choreographer Ann Reinking, a guardian of the Fosse legacy after his death. Fosse is considered to be one the most influential coreographers of the 20th Century.

Esther Williams.

JANE POWELL

After rising to fame as a singer in her home state of Oregon, Powell was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer while still in her teens. Once there, the studio utilized her vocal, dancing and acting talents, casting her in such musicals as Royal Wedding, with Fred Astaire, A Date with Judy, with friend Elizabeth Taylor and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, with Howard Keel. In the late 1950s, her film career slowed, only to be replaced with a busy theater and television career.Click picture to enter websight.

Jeanette MacDonald

Singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier (Love Me Tonight, The Merry Widow) and Nelson Eddy (Naughty Marietta, Rose-Marie, and Maytime). During the 1930s and 1940s she starred in 29 feature films, four nominated for Best Picture Oscars (The Love Parade, One Hour With You, Naughty Marietta and San Francisco), and recorded extensively, earning three gold records. She later appeared in grand opera, concerts, radio, and television. MacDonald was one of most influential sopranos of the 20th century. Click picture to view fan website.

Joan Crawford.

Click picture to view website. Joan Crawford, born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre. Starting as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting on Broadway, Crawford was signed to a motion picture contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925. Initially frustrated by the size and quality of her parts, Crawford began a campaign of self-publicity and became nationally known as a flapper by the end of the 1920s. In the 1930s, Crawford's fame rivaled MGM colleagues Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo. Crawford often played hardworking young women who find romance and financial success. These "rags-to-riches" stories were well-received by Depression-era audiences and were popular with women. Crawford became one of Hollywood's most prominent movie stars and one of the highest paid women in the United States, but her films began losing money and by the end of the 1930s

Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Richard Rodgers (1902 – 1979) and Oscar Hammerstein II (1895 – 1960) the songwriting duo, on our musical page. They created many popular Broadway musicals in the 1940s and 1950s during what is considered the golden age. With Rodgers composing the music and Hammerstein writing the lyrics, five of their shows, Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music. They won thirty-four Tony Awards, fifteen Academy Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, and two Grammys. Click picture to read movie reviews.

Cab Calloway

Calloway was a master of energetic scat singing and led one of the United States' most popular African American big bands from the start of the 1930s through the late 1940s. Calloway's band featured performers including trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Adolphus "Doc" Cheatham, saxophonists Ben Webster and Leon "Chu" Berry, New Orleans guitar ace Danny Barker, and bassist Milt Hinton. Calloway continued to perform until his death in 1994 at the age of 86 .Click picture to view official website.