One Of The Sound Of Music's Stars Openly Hated The Classic Film
Actors do not get to pick the roles that make them stars. They might have an inkling in certain cases that a part has the potential to catapult them off the B-list (look no further than Humphrey Bogart convincing George Raft to surrender the lead in Raoul Walsh's 1941 gangster classic "High Sierra"), but, ultimately, the public chooses. And this can be the source of lifelong agony for actors who envisioned entirely different careers for themselves.
Take Christopher Plummer. The great Canadian actor worked steadily in theater, film, and television for over seven decades. He was equally at home playing Cyrano de Bergerac on Broadway or hamming it up as a paganistic reverend in Tom Mankiewicz's irredeemably silly "Dragnet." He won an Oscar, two Tonys, and two Primetime Emmys, and seemed to be having the time of his life even in the worst of movies (and they don't get much more putrid than Luigi Cozzi's 1978 "Star Wars" ripoff "Starcrash").
And yet Plummer was a tortured man because of one role that he could not escape. No matter what he did or where he went, this accursed character would not leave him be. He could denigrate the part all he wanted and insist that he did not like the movie, but the fans of this film didn't care. To them, Plummer was always going to be Captain Georg von Trapp in "The Sound of Music."
'It was a bit like flogging a dead horse'
Plummer was an up-and-coming thespian in the early 1960s when Robert Wise cast him as the patriarch of the singing family that escaped Nazi-governed Austria during World War II. Though the film truly belongs to Julie Andrews (a newly minted star after winning the 1964 Best Actress Oscar for "Mary Poppins"), Plummer generated enough romantic chemistry with his co-lead to leave moviegoers swooning. And so, even though The New York Times deemed Plummer's performance "horrendous," "The Sound of Music" became a massive box office success.
It didn't help that Plummer disliked the material in the first place and behaved curmudgeonly throughout the shoot. As he told The Boston Globe in 2010:
"I was a bit bored with the character. Although we worked hard enough to make him interesting, it was a bit like flogging a dead horse. And the subject matter is not mine. I mean it can't appeal to every person in the world. It's not my cup of tea."
That cup of tea got infused with some seriously curdled milk as the years wore on. He took to calling the film "The Sound of Mucus," and, when once asked by The Hollywood Reporter about his distaste for it, said, "Because it was so awful and sentimental and gooey. You had to work terribly hard to try and infuse some minuscule bit of humor into it."
Clearly, if Plummer had to do it over again, he would've done everything in his power to avoid "The Sound of Music" (which he initially took as training for his musical portrayal in "Cyrano"). But while he could be awfully grouchy about the movie that made him a star, his protests were mini-performances in themselves. Also, he eventually softened his take on the movie.
A cynical old sod opens his heart to an undeniable classic
In his immensely entertaining autobiography "In Spite of Myself," Plummer revealed that he experienced a turnaround on "The Sound of Music" (which, in this instance, he cheekily nicknamed "S&M") while watching the film with friends one Easter Sunday. Though he resisted their invitation at first, he settled in and, to his shock, was blown away. Per Plummer:
"I had not seen the movie for years and the more I watched, the more I realized what a terrific movie it is. The very best of its genre — warm, touching, joyous and absolutely timeless. I suddenly could see why it had brought such pleasure to so many people. Here was I, cynical old sod that I am, being totally seduced by the damn thing — and what's more, I felt a sudden surge of pride that I'd been a part of it."
So while it's true that the film was a constant annoyance for Plummer over the years, his vitriol generally came from a playful place. He'd been brilliant in so many other (to his mind) better movies! Why keep asking him about "The Sound of Music?"
He answered his own question on that Easter Sunday, and I'm glad he did. The film is gooey and sentimental, but it casts a lovely, big-hearted spell that only the grinchiest of grinches could resist. Accept it: "The Sound of Music" is a wonderful movie.