The Sound of Music (1965 Movie)

[00:00:10] Hello and welcome to Fetch the Smelling Salts. Don't do it. Don't you do it. Don't sing. And I'm Kim! Right. And this is our podcast, all about historical dramas from movies and TV shows to miniseries from every era and all around the world. And this episode is for Kim's brother-in-law and Kim's brother-in-law only. Yes, Lucas!

[00:00:42] If you're not Lucas, you can just stop listening. No, please don't. We really like you. Yes, we really like you. And I really love Lucas. So Lucas, my brother-in-law, this is his favorite movie. He's so cute, right? This is his favorite movie. I love it. And he asked me, you know, he asked if we would do it. And I did not know until recently that, you know, this was more than just a fun musical.

[00:01:12] Oh, by the way, we're doing The Sound of Music. The Sound of Music, which the thing about The Sound of Music is it's a lot of people's favorite movies. And a lot of people have really poignant connections to it. They watch it every year. They watch it at Christmas time. I wasn't one of those people, but I've watched it a few times. You know, I feel like it's one of those movies I've watched bits of it a bunch of times. But this time, I absolutely loved it. I get it now.

[00:01:40] Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. It's so wonderful. Up till now, I mean, up till recently, I didn't realize that, you know, there was a true story and history behind it that we could kind of talk about. And then I looked into it like, you know, a few months ago and I messaged Alice. I was like, oh, my God. And she's like, didn't you know? I'm like, no. So this is for you, Lucas. I love you. It's for Lucas and all of our other Sound of Music heads. Yes.

[00:02:08] So in the spirit of Julie Andrews and favorite things, here's a list of some of my favorite things. It's pretty low hanging fruit. It's period drama butts. Oh, you're not going to sing it? Oh, no, I didn't set it to the music. I feel like the timing isn't right. Oh, fair, fair, fair. Okay. But if anyone else wants to do it, I could. Okay. Period drama butts and bats and naps and RuPaul's Drag Race. Those are all my things.

[00:02:36] I mean, I could make an entire list just about things about bats, like fluff on bats and bats with double stupid ears and bats with little pig noses. The thing about it is that it has to be something tiny. If you say that your favorite things are like smashing PBs and supporting underserved communities, you're a liar. You're doing it wrong. Like name your favorite kind of spoon or get the fuck out of here. Mm-hmm.

[00:03:06] Yep. Fair, fair. All right. My favorite things. Dogs and cats, obviously. Spicy food. Women who have amazing backs. Oh. And man butts. There we go. And wine. I'm drinking wine. And wine sippy cups. Thank you whoever created wine sippy cups. So you're holding a thing that looks like a stemless wine glass, but it's actually an insulated cup that has a cap. It has a lid, like a coffee cup.

[00:03:36] So that I can lie down and drink it. This is amazing. Wow. Not that I'm lying down now, but like when I'm kind of like lounging on my sofa and I'm like almost lying down. This is brilliant. So my ex-colleagues gave this to me. You know what else you can drink wine out of in bed? A bottle. Oh, that's true. True, true. I might finish the rest of the wine in bed. In the bottle. There we go. Oh. Boom. Lots to cover. This is a long ass movie.

[00:04:05] We have a lot to talk about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm glad we touched on our favorite things. Yes. And I'm glad that we overlap in the most important points. But. Yeah. Yeah. So, summary. The movie opens with extended scenes of the beautiful landscape near Salzburg, Austria, where free-spirited young Julie Andrews is wandering the hills and singing the iconic sound of music number. My notes just wrote, how perfect is she?

[00:04:35] Like, she's so perfect. Christopher Plummer was famously annoyed by how perfect she was. But you know what? They still were friends. Yeah, that's fine. I mean. Like, for the rest of their lives forever. I think I probably would also be. I mean, in the face of the perfectness of Julie Andrews, I'll be like, ugh! Stop being so perfect! I want to hate you, but I can't. But then you have to be her friend. I know. Yeah, it's okay. We'll be best friends. So, yeah. So, the tolling of the church bells reminds her that she's late.

[00:05:05] And she's run towards the non-bird abbey because she is a novice nun. So, over in the abbey, the nuns, together with the Reverend Mother, debate her suitability for the role. And the general consensus seems to be that she's lovely but lacks the discipline needed for her life in the abbey. So, obviously, they do this over song. A Reverend Mother takes this on, you know, and she decides to send Maria on a little job as a governess of seven children. Yes, seven!

[00:05:34] Even Maria's like, seven children? Seven children of retired naval officer Captain Von Trapp. When Maria arrives at the Von Trapp residence, she immediately messes up by first mistaking the butler for the captain and then proceeding to wander around the house when she was explicitly told to wait. So, the captain arrives and is naturally irritated by this because he is all about the discipline.

[00:06:02] So, we find out that since the death of his wife, he has been raising his children. He has seven children. Liesel, Friedrich, Luisa, Kurt, Brigitte, Martha, and Gretel using strict military discipline. So, Maria is supposed to be the 12th in a long line of governesses as the children, in turn, have been playing tricks on their governesses to scare them away. Or, as they say later, mainly to get their father's attention.

[00:06:28] So, they immediately try their pranks on Maria, slipping a frog into her pocket and then later tricking her into sitting on a pine cone at dinner. She is in phase, however, and she not only covers for the children, including the 16-year-old Liesel, who is so beautiful, who has snuck out for a rendezvous with her love interest, Rolf. I'm not a fan of him. Oh, Rolf. Oh, Rolf. Anyway, and she also wins them over with her kindness and generous spirit.

[00:06:57] So, while the captain is away in Vienna, Maria makes what she calls play clothes for the children. So, she makes them out of these drapes in her room. And, I mean, it's really weird because she's like, yeah, I'm going to make them play clothes. And then the next day, they have play clothes and there's seven of them. And she doesn't have a sewing machine or anything, but hey-ho, it's a movie. Oh, right. I never thought about that. She's actually brought no sewing materials with her. Like, she doesn't even have a pair of scissors. She has nothing. She's just like, I can't make my own clothes.

[00:07:26] She doesn't measure them or anything. Like, she has this realization that she can make clothes out of these drapes, like, at night, right? Like, the kids are all over at bed. And I guess the next day, they are, like, trapesing around Salzburg in their really cool clothes. So, hey- I don't know. It's Hollywood magic. Yeah, miracles happen. Miracles happen. You know, she's a nun. Or nun to be. So, she takes them on these excursions around the city and, you know, the hills while teaching them to sing. Oh, and then there's my favorite song, which is the Do-Re-Mi song.

[00:07:55] Oh, that one's your favorite? That's my favorite song. Yeah. Of, of, yeah. I mean, there's so many beautiful songs in the movie, but I just, I don't know. Just, that song just makes me so happy. So, soon enough, Captain returns, but he's not alone. He's brought along with him the wealthy socialite Baroness Schrader and their mutual friend Max Dettweiler. So, whom I assume is some sort of musical manager. Basically, something of the sort. I don't know. He'll manage anything. Exactly. Just give him something. He'll manage it. Yeah.

[00:08:25] So, the captain is not a happy bunny when he finds out that Maria and the kids have not only gone on a boat ride in the lake, but they were horror of horror singing to make things worse. And their excitement at seeing the captain, the children, managed to capsize the boat and end up soaking wet when they first meet Fancy Pants Baroness. Can I just talk about the, I love costumes, but I don't know a lot about costumes.

[00:08:51] But I think more than usual, this costume that we first see the Baroness in, to me, it's the best one of the film. Oh, yeah. It's better than her gold dress layer. Yes. Like this thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, she looks great. Right. She's on point. Yeah. She's immediately on her side. Yeah. At first. At first, you're like, you know, she's not that bad. She seems quite nice. She's dressed so well. Exactly. Right.

[00:09:20] So, she meets the kids and, you know, she's kind of like, oh, shit, what the hell's going on, you know? Anyway, Maria and the captain get into an argument, mainly about, you know, what she's done with the kids. And then she essentially, she tells the captain that, look, you've just been neglecting them. So, the captain gets pissed off and then initially fires Maria. But then he goes into the house. He hears the kids are all, they've cleaned up and come downstairs.

[00:09:45] And they started to sing for the Baroness a song that they've kind of prepared together with Maria. Yeah. And the captain is so moved by it that he even goes, you know, and joins in himself. So, that's really, really sweet. And then he apologizes to Maria, says, I'm really sorry. You know, you're great. Please, can you stay? And then we kind of see this little, the first tender moment kind of shared between them. That was very nice.

[00:10:12] And then soon after, we see more of these little lovey-dovey glances happening when the captain performs for everyone by singing Edelweiss. This is my favorite song. It's really sweet. Yeah. It's a beautiful song, Edelweiss. Now, Baroness is no fool. She has clocked what is happening. And we can kind of see her making her own plans to kind of like one-up Maria. Because she proposes that they throw a ball, right? Because she knows this is her element. She's a socialite.

[00:10:42] This is her thing. So, anyway, the ball takes place. And the kids are in the courtyard kind of play dancing. And Maria joins in and attempts to teach them this Austrian folk dance with Kurt as her partner. So, that's really, it was just a really sweet scene. Anyway, Kurt sucks. So, the captain comes in. He's like, child, let me show you how it's done. You know? And they dance together beautifully. And the sparks fly between Captain and Maria. And the Baroness walks in. And she's like, what the fuck, right?

[00:11:12] Maria's kind of all taken aback. And she's like, oh, they're all flustered and red. Anyway, the Baroness ends up messing with Maria's head under the guise of like helping her get dressed for the dinner party that Max invites her to. Basically, Max asks Maria to join them at the ball. And Maria's like, oh, I'm not really dressed. And then she goes up with the Baroness. The Baroness is like, oh, I'll help you dress. And then she whispers in her ear. And basically, she convinces Maria that, right, you're in love with the captain. The captain thinks he's in love with you.

[00:11:42] But he's going to get over that pretty soon. So, Maria ends up leaving abruptly that night just to go back to the abbey. She doesn't say bye. She just leaves. With Maria out of the way, Baroness can sink her talents into the captain, successfully convincing him to propose. However, back in the abbey, the Reverend Mother manages to convince Maria to not run away from her problems. And her fears about her romantic feelings with the captain and tells her that, look, she has to go back to the Bontrap residence.

[00:12:11] Which she does. Much to the ire of the Baroness and the joy of the children and the hidden but also obvious happy surprise of the captain. Maria, however, is dismayed when she hears of the captain and the Baroness' engagement. But she agrees to stay until a replacement governess can be found. Soon, however, it becomes clear to the Baroness that the captain still has feelings for Maria. So, she kind of, like, engineers this breakup.

[00:12:38] I mean, she kind of knows, like, he's already kind of starting to break up with her. And she's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're not leaving me. I'm leaving you. Yeah. I mean, she's the queen. Yeah. I was like, okay, you know what? She leaves on her own terms. She's like, let me tell you what's happening right now. She's like, no. So, you know what? I don't care. However way she leaves, she leaves, right? So, she leaves. That's great. Captain gets together with Maria. They express their feelings for each other. They get married and live happily ever after. Not. Oh, no.

[00:13:07] No, well, not yet anyway. Why? Because of the Nazis? The Nazis ruin everything. So, yes. So, Austria has been annexed by the Third Reich. And so, the couple has gone on for their honeymoon. This has happened. And they end up coming back early when they hear this. And the captain is immediately summoned via telegram to accept a commission to the Nazi Marine Corps thing. I don't know. Whatever. You know? It's the Navy that make it Nazi. Exactly. Nazi Navy, right?

[00:13:38] Now, the captain is not an asshole Nazi. And he does not sympathize with them. So, he's kind of like making plans for he and the family to run away in the night. However, just as they leave the house, they're trying to push this car out, right? They are intercepted by a group of brown shirts led by the Goletter Hans Zeller. Probably not pronouncing anything. Daoletter. I don't know. Daoletter. Yeah. Sorry. Anyway, but Hans Zeller. Your guess is as good as mine.

[00:14:07] I watched that movie days ago. Exactly. So, he and his peeps are waiting outside and intercept the born traps. However, fortunately, while the captain and Maria were away, Max, he had ever the opportunist, sneakily entered the kids into the Salzburg Folk Festival. Because early on, he had realized what amazing singers they are. He had asked the captain to let him do this. And the captain was like, no, no, I don't want my kids to sing in public.

[00:14:37] But now that the captain and Maria were away, he basically did that, right? But now it's a good thing because this gives the captain a way of kind of like lying to the Nazis saying, yeah, yeah, that's where we're going, you know, and trying to plan a new means of escape. So, the family performed at a festival that night. And they essentially just managed to slip away just before the winners are announced. Unfortunately, they win first prize. So, it's pretty obvious that they're not there.

[00:15:05] Pursued by the brown shirts, they seek shelter in the abbey where the reverend mother hides them in the crib while a few other nuns attempt to slow down their pursuers. I like the bit where like the brown shirts are like clanging at the gate and the nun is like very slowly walking to the gate. I wish she could have gone, oh no, I'm sorry. I lost my key. Anyway, just as we were thinking that, you know, the family might have just escaped or

[00:15:31] might have just managed to evade capture, they are discovered by none other than dickface Rolf, right? Fuck you, Rolf. Fuck you, Rolf. Basically, he's now turned all brown shirt Nazi and stuff, right? And he alerts his peeps. But the family managed to get away because these two awesome, like, I guess they're like the second in charge nuns after reverend mother. They essentially sabotaged the car engines.

[00:16:02] Oh wait, I have a quick note about that. Yeah? My husband Keith, who does some car stuff. Yeah? We had an old VW van. I have no idea what they pulled out. So they pulled out their ignition coils. That's what he said. I was like, yeah, car shit. They pulled out the car shit. I just love that scene. They're like, reverend mother, I have sinned. I too have sinned. So cute. Anyway, I think that's my favorite part of the movie.

[00:16:30] So eventually, the movie ends with the family kind of like happily climbing over the hills into Switzerland where they presumably live a very nice and happy life. The end. Well, great job. Thanks. This is technically a World War II movie or the lead up to World War II. The last one we did like this was Remains of the Day. Yes.

[00:16:57] And it was a nightmare for us because we're like, how do we kind of explain the events leading up to World War II? Oh God. I'm not going to go into a whole lot of that. Yes, do I. But there is already so much to say about the real Von Trapp family. So first of all, the reason that we have this movie or the musical it's based on at all is because, of course, there is a real family, Von Trapp.

[00:17:21] And Maria Von Trapp, played by Julie Andrews, wrote a memoir in 1949 called The Story of the Trapp Family Singers. And the sources I used refer to the family as Trapp or Von Trapp. I'm going to say Von Trapp because that's what they say a lot in the film and it's just easier to pick one. And as usual, we'll put all of our sources in the show notes. But I'll shout out The Story of the Trapp Family Singers.

[00:17:49] She had several other books published, including her autobiography titled Maria. And then I used this really great resource from the National Archives in the United States. They have a magazine called Prologue Magazine. And Joan Gearn wrote an article in it called Movie vs. Reality, The Real Story of the Von Trapp Family, using the National Archives because, spoiler alert, when the Von Trapps fled the Nazis,

[00:18:19] they eventually made it to the U.S. And so all of their documents are in the National Archives. So that you can learn a lot from that. That's pretty cool. The movie itself was a sensation. And in the 1966 Oscars, it won five Oscars and was nominated for more. So it won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Sound, Best Editing, and Best Music. Of course. Julie Andrews was nominated for Best Lead Actress.

[00:18:49] Best Supporting Actress nomination went to Peggy Wood, who plays the Mother Abbess. Oh, yeah. She's great. Yeah. She sings Climb Every Mountain. Beautiful. Which I also really love. It's a nice, like, slut anthem, I think. Also Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, and Best Costumes by Dorothy Jeekins. Oh, all wonderful. Oh, I know. Brock Flicks has some amazing articles about the costumes in this. And there's a ranking.

[00:19:18] Because they're all, oh, so amazing. Julie Andrews is snatched throughout this entire film. And that dress that Liesl wears when she's, like, dancing around with Rolf. I just love that dress so much. And they're not really, you can tell, they're not really 1930s styles. They're very much 1960s. Yeah, yeah. Like, cuts and lengths and stuff like that. But you can't be mad at it. They're just gorgeous. So can I tell you a little bit about the real von Trapp? Yes, please.

[00:19:47] So our girl, Maria, she was born Maria Augusta Kuchera. She was born in Vienna in 1905. And she was orphaned as a little girl and raised by her uncle, who was an atheist and an abusive piece of shit. Wow. Which are very separate things. He happened to be an atheist. He was an abusive piece of shit. Which is interesting because when they have that scene in the gazebo, she sings about her bad childhood.

[00:20:15] And it seems like it's just like the only reference we get to her life prior to becoming a novice. But even that little line was based on her real history. And so she went to the state teacher's college of progressive education in Vienna. And while she was there, one day she visited a church thinking that she was going to a Bach concert. Not played by actual Bach, but you know, Bach songs. Yeah.

[00:20:44] But surprise, it was a Palm Sunday Mass. And the priest there lit a little faith fire in her. Aw. Love to see it. And so after graduating, she had this kind of fire still in her. And she entered the Benedictine Abbey of Nunberg in Salzburg as a novice. And they actually filmed a bit there.

[00:21:09] This abbey was founded circa like 712. Wow. Like 712 the year. And it's a moment. By St. Rupert of Salzburg. So founded by now a saint. Mm-hmm. And is the oldest continuously existing nunnery in the German-speaking world. So the monastery complex is like a protected monument. It's like in the historic center of Salzburg. It's a UNESCO heritage site. Like all that stuff.

[00:21:38] And they did like not a lot of the interiors, but they did like exterior shots and in the cemetery apparently. And Maria was there for two years. And she was actually very badly behaved, but she did love it. Oh, wow. So Georg von Trapp was born in 1880 in Zara, which was then the kingdom of Dalmatia in Austria-Hungary, which is now the city of Zadar in Croatia.

[00:22:06] So you'll know yourself. The map of Europe in this chunk, this like middle bit of Europe, was changing so much over this time period of like between when Georg was born and when he died, basically. It was all Austro-Hungarian empire, just shifting, shifting, shifting borders. I love it. Interestingly enough, in my 23andMe, it's all that shit. All my people are from that, that whole chunk.

[00:22:34] They're like, I don't know, you're Austro-Hungarian, some kind of somewhere. But we didn't fuck with the Nazis. We didn't even fuck with like Emperor Franz Josef. We were out of there. We were in America for so long. Georg was a captain in the Austrian Navy during World War I. Mm-hmm. And he became a national hero as a submarine commander and he sunk a lot of Allied ships, which is a little bit awkward. Like he was the best at it and he got a lot of medals for it.

[00:23:04] And after the war, he had to retire because Austria actually lost all of its seaports. So there weren't no Navy anymore. Okay. When in 1911, he married Agatha Whitehead, who is someone we don't really hear about at all in the movie. So just as for Agatha, she was a really cool person in her own right. Her grandfather, Robert Whitehead, invented the torpedo. Ooh.

[00:23:33] I mean, that's not that cool. But I mean, it's kind of sad actually. Like the main things we know about her is that she was like the first wife of this dude and the grandfather of this other dude. Yeah. And they both really liked torpedoes. So I tried to find other things about her. She was very fashionable, very beautiful. She was related to a lot of fancy royal people like in the Austrian Empire. And she could knit. Oh.

[00:24:02] Because she knit during the war to help the war effort. The other thing she did during the war was have babies because they did, Georg and Agatha, had seven children together. And all of the names are different. So their first one was Rupert, born in 1911. He's sort of Friedrich, even though Friedrich isn't the oldest. Then there's Agatha, who was born in 1913. She's Liesl.

[00:24:32] Werner, born in 1915. That's Kurt. Hedwig, born in 1917. That's Brigitte. So that's already, what, five kids before the end of the First World War. Nice. So then we have Johanna, born in 1919. That's Marta. And Martina, born in 1921. And that's Gretel. So my mom is one of seven kids. And I've always known, oh my God, there's so many kids. You know, you are my aunts and uncles and stuff.

[00:25:00] But like, just seeing all those kids, you know, young kids lined up like that. I was like, holy cow. It's a lot of kids. For me, it's the dates. It was a bit like when we were looking at the Bronte family. Like, oh, your uterus did not get a lie down. Not rest. It was just bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Yeah, and you're a mom, so. Yeah. Well, I mean, at least they were rich. Yes, true. So they had governesses. They had things like that. Yeah, fair.

[00:25:30] But also war. Yeah. Hmm. So in 1921, the family were living in Klosterneiberg, which is a town now in Austria, when an epidemic of scarlet fever hit. And many of the children became ill. And they all recovered. But when Agatha eventually came down with it, she was ill for months. And she never really fully recovered. And ultimately, she died on the 3rd of September, 1922. Oh.

[00:25:59] So she had her last baby in 1921 and then passed away in 1922. So the family then moved to Villa von Trapp, which is just outside Salzburg. And Maria Kuchera came to the von Trapp family in 1926 to be a tutor for just one of the children, Maria, who was recovering from something. Some sources I read said it was scarlet fever, but she had already had scarlet fever in 1921.

[00:26:26] So I don't know if this was like after effects or if she was recovering from a different illness. But at any rate, she had been ill. And so Georg wanted a tutor specifically just for her because she couldn't go to school. So Maria was meant to stay for 10 months and then go back to the Abbey to take her final vows. And in her autobiography, Maria, she says she fell in love with the children, but not Georg. Georg.

[00:26:55] And when he proposed, she said that it's a good thing that he specifically asked her to be the mother of his children as well as his wife, because otherwise she might not have said yes. And she has a lovely quote. She said,

[00:27:19] Well, that's nice. And she said that when she went back to the Abbey, the nuns actually advised her to marry Georg. They were like, maybe you're not so good at this. Yeah. Like, yeah, you like those kids. We know you love Jesus, but maybe as a wife, you'd be better for him.

[00:27:45] Georg von Trapp was actually not the stern, detached father who hated fawn and music. Although I would say in the film, he didn't exactly hate those things. He just really missed his wife. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And didn't want to be reminded of all those things. He can clearly sing and play the guitar. So he was already musical. But the real Georg was a gentle, warm-hearted dad who enjoyed singing and making music with his family long before Maria came along.

[00:28:14] And apparently the depiction of him is so stern was really upsetting to the family. But I don't know. Obviously, the movie changes things. It truncates the timeline. It makes things a little bit more dramatic. But also, I think the real Georg would, you know, have been happy that his character was so sexy. I know. I was like, hmm. And I just loved how he was flirting with the Baroness, which is so cool. Yeah, you man's got moves.

[00:28:44] He does. Well, his moves did not work on the real Maria very well. But they still got married. They got married in 1927 when Maria was 22 and Georg was 47. Oh, wow. Yeah. That doesn't really come across in the film, thank goodness. No. No. No. And so 1927 was 11 years before they left Austria in 1938.

[00:29:14] So in the film, they talk about this thing going on politically in the background. There's at the ball, there's this exchange with Georg where he says, well, we're all Austrian. And this dude says, well, there are some who think we ought to be German. And they're very mad at those who don't think so. And that basically sums up the Anschluss, which was the unification of Germany with Austria. I'm glad it's you pronouncing it and not me.

[00:29:45] I don't know if some of our German listeners would agree with you, but I do my best. So the Anschluss was the annexation of the federal state of Austria into the German Reich on the 12th of March, 1938.

[00:29:59] The idea of having a unified Germany-Austria or greater Germany had been around since the 1870s, but it became really popular in 1918 at the end of the First World War when the Austro-Hungarian Empire fell. And the various post-World War I treaties stripped Austria of a lot of its stuff. We already talked about the ports. They ain't got no navy no more.

[00:30:27] And also the Sudetenland. They were real sore about that. And these treaties prohibited the unification because they didn't want them to have any kind of power. It wasn't until Hitler came into power in 1933 that it became a whole Nazi thing. Long story short, a referendum was planned for the 13th of March, 1938.

[00:30:53] But the day before the referendum, the Nazis just like showed up at the border and boom, Anschluss. That's it. That's it. You just got Anschlussed. But back to the family. So during the Great Depression, before the Anschluss even happened, Georg lost a lot of his fortune, which, you know, it's all relative. Like, if we lose our fortune, then we like live in a dirt hole. But if they lose their fortune, they still kind of live in their villa.

[00:31:23] But they have to take borders. And that is actually what led them to start the whole family singing group. Ah. And they did win the first prize at the Salzburg Folk Festival in, I think, 1936. Oh, cute. Now, in this time, Maria and Georg had two more kids, Rosemary Bourne in 1929 and Eleanor, who they called Lorley, in 1931.

[00:31:50] Now, a few things led to their eventually fleeing Austria, and some of which is depicted in the movie. Georg was already really open about disliking the Nazis. He refused to fly the flag. Like, I'm going to imagine that he really sexually tore it up. Oh, yeah. And he refused the commission in the German Navy. He actually did refuse it. The family then refused an invitation to perform at Hitler's birthday party. Oh, yes. Nice one. Mm.

[00:32:27] Mm-hmm. To sit down and say they understood that they were in danger.

[00:32:52] Like, there are only so many times that you can openly defy the Nazis like that. So it was time to get out of Austria. And when they escaped, the family did not haul ass over the Swiss Alps with, like, their luggage and stuff. In part because that wouldn't have made sense. Mm-hmm. Because the other side of the Alps is actually Germany. Oh, right. And apparently close to, like, one of Hitler's summer homes. Oh, no, no. You don't want to go there. It's like, oops.

[00:33:22] Just traipsing through Hitler's backyard. Yeah. Like, we're out of Austria now. Nope. And also in part because, thankfully, they didn't have to go over some mountains. In June of 1938, they just took a train to Italy. Kind of boring. But it was no issue because Georg was an Italian citizen because, you remember how the map was changing all the time. So he was born in what is now Croatia.

[00:33:52] But then, at some point, was Italy. Oh. And so that granted him Italian citizenship. And one source I read said that the Nazis closed the Austrian border the day after they left. But I actually couldn't confirm that. Once they were out of Austria, they used an American booking agent to, like, book a tour, a singing tour in the U.S. And they traveled to Pennsylvania via London.

[00:34:20] And while living in Pennsylvania, Maria and Georg had their third child together, their last child, Johannes, in 1939. So she was doing all of this, escaping and going on tour. While being pregnant. Also while she's pregnant for the third time. So that brings the number of Von Trapp kids to 10. So they stayed in the U.S. on a six-month tourist visa. Then they went on tour to Scandinavia.

[00:34:48] And eventually, actually went back to Salzburg for a few months. Just thinking, maybe it would be okay. But before war broke out. Right? They missed their villa. But thankfully, before war broke out, they headed back to the U.S. And they stayed there. Again, I couldn't confirm this. But one source I read. So this is IMDb facts. So I couldn't actually, like, confirm or deny some of these IMDb facts that were interesting.

[00:35:13] Including that while they were gone, Heinrich Himmler actually used their villa as his residence. Oh my God. Right? Wouldn't that be awful? No amount of bleach. I was going to say, I'll burn it to the ground. Sorry. We'll just, we'll stay in. Yeah. In America. Thank you. In the early 1940s, the family bought a farm in Stowe, Vermont called the Trapp Family Lodge, where they ran a music camp.

[00:35:41] And also in the 1940s, Maria and the children gained U.S. citizenship. So Maria and the older girls applied for it. It took about four years. And the younger kids were already eligible. And Rupert and Werner became naturalized citizens by serving in World War II. As Americans. Georg died in 1947.

[00:36:07] And the Trapp Family Lodge opened to guests in 1950 and is still operating today as like a lodge and hotel and everything. So if you wanted to go on A Sound of Music. You can afford it. Oh, gosh. I looked at their website and they do like gorgeous weddings. Amazing. Skiing, et cetera. The family stopped touring in 1955.

[00:36:33] And by then, the group had quite a few non-family members, actually, because the children left to go and do other stuff as they came into adulthood. In 1956, Maria and three of the children went to Papua New Guinea to do missionary work. And some of them stayed in Papua New Guinea. But Maria came back to run the Trapp Family Lodge before it was taken over by youngest son, Johannes. And Maria herself died in 1987.

[00:37:03] After writing the memoir, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, Maria sold the film rights to a German producer and signed away all of her rights to the story in the process. So they didn't actually make a lot of money from the films and the play. But first, two German films were made.

[00:37:27] De Trapp Family in 1956 and De Trapp Family in America in 1958. And I haven't seen any of those. It was like the sequels. Yeah, literally the sequel. It's like Five Olds. I don't know why I thought about it. You know what I mean? I'm glad you brought Fievel into this, though. We all love Fievel. I never realized how many overlaps there are between these films.

[00:37:56] And now that I know that there's a sequel. And now we clearly have to cover An American Tale as a historical movie. I would definitely do that. Even though I prefer Fievel Goes West, I'd definitely do An American Tale. And then we can do the history of mice emigrating to America. So the American rights to the story were bought from the German production company.

[00:38:23] And then the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical debuted in 1959 before being turned into the 1965 film that we know and love today. Okay. Oh. I've got just a few randomers. Mm-hmm. Little random facts. Do you remember the exchange, which is kind of famous, where Maria has come out of the boat, or she's come out of the lake. She's all drenched. Her waist is snatched.

[00:38:52] She's yelling at the captain. And she says, I'm not finished with you, captain. And he says, well, I am, captain. That apparently was an accident. Oh, really? But they loved it so much that they kept it because it showed a ruffle in his feathers. Yes. You know? A ding in his armor. Rolf and Max Dutweiler were all fictional additions to the film.

[00:39:16] But the Von Trapps did have a musical director for 20 years, and he was also their priest. Oh, wow. A father, Franz Vosner. And they fled to America with him and their assistant. I don't know how that works. How can you be a priest and then also just have this other gig? I don't know, man. Where you can just go on tour and just, like, go off to America? Spiritual advisor. It was the war. All kinds of crazy things happened.

[00:39:44] Last thing I have, Edelweiss, my favorite song of the film. It is a little white flower endemic to the Swiss Alps, but it's not a real Austrian song. Oh. So they use it as this really emotional way for Georg to, like, rouse the audience. And it's this moment of resistance, like, aren't we Austrian? Don't we hate these dicks, the Nazis?

[00:40:13] Can't we all sing about this flower we like? And it's really effective, but it's not. It just was written by Rodgers and Hammerstein. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's a beautiful song. When you were a kid, did you ever sing the Edelweiss song with a hand-clappy motion thing? No. Oh, we used to do that in school. Really? Yeah. This was not part of my institutional upbringing, singing Edelweiss. I mean, it was part of, like, music lessons and stuff.

[00:40:42] So, like, I bet find, like, you know, Singaporean kids around my age, right? And ask them if they did this. And they would remember this. It was kind of like, wow, music class. And you would sit in, like, a circle. And you would basically put your two palms out, right? And there's a way of, like, you're kind of, like... No, I know what you're talking about. You know, Edelweiss. Where you're holding each other's hands, but you're slapping them? Yes, you're slapping, yeah. Yeah.

[00:41:08] So, like, you slap the hand of the person on the right, and then it goes to your thigh, and then the bottom of your hand. And then, yeah. So, it's just really fun. And then you do it as you're singing. That's why I always remember when I hear Edelweiss, yeah. Oh, that's brilliant. I need to see you get together with another, like, Singaporean person. I will. So, and just, like... Yeah, we'll do that. Just start doing it together. All right. That was really good. Thank you for educating me.

[00:41:35] Yeah, again, there's just, like, so much you can go into. No, but just the history of the family is enough. That is super cool. You can go to the lodge, which I definitely want to do someday, the lodge in Vermont. I don't know if it's still run by anyone in the Von Trapp family, but there are still descendants of the Von Trapp family who sing today. Oh. You can look them up on iTunes. Oh, my God.

[00:42:01] So, I think, I'm not very sure, but I'm, like, 80% sure that this is how much my brother and daughter Lucas loves Sound of Music. So, for their honeymoon, and they might correct me if I'm wrong, but pretty sure I remember, for their honeymoon, they went to Spain and Italy and stuff like that, right? And then he insisted that they go to Austria just to do the Sound of Music tour thing. So, they went to Salzburg? Yeah.

[00:42:29] So, I'm pretty sure they did that. And, which was, like, super random, right? You're, like, in south of Europe, and then you're just, phew, I'm going to go there. But he was like, we got to go. So, I think for, like, their next big anniversary, Lucas, go take the family to the Von Trapp lodge. You should definitely go to Stove, Vermont, to the Trapp family lodge. And be like, take me with you. Ha! Yeah. So, do you have an award for this film? I do.

[00:42:58] So, initially, my award was going to be something to do with the nuns and taking out the, I was going to say carburetor. I have no idea. I don't know anything about cars. It's the only thing I've ever heard. Anyway, but then I found something better. My award goes to Max for being the best human leech.

[00:43:20] Because of all his comments, it's just, I mean, about how, you know, his comments about how much he loves rich people and leeching off them. And he just keeps talking about it. And I loved that scene where he's, like, having his little tea. And he's like, I love rich people. And I love my life when I'm around rich people. I'm like... Just with a face full of strudels. Exactly. He's like, I want my third strudel. Yeah. By the end of the movie, though, I'm worried for him, for Max.

[00:43:48] Because what happens, he doesn't get away with them. No, he doesn't. He is initially going to maybe flee with them. I'm not sure. But that is off the table because he has to be the distraction. Exactly. And so, if they're going to be mad at someone and they know he's really close to them. Yeah. Yeah. I'm really worried about what actually happened to him after that. I was also worried about the nuns. I'm like, they had to have known that they... Who else could have tampered with the engines? But I guess maybe the nuns have some sort of protection. They're like, no, we can't touch the church. Yeah.

[00:44:18] I'd love to learn more about how the nuns fared through the war. Max, I'm going to hope, because he was their manager, that he got to go with them eventually to America. He just kind of took that train. He got out before the borders closed. He was just like a day or two behind them. It's fine. He had to grab some strudels along the way. Yeah. Yeah. Well, my award goes to someone that we haven't really talked about because he's a whatever character and he's a dick. But Rolf. Oh.

[00:44:48] Yeah. Look, I feel bad for the guy because this has got to be, and this is my official award, the worst self-cock block. Because imagine wanting to be a Nazi so bad that you break up with your girlfriend to spend more time being a Nazi. I know. Oh. And he's about to let them go. He's about to say nothing when Georg says, like, you're never going to be one of them. Yeah.

[00:45:16] And that's supposed to be an eye-opening moment. That's supposed to be a compliment. Like, kid, you are not like this. Yeah. You are better than this. And instead, he's like, what? I'll show you who's not going to be a Nazi. I'm going to Nazi so hard right now on my whistle. Yep. It's tragic. It is tragic. Stupid boy. I know. What can I help but hate him? It's fine. I mean, he probably also did not make it out of the war very well. That's true. That's true. So, well. The oil is coming to him.

[00:45:47] Awesome. Well, that was great. Thank you. Speaking of strudel, you've made me hungry. I don't have any strudel, but I'm pretty sure I have some, like, Little Brand ice cream and some chocolate digestive. So, I'm just going to smash them together. All right. Cool. Well, I'm going to go drink the rest of my wine out of a bottle in bed. Hooray. Hooray. Awesome. And if you'd like to hit us up with some suggestions,

[00:46:16] you can find us on Instagram at Fetch Smelling Salts. Yep. You can also email us at Fetch Smelling Salts at gmail.com. We'd love to do some more musicals. You know we love an immigrant story. Yes. Immigrants. And we love things from the 60s. The dresses. Why not? Yeah. Yeah. Why not? We'll say bye-bye. Goodbye.

[00:46:50] It's all finished. This podcast is part of Podomity, the UK's podcast comedy network. Why not laugh at what else we've got? Visit Podomity.com. Bye-bye.