The King and I Sale
The third Rodgers & Hammerstein Broadway hit to go before the cameras, The King and I boasts a career-making performance from Yul Brynner, repeating his stage triumph as the titular monarch and proving to moviegoers that bald can be beautiful. It's Brynner's proud king that provides the fulcrum to the plot, and it's Brynner himself, with his piercing gaze and graceful physicality, that demands our attention.
The story line, adapted from an earlier, nonmusical stage hit, follows widowed English teacher Anna Leonowens (Deborah Kerr) to her new posting as tutor to the Siamese king's formidable mob of children. The collision of East and West affords its winning mixture of drama and humor, and the warm friendship that grows between the king and the patrician teacher provides a poignant, unfulfilled romance between the two wary protagonists. Into this framework, the composers insert a superb score, echoing Asian motifs, as well as a bouquet of lovely songs including "Hello, Young Lovers," "Shall We Dance," and two ensemble pieces for Anna and the royal children ("Getting to Know You" and "I Whistle a Happy Tune") that suggest prototypes for Rodgers & Hammerstein's later hit, The Sound of Music.
For this 1956 production, 20th Century Fox lavished stereophonic sound, widescreen cinematography, intricate production design, and stunning sets. Technically, this newly mastered THX version is the best-looking and -sounding King yet to hit video. But, regardless of format, the glorious music is reason enough to hit "play." --Sam Sutherland
Description
The third Rodgers & Hammerstein Broadway hit to go before the cameras, The King and I boasts a career-making performance from Yul Brynner, repeating his stage triumph as the titular monarch and proving to moviegoers that bald can be beautiful. It's Brynner's proud king that provides the fulcrum to the plot, and it's Brynner himself, with his piercing gaze and graceful physicality, that demands our attention.
The story line, adapted from an earlier, nonmusical stage hit, follows widowed English teacher Anna Leonowens (Deborah Kerr) to her new posting as tutor to the Siamese king's formidable mob of children. The collision of East and West affords its winning mixture of drama and humor, and the warm friendship that grows between the king and the patrician teacher provides a poignant, unfulfilled romance between the two wary protagonists. Into this framework, the composers insert a superb score, echoing Asian motifs, as well as a bouquet of lovely songs including "Hello, Young Lovers," "Shall We Dance," and two ensemble pieces for Anna and the royal children ("Getting to Know You" and "I Whistle a Happy Tune") that suggest prototypes for Rodgers & Hammerstein's later hit, The Sound of Music.
For this 1956 production, 20th Century Fox lavished stereophonic sound, widescreen cinematography, intricate production design, and stunning sets. Technically, this newly mastered THX version is the best-looking and -sounding King yet to hit video, but in its full-frame, pan-and- scan version the formatting downsizes far too much of the splendor, losing some sharpness to the imagery. For viewing on all but the smallest screens, the widescreen edition is vastly superior. But, in either version, the glorious music is reason enough to hit "play." --Sam Sutherland
The King and I Customer Review
Unlike most musicals, this isn't a love story (although it has one as a secondary plot); it's the story of two strong-minded people struggling to reach mutual understanding and respect across a cultural chasm. In 1862, Anna Leonowens (Deborah Kerr) arrives in Bangkok, with her 12-year-old son Louis (Rex Thompson), to take up a position as teacher to the Siamese King's flock of children. She and the King (Yul Brynner) immediately butt heads over the issue of the "brick residence adjoining the palace" which the King has conveniently forgotten promising her, and Anna is ready to turn right around and go back to England, but when she meets the children, including Crown Prince Chulalongkorn (Patrick Adiarte), she's smitten and stays. As time goes by, though the house problem remains unresolved and there is often friction over Anna's teaching and over such cultural roadblocks as the existence of slavery (the King's harem includes Tuptim (Rita Moreno), a "gift" from the King of Burma, who is pining for her lost love, Lun Tha (Carlos Rivas)), the two of them slowly begin to appreciate each other, and Anna becomes the king's sometime secretary, confidant, and even advisor, culminating in a brilliantly successful banquet for Sir Edward Ramsay (Geoffrey Toone), the Queen's personal plenipotentiary. But when Tuptim and Lun Tha plot to run away together, it begins to look as if all Anna and the King have gained will be lost.
The high point of the movie is, of course, the inimitable Brynner, recreating (at the age of 36) his original stage role of five years before (he had had one other film appearance and a long list of TV credits, but it was this part that brought him wdespread fame, and he so made it his own that it's impossible to think of it as being played by anyone else). Like the much darker and more tragic The Last Samurai (Two-Disc Special Edition), which is also about an Oriental country struggling to join the modern world, the story is based on fact: King Mongkut (the name by which he was generally known outside his own country) was passed over for the throne in favor of a half-brother, devoted his life to religion, travelled all around the country as a monk, and became the first abbot of Wat Bowonniwet before he ascended the throne in 1851, aged 47; he embraced Western innovations and initiated the modernization of Siam, both in technology and culture, which earned him the epithet "The Father of Science and Technology." Kerr plays off her co-star perfectly, and co-stars Terry Saunders, who plays chief wife Lady Thiang, and Martin Benson as the Kralahome (a sort of Prime Minister) provide a background motif ranging from loyal helpfulness to jealous dislike. The sets and costumes are gorgeous and the music everything you'd expect from the talented and prolific team of Rodgers & Hammerstein, although several good songs from the stage version ("My Lord and Master," "Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?," and "I Have Dreamed") were inexplicably left out of the film score. Perhaps the most delightful sequence comes near the end, as Anna teaches the King to polka and they swirl joyously around the polished floor of one of the palace's many rooms--which makes the ending, when it comes, all the more pognant. (As many times as I've seen it, this remains one of the very few movies that can make me tear up.) If you have any liking at all for musicals or classic movies, this is one you must have in your DVD collection.
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