''The King and I'' is a 1956 American musical film made by 20th Century-Fox, directed by

Walter Lang Walter Lang (August 10, 1896 – February 7, 1972) was an American film director. Early life Walter Lang was born in Tennessee. As a young man he went to New York City where he found clerical work at a film production company. The business piq ...

and produced by

Charles Brackett Charles William Brackett (November 26, 1892 – March 9, 1969) was an American screenwriter and film producer. He collaborated with Billy Wilder on sixteen films. Life and career Brackett was born in Saratoga Springs, New York, the son of ...

and

Darryl F. Zanuck Darryl Francis Zanuck (September 5, 1902December 22, 1979) was an American film producer and studio executive; he earlier contributed stories for films starting in the silent era. He played a major part in the Hollywood studio system as one of ...

. The screenplay by

Ernest Lehman Ernest Paul Lehman (December 8, 1915 – July 2, 2005) was an American screenwriter. He was nominated six times for Academy Awards for his screenplays during his career, but did not win. At the 73rd Academy Awards in 2001, he received an Ho ...

is based on the 1951

Rodgers and Hammerstein Rodgers and Hammerstein was a theater-writing team of composer Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) and lyricist-dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960), who together created a series of innovative and influential American musicals. Their popular ...

musical '' The King and I'', based on the 1944 novel '' Anna and the King of Siam'' by

Margaret Landon Margaret Landon (September 7, 1903 – December 4, 1993) was an American writer known for '' Anna and the King of Siam'', her best-selling 1944 novel of the life of Anna Leonowens which eventually sold over a million copies and was translated in ...

. That novel in turn was based on memoirs written by Anna Leonowens, who became school teacher to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in the early 1860s. Leonowens' stories were autobiographical, although various elements of them have been called into question. The film stars Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner. The film was a critical and commercial success, and was nominated for 9

Oscars The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

, winning 5, including Best Actor for Brynner. An animated film adaptation of the same musical was released in 1999. On February 12, 2021, Paramount Pictures and Temple Hill Entertainment announced that another live-action film version was in development.

Plot

A widowed schoolteacher, Anna, arrives in Bangkok with her young son, Louis, after being summoned to tutor the many children of King Mongkut. Both are introduced to the intimidating Kralahome, Siam's prime minister, who escorts them to the Royal Palace, where they will live, although Anna had been promised her own house. The King ignores her objections and introduces her to his head wife, Lady Thiang. Anna also meets a recent

concubine Concubinage is an interpersonal and sexual relationship between a man and a woman in which the couple does not want, or cannot enter into a full marriage. Concubinage and marriage are often regarded as similar but mutually exclusive. Concubi ...

, a young Burmese, Tuptim, and the fifteen children she will tutor, including his son and heir, Prince Chulalongkorn. In conversation with the other wives, Anna learns Tuptim is in love with Lun Tha, who brought her to Siam. Anna still wants her own house and teaches the children about the virtues of home life, to the King's irritation, who disapproves of the influence of other cultures. She comes across Lun Tha and learns that he has been meeting Tuptim in secret. He asks her to arrange a rendezvous. The lovers meet under cover of darkness, and Lun Tha promises he will one day return to Siam and that they will escape together. King Mongkut becomes troubled over rumors that the British regard him as a barbaric leader and are sending a delegation, including Anna's old admirer, Sir Edward, possibly to turn Siam into a protectorate. Anna persuades the King to receive them in European style by hosting a banquet with European food and music. In return, the King promises to give Anna her own house. Sir Edward reminisces with Anna in an attempt to bring her back to British society. The King presents Tuptim's version of ''

Uncle Tom's Cabin ''Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly'' is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U ...

'' as a traditional Siamese ballet. However, the King and the Kralahome are not impressed, as the play involves slavery and shows the slaveholding King drowning in the river. During the show, Tuptim left the room to run away with Lun Tha. After the guests have departed, the king reveals that Tuptim is missing. Anna explains that Tuptim is unhappy because she is just another woman in his eyes. The King retorts that men are entitled to a plenitude of wives, although women must remain faithful. Anna explains the reality of one man loving only one woman and recalls her first dance before she teaches the King how to dance the polka, but the touching moment is shattered when the Kralahome bursts into the room with the news Tuptim has been captured. For her dishonor, the King prepares to whip her despite Anna's pleas. She declares he is indeed a barbarian. The King then crumples, puts his hand over his heart, and runs out of the room. The Kralahome blames Anna for ruining him as Tuptim is led away in tears after learning Lun Tha was found dead and dumped into the river. That causes Anna to sever all ties as a governess and declare she will leave on the next boat from Siam. On the night of her departure, Anna learns that the King is dying. Lady Thiang gives Anna his unfinished letter stating his deep gratitude and respect for her, despite their differences. Moments before the ship departs, he gives Anna his ring, as she has always spoken the truth to him, and persuades her and Louis to stay in Bangkok. He passes his title to Prince Chulalongkorn, who then issues a proclamation that ends slavery and states that all subjects will no longer bow down to him. The King dies, satisfied that his kingdom will be all right, and Anna lovingly presses her cheek to his hand.

Cast

* Deborah Kerr as Anna Leonowens * Yul Brynner as King Mongkut of Siam * Rita Moreno as Tuptim *

Terry Saunders Terry Saunders was a film and Broadway performer. She is most widely known for playing Lady Thiang in the film and stage versions of ''The King And I ''The King and I'' is the fifth musical by the team of Rodgers and Hammerstein. It is ba ...

as Lady Thiang * Martin Benson as Kralahome * Rex Thompson as Louis Leonowens * Patrick Adiarte as Prince Chulalongkorn *

Alan Mowbray Alan Mowbray (born Alfred Ernest Allen; 18 August 1896 – 25 March 1969) was an English stage and film actor who found success in Hollywood. Early life Mowbray was born in London, England. He served with distinction in the British Army in Wo ...

as Sir John Hay *

Geoffrey Toone Geoffrey Toone (15 November 1910 – 1 June 2005) was an English character actor and former matinee idol, born in Ireland. Most of his film roles after the 1930s were in supporting parts, usually as authority figures, though he did play the lead ...

as Sir Edward Ramsay * Carlos Rivas as Lun Tha * Judy Dan as Royal Wife (uncredited)

Voice only

Three actors in the film had their singing voices dubbed by other people. The dubbed voices belonged to: *

Marni Nixon Margaret Nixon McEathron (February 22, 1930 – July 24, 2016), known professionally as Marni Nixon, was an American soprano and ghost singer for featured actresses in musical films. She is now recognized as the singing voice of leading a ...

as Anna (for which she was paid $10,000) * Leona Gordon as Tuptim * Reuben Fuentes as Lun Tha

Musical numbers

* Overture – Played by the 20th Century-Fox Orchestra *

I Whistle a Happy Tune "I Whistle a Happy Tune" is a show tune from the 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, ''The King and I.'' It is sung by the Governess Anna Leonowens (originally played on Broadway by Gertrude Lawrence) to her son Louis after the curtain rises on ...

– Sung by Deborah Kerr (dubbed by Marni Nixon) and Rex Thompson * The March of the Siamese Children – Played by the 20th Century-Fox Orchestra * Hello, Young Lovers – Sung by Deborah Kerr (dubbed by Marni Nixon) * A Puzzlement – Sung by Yul Brynner * Getting to Know You – Sung by Deborah Kerr (dubbed by Marni Nixon) and Chorus *

We Kiss in a Shadow "We Kiss in a Shadow" is a show tune from the 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, ''The King and I''. In this song, Tuptim and Lun Tha declare their love for each other, even though they fear that the King of Siam will learn of it. In the ori ...

/ I Have Dreamed – Sung by Carlos Rivas (dubbed by Reuben Fuentes) and Rita Moreno (dubbed by Leona Gordon) * Something Wonderful – Sung by Terry Saunders * Finale, Act I – Sung by Yul Brynner and Chorus * Entr'acte – Played by the 20th Century-Fox Orchestra * The Small House of Uncle Thomas (Ballet) – Narrated by Rita Moreno, Sung and Danced by Chorus and Dancers * Song of the King – Sung by Yul Brynner * Shall We Dance? – Sung and Danced by Deborah Kerr (dubbed by Marni Nixon) and Yul Brynner * Finale (Something Wonderful) – Sung by Chorus

Production

The musical was written for

Gertrude Lawrence Gertrude Lawrence (4 July 1898 – 6 September 1952) was an English actress, singer, dancer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End of London and on Broadway in New York. Early life Lawrence was born Gertr ...

, and her appearance in the film was contractually guaranteed. However, she was diagnosed with cancer while playing the role on

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

and died during the run.

Dinah Shore Dinah Shore (born Frances Rose Shore; February 29, 1916 – February 24, 1994) was an American singer, actress, and television personality, and the top-charting female vocalist of the 1940s. She rose to prominence as a recording artist during ...

, a singer as well as an actress, was considered for the role of Anna in the movie. Maureen O'Hara, who had a pleasant soprano voice, was originally cast, but Richard Rodgers did not agree to the casting. It was Yul Brynner who pressed for Deborah Kerr to play the role.

provided Kerr's singing for the film. Nixon and Kerr worked side-by-side in the recording studio for songs which combined speaking and singing. Nixon would also dub Kerr's singing the following year, for the film '' An Affair to Remember''. Donald Bogle's biography of

Dorothy Dandridge Dorothy Jean Dandridge (November 9, 1922 – September 8, 1965) was an American actress, singer and dancer. She is the first African-American film star to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, which was for her performance in '' C ...

claims that Dandridge was offered the role of Tuptim in partial fulfillment of her three-picture contract with 20th Century-Fox, but that Dandridge allowed

Otto Preminger Otto Ludwig Preminger ( , ; 5 December 1905 – 23 April 1986) was an Austrian-American theatre and film director, film producer, and actor. He directed more than 35 feature films in a five-decade career after leaving the theatre. He first gai ...

(her former director and then-lover) to talk her out of it because it was not the lead role. Rumors also circulated that Dandridge, as an

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

, did not want to play a slave. Rita Moreno, who was under contract to Fox, was invited merely for a test, but impressed the producers enough to be selected for the part.Carlos Rivas (interview). ''The King and I: 50th Anniversary Edition'' DVD, disc 2 special features, 2006. Moreno later stated in an interview that France Nuyen was also up for the part, and Moreno believed Nuyen would get it, but since Nuyen was not a contract player with the studio, she was not cast. Reprising their Broadway stage roles, Saunders played Thiang, Adiarte was Chulalongkorn and Benson was the Kralahome, and dancers Yuriko and de Lappe also reprised their stage roles.

appeared in the new role of the British Ambassador, while Sir Edward Ramsey (demoted to the Ambassador's aide) was played by

."''The King and I'' (1956): Production credits"
, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''. Retrieved February 23, 2011 The cinematography was by Leon Shamroy, the art direction by John DeCuir and Lyle R. Wheeler and the costume design by

Irene Sharaff Irene Sharaff (January 23, 1910 – August 16, 1993) was an American costume designer for stage and screen. Her work earned her five Academy Awards and a Tony Award. Sharaff is universally recognized as one of the greatest costume designers of ...

. The choreography used for the film was the choreography developed by Jerome Robbins for the original stage production. Three songs from the original stage production were recorded for, and appeared on, the film's soundtrack, but do not appear in the motion picture: "Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?", " I Have Dreamed" and "My Lord and Master". "I Have Dreamed" and another song that was not used in the film, "Western People Funny", survive in the released film only as orchestral underscoring. In the film, the first half of the "Song of the King" was turned into ordinary spoken dialogue, with only some of the words sung, minus the king's opening lyrics, but it survives as it was actually written on the soundtrack album. A special 50th Anniversary edition was released in 2006, which promised to restore the lost numbers, but it included only the audio and some still photographs for "Shall I Tell You?" This would seem to indicate that no footage exists of these numbers. An off-screen choral reprise of "Something Wonderful" was added to serve as the film's finale; the stage version ends with musical underscoring, but no singing. None of the other reprises of the songs were retained in the film version. The film was one of the only two films shot in the then-new 55 mm

CinemaScope 55 CinemaScope is an anamorphic lens series used, from 1953 to 1967, and less often later, for shooting widescreen films that, crucially, could be screened in theatres using existing equipment, albeit with a lens adapter. Its creation in 1953 by ...

format, the other being '' Carousel'', which was released several months earlier. Although the promotion for the film made much of it being shot in CinemaScope 55, it was only released in the standard 35 mm CinemaScope format, with 4-channel stereo instead of the 6-channel stereo originally promised. CinemaScope 55 was never used or promoted again after this production, and Fox would later invest in Todd-AO and adopt its 65/70mm process, after changing it to the more conventional 24 frames/second, and contracting with Mitchell Camera for all-new FC ("Fox Camera") and BFC ("Blimped Fox Camera") cameras, and with

Bausch & Lomb Bausch + Lomb is an eye health products company based in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the world's largest suppliers of contact lenses, lens care products, pharmaceuticals, intraocular lenses, and other eye surgery products. The compan ...

for all-new "Super Baltar" lenses. Numerous features were made in the Fox-revised Todd-AO process. In 1961, it was re-released for the first time in a 70 mm format, under Fox's "Grandeur 70" trademark. For this release, the six-channel version of the stereo soundtrack was finally used. In 1966, it was re-released again, this time in Cinemascope, before being sold to television in 1967.

Reception

The film premiered at New York's Roxy Theatre on June 28, 1956. It was a big success upon release, both critically and financially, becoming the fifth highest-grossing film of 1956 with rentals of $8.5 million. Some reviewers criticized the film for its changes in dialogue from the Broadway production and the omission of some songs. On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

the film has a 93% rating based on reviews from 27 critics. ''The King and I'' has been banned in

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

because of its representation of King Mongkut. The same is the case with most other adaptations of ''Anna and the King''.

Soundtrack album

The film soundtrack album was first released on Capitol Records. It restored three songs recorded for the film but not included in the final release print: "My Lord and Master", "I Have Dreamed", and "Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?". The latter two were filmed but no footage survives. Added to the original LP and CD releases of the film was a seven-minute overture not heard at the beginning of the film. The album was first issued only in mono in 1956, but, as with the

films ''

Oklahoma! ''Oklahoma!'' is the first musical written by the duo of Rodgers and Hammerstein. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, ''Green Grow the Lilacs''. Set in farm country outside the town of Claremore, Indian Territory, in 1906, it tell ...

'' (1955) and '' Carousel'' (1956), the sound on the film had been recorded in what was then state-of-the-art stereo, which made it possible, with the advent of stereo on records, for Capitol to release a stereo version of the soundtrack album in 1958. As with ''Oklahoma!'' and ''Carousel'', the recording lathes of that time made it necessary for part of the album to be omitted in the stereo version, so half of "Getting To Know You" was cut in that edition. The film soundtrack album of ''The King and I'' was issued on CD first by Capitol and then by

Angel Records Angel Records was a record label founded by EMI in 1953. It specialised in classical music, but included an occasional operetta or Broadway score. and one Peter Sellers comedy disc. The famous Recording Angel trademark was used by the Gramophon ...

. The first two editions of the CD were exact duplicates of the LP, but in 2001, as with the ''Oklahoma!'' and ''Carousel'' soundtracks, Angel issued a new, expanded edition of the album, which not only featured all the songs (including the ballet "The Small House of Uncle Thomas"), but some of the film's incidental music, as well as the original main title music. The Overture heard on the LP version and on the first two editions of the CD was included as a bonus track.

Chart positions

Awards and nominations

American Film Institute

* AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions - #31 * AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains: ** Anna Leonowens - Nominated (Hero) * AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs: ** " Getting to Know You" - Nominated ** " Shall We Dance?" - #54 * AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes: ** "Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera." - Nominated * AFI's 100 Years of Musicals - #11 * AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) - Nominated

Remake

On February 12, 2021, it was announced that Paramount Pictures acquired the rights to produce a new live-action film version of the musical, with Temple Hill Entertainment's Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey producing. Concord, who owns the Rodgers and Hammerstein catalog, will also serve in a producing capacity. A director and writer have yet to be attached.

References

Sources

* Hischak, Thomas S.
''The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia''
Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007. .

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:King and I (1956 film), The The King and I 1956 musical films 1950s romantic musical films 1956 films 1956 soundtrack albums 20th Century Fox films American romantic drama films American romantic musical films Best Musical or Comedy Picture Golden Globe winners Films about royalty Films adapted into television shows Films based on adaptations Films based on musicals Films directed by Walter Lang Films featuring a Best Actor Academy Award-winning performance Films featuring a Best Musical or Comedy Actress Golden Globe winning performance Films produced by Charles Brackett Films scored by Alfred Newman Films scored by Ken Darby Films that won the Best Costume Design Academy Award Films that won the Best Original Score Academy Award Films that won the Best Sound Mixing Academy Award Films set in the 1860s Films set in Thailand Films whose art director won the Best Art Direction Academy Award Films with screenplays by Ernest Lehman Musical films based on actual events Cultural depictions of Anna Leonowens Cultural depictions of Mongkut Censored films CinemaScope films Film controversies in Thailand 1950s English-language films 1950s American films