About 6.5 million tourists arrive in Salzburg, Austria, every year, with hundreds of thousands of them looking to retrace the story of “The Sound of Music.” Fans come to re-enact their favorite scenes, but one setting is off-limits to outsiders: the meadow from the film’s opening.
Most scenes from the 1965 film were so complex they had to be sketched
and timed to the actors’ movements. But no scene was more arduous than
the one on that mountain high in the Swiss Alps, where Maria spins in the meadow and sings, “The hills are alive, with the sound of music.”
“We actually went up the mountain in big, open carts, pulled by oxen. I
would sit on top of all the camera equipment, and then they'd hoist me
up and up we'd go,” Julie Andrews told ABC News’ Diane Sawyer
in the upcoming Diane Sawyer "20/20" special, “The Untold Story of ‘The
Sound of Music,’” which airs Wednesday, March 18, at 10 p.m. ET.
The actual hill used in the movie is in Germany,
not Austria, on land, which, at the time, was privately owned by
farmers. Today, it is owned by a famous mountain climber, who is
reluctant to let outsiders onto their property, but granted permission
to ABC News and 20th Century Fox. Fifty years after the movie was released, Sawyer traveled to the famous hill to try to recreate the movie’s iconic scene.
Andrews said it was raining and windy when they filmed that scene over
the course of a week in 1964. On the final day of shooting, the sun came
out for 20 minutes to get Julie’s iconic shot. The birch trees were
brought in just for the movie and were taken right out after filming
ended.
And the brook, which was actually plastic filled with water, was also
brought in by the movie studio. They left it as a gift to the farmers,
who later had it removed.
Andrews also had to battle a helicopter that kept blowing up a tornado
of wind on the hill. Her hair and clothes had to be refreshed after each
of the nine takes it took to get the scene completed.
“This giant helicopter came at me sideways with a very brave cameraman
hanging out the side of … where the door would be normally … the
helicopter would shoot me, and I'd come from one end of the field and
he'd come from the other,” Andrews recalled. “I'd make the big turn, and
then he'd go around me to go back and start again, and I'd run to the
other end. But every time he went around me, the downdraft from the jets
would fling me down into the grass.”
Watch the video above to see how Sawyer used small, silent drones to get the same shot.
Tune in to the Diane Sawyer "20/20" special, “The Untold Story
of ‘The Sound of Music,’” which airs Wednesday, March 18, at 10 p.m. ET.
"The Sound of Music" full photo credit: THE SOUND OF MUSIC © 1965
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Argyle Enterprises. Renewed ©
1993 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Argyle Enterprises. ©
1998 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Robert E. Wise. All
Rights Reserved.
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