#rewatch rewind

Hello and welcome back to The Rewatch Rewind, the podcast where I count down my top 40 most rewatched movies. My name is Jane, and in this episode I will be discussing number 34 on my list: 20th Century Fox and Argyle Enterprises’ 1965 musical The Sound of Music, directed by Robert Wise, written by Ernest Lehman with the partial use of ideas by Georg Hurdalek, adapted from the stage musical book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse which was based on the autobiography of Maria von Trapp, and starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer.

This is the story of Maria (Julie Andrews), a postulant who is struggling to maintain the discipline required to become a nun, so she is sent to the home of widower Captain Georg von Trapp (Christopher Plummer) to be a governess to his seven children for the summer, and accidentally catches feelings. Also it’s Austria in the late 1930s and bad times are coming.

In previous episodes of this podcast, I’ve talked to you by myself, but in this discussion I will be joined by my dear friend Christina Ailor, whom I met online a few years ago due to our shared appreciation and support for independent filmmakers like Shipwrecked Comedy, the Tin Can Brothers, and Ashley Clements – all of whom have YouTube channels featuring brilliant projects that you should absolutely check out if you’re unfamiliar with their work. Christina and I also share a love for The Sound of Music, as you will be able to tell from this very long, detailed chat that we had about it. Hope you enjoy, here it is!

Jane

Hello!

Christina

 Hi!

Jane

Thank you for joining me on my podcast.

Christina

Hi, thank you for having me.

Jane

I'm so excited to have you as my first guest.

Christina

I feel so honored.

Jane

Because the first time we met in person, we watched a movie together. And it was not this movie. But it did have Christopher Plummer in it. So…

Christina

That's true. Oh, my goodness. I didn't even think about that connection. Yeah.

Jane

But sadly I don't get to talk about Knives Out on this podcast because I've only seen it eight times. But Sound of Music. I have watched 15 times and we have watched it together.

Christina

It's true. Virtually.

Jane

Yes, so the first time I watched Knives Out was with you and the most recent time I watched Sound of Music was with you, so it's all. It's all connected.

Christina

Yay! Well, I just watched some of it this morning to refresh myself and I don't know how many times I've watched the Sound of Music, but it's definitely one of the most watched of my life, and the episode that you just released a couple days ago was Princess Bride, which is also like one of my top most watched movies. So I was like, wow, like this week. It's just in the Jane rewind rewatch. It's it's all about. What Christina watches all the time.

Jane

Yes, we have similar taste in movies. So do you remember the first time you ever saw Sound of Music?

Christina

I am not sure exactly when the first time I saw it, but I do have a memory of receiving the video cassettes for my birthday and I'm not sure it was either my 4th or 5th birthday. I know that for certain because we were living in a house that we only lived in for a couple of years. And I remember being so excited. I think that I had the audio cassette of the songs and I also had a picture book or something where it came with an audio cassette and it would like have a sound to turn the page and it kind of told an abbreviated story of the Sound of Music. So I was already familiar with, like the general plot and the songs. And then I got this two-VHS set and was just thrilled and looking back it's like hilarious to me that I was already, like, so fully formed at like 4 years old. And it was just like, yes. And you know, a few years ago, like, as I got into my late 20s, I was like, wow, like, do I really love Sound of Music because it's great or because of the nostalgia factor? And then when I started rewatching it again, I like, tried to have a more critical eye. And I just thought, you know what? I think this is a really great. I think I just had really great taste, starting from the age of four.

Jane

Yeah. That's fair. Yeah I feel like I got into it later than that in life like, I was aware of it. And I think it was another one of those movies where it was just like always on TV or it was on TV at certain times of year. So I know I watched like bits and pieces of it. And I remember we watched at least part of it in school in like third grade, and I have no idea why, but I have this memory of watching it in my third grade classroom.

Christina

Yeah, I think you know, like if you're trying to teach, like, Nazis are bad, it's a it's a great, like primer and it's rated G. Like there's not that many movies that talk about Nazis being bad, that's also rated G.

Jane

Yeah, yeah. No, that's true. Well, and. And I had a very deprived childhood because we didn't have a VCR until I was, like, 10.

Christina

What?! Whoa!

Jane

So I couldn't watch movies at home that much unless they were on TV, like we had cable and we had some, like, movie channels, so like.

Christina

Wow this puts this, the whole concept of this podcast and like, how much you rewatch movies into this whole new context for me, I'm just…

Jane

Yes.

Christina

Wow, this is a whole new perspective has opened up for me. I feel like you need to do an episode that's like just about your journey of like becoming a film buff.

Jane

Yeah, yeah, that's true. I probably should do a bonus episode explaining that, but bits and pieces will come out in the episodes. Uh, but yeah, so, I didn't ever have it on VHS. I'm pretty sure that I must have gotten it on DVD around 2004 because that was like when we got a DVD player for the living room. So then we started getting DVDs. So I think it was around 2004 and that year I watched it four times. And so that was when I was like really into it and it was also around the same time I got into Mary Poppins. So I was like, really having a Julie Andrews phase right then.

Christina

I mean. That's the best kind of phase to have

Jane

Yeah, for sure.

Christina

And Princess Diaries came out like, right around then too, didn't it?

Jane

Yeah. Yeah. I think Princess Diaries was 2001 and that was like… I like, was aware of who Julie Andrews was before then, but that was really what got me into Julie Andrews was Princess Diaries, which seems a little backwards.

Christina

Whatever gets you there, to the Julie Andrews obsession.

Jane

Yes, absolutely. So, yeah, so that was at that point because like, my freshman year of high school was 2004 to 2005, and that year I told people that Sound of Music was my all-time favorite movie and I watched it a lot in that era. But then again, it was kind of like I didn't watch it for a while and thought like, OK, maybe it's just nostalgia. But then rewatching it later, I was like, oh, this movie is great. And then I went to several sing alongs of it. I think I looked back, I'm pretty sure I've been to four Sound of Music sing alongs.

Christina

Wow, I have been to one sing along and it was, I went with my family. I don't know if you, like what your sing along experiences were, but I went with my family and there was varying levels of enthusiasm within my family about attending, but I was so excited and so my mom's dad was a marine and served in West Germany when she was a kid, so they actually lived in Berlin for part of her childhood. So we have like, in my family we have a lot of, like dirndls and lederhosen. I don't know. We just, like, have those in our family closet. And so I was, you know, dressed up in a dirndls. And then my brother was wearing this like Austrian looking hat. And during the there was like a costume contest at the beginning and he actually won because everyone else got up and they were like, I'm dressed as this child and he got up and was this little 10-year-old boy and he said he was dressed as Uncle Max.

Jane

Ugh, amazing.

Christina

And that got a huge laugh. And then people were like, oh, like you get the prize.

Jane

Yeah, I've never participated in the costume contest part of the Sing Alongs, but they they always have them at the beginning and it's fun to see like, what creative things people come up with cause a lot of times it's like people dressed as the characters. But then, like, they'll be like dressed as some of the favorite things from the song. Or like this one time there was a group of people that were dressed as hills that were alive and they were like labeled as hills from the neighborhood and stuff. So that was fun. The first time I went to one, it was because one of the pastors at my church at the time had mentioned it in a sermon that, like that was a thing that happened at this theater nearby. And I was like, what? I need to go to this. I did not know this existed. And so then I like messaged her and she, like, kind of it wasn't an official church event, but she sort of put together like various people from the church that she thought would be interested. And so we all went and saw it together. So nobody else from my family went. It was just me and a bunch of other people I knew from church. And that was really fun. And I like, distinctly remember at intermission being like, oh, my gosh, I love this movie so much. And one of the kids that was there was like, well, yeah, it's a great movie. And I was like like, Yep, Yep. It is. So then the next year was the 50th anniversary of Sound of Music.

Christina

OK.

Jane

And so I went again with, like, my family and friends, and that year was the year that Duane Chase, who played Kurt in the movie, actually came to the Sing along.

Christina

Oh wow.

Jane

Because he lives kind of nearby in this area now.

Christina

Oh, OK, cool.

Jane

So he came to that and that was really fun because, like, at the sing alongs, they give you, like stuff to do and say at certain points.

Christina

Yeah.

Jane

It's like you're supposed to cheer whenever Julie Andrews comes on screen and Boo the Nazis and stuff like that. So then every time Kurt did anything, everybody was cheering for him. And it was really fun. And then afterwards I got a picture with him.

Christina

Nice.

Jane

But he seemed, it seemed like he was getting kind of tired of being there because he, he stopped acting after his childhood, so he's not really into like being in the spotlight, but it was fun that he came for that.

Christina

Yeah.

Jane

I think the year after that they didn't have one because where they do the screening around here is like a stage theater and they were doing Sound of Music the stage show that year, so they didn't have a movie sing along. But then the following year I went again. And then I kind of stopped doing it cause I was like it gets to be a little repetitive if you go a lot, but it is really fun and it's it's just great to be in a whole big theater full of people who love the movie. But then I went again at a different place when I was visiting my siblings the year before last. So that was really fun too. Just being in a completely different part of the country and doing the same sort of thing. So I love those singalongs.

Christina

Awesome. Well, should we talk about why we love this movie so much?

Jane

Yes, we should. So do you have a favorite part? Do you have a favorite song?

Christina

Well, I oh, I don't know if I could choose a favorite. You know, I'm I'm more of the my favorite things theory of life. You just list out all the things you love, but then we would be here all day.

Jane

That's true.

Christina

But I did, I have my many notes here, and one thing that I just always get so excited about when the movie starts is it's probably one of my favorite openings of a movie of all time.

Jane

Me too.

Christina

I love you know the aerial shots. It's so beautiful. And then I love the sound of it and how it just starts with the wind blowing. And then they bring in the birds, and then they gradually layer in the orchestration of the hills are alive song and then, just like zooming in on Maria spinning around on the hill. Just every time I watch it, I A) am just like this is so beautiful and B) think gotta get myself on a Viking River cruise to actually like, go to there and like, I just want to go to Salzburg every time I watch. I'm like, should I? Should I become a hiker? Should I learn how to climb mountains so I can be there?

Jane

Oh, my gosh. That opening is so good. And I think it's really interesting because in the stage show, Maria sings a like little verse before the hills are alive, like there's a little “my day in the hills has come to an end I know,” and in the movie they don't sing that, but they just play that like, that's the instrumental like introduction. And I think that's really interesting. I don't know why they chose to do it that way, but I really like it because it's like kind of like more gradually building into the song and then just like having it the first lyrics be, “The hills are alive.”

Christina

So can we agree that Julie Andrews is like one of the greatest singers of all time?

Jane

Oh 100%.

Christina

So yeah, it's just like we're going to give you exactly what you want, like, right away, and just let her, like, belt out this line. Like she doesn't have to work up to it. And it's just, it's like starting on a climax. And it's so beautifully cinematic. And I think that there's, you know, there's so few movies that shoot on location to that extent, and especially so many Hollywood musicals were shot on soundstages. Completely and now, they're very rarely shot on location like that. And so it's really, just one of the most immersive movie musicals that I can think of. And I just love how it goes right into the opening credits is like all these shots of Salzburg as well. And it just really like puts you in this place, and… “time” – I’m doing air quotes for time.

Jane

I mean, it's a very ‘60s version of World War II.

Christina

And it's also so just before we talk more about the movie, just some more background about me and Sound of Music in general is I have never seen the stage version actually, and I knew that there were some changes and I have like looked up the differences. I think that I’m so obsessed with the movie, I don't know if I would really fully like seeing the stage version at this point? Because all of the changes that I've seen them make, I'm like, yeah, I agree with that. But I also have read the actual Maria von Trapp autobiography, and I think I read that when I was like in middle school or high school. And so her actual story with the von Trapp really took place in the 20s. And then they were married for, like, a decade. And then the Nazis showed up and tried to get him to work for them. So they, you know, they definitely took some artistic license. And I agree, like some of the hemlines in this movie I’m like that is not a 1930s hemline, that is a 1960s hemline. But you know, it's still beautiful. So yeah, we're going to let it go.

Jane

Yeah. So I've seen three different productions of the stage version, I think. But one of them, I don't know if it really counts, cause it was like a youth theater, like it wasn't a professional thing. But I saw that one first because my brother was the student stage manager. But then the person who was supposed to play the main Nazi dropped out. So my brother ended up playing the main Nazi character too. So I saw that one and then I saw it at the 5th Ave. which is the theater where I see the sing alongs. They did their own stage production of it and that was pretty good. There were a few things about it that I was like, oh, but the movie is so much better, but it was interesting to see. And then I saw there was like, a  national tour of it a couple of years later. And that was amazing. The singing in that was so good. It was no Julie Andrews, but it was still really good. So I enjoyed the stage version and a lot of it is very similar to the movie, but certain things changed and it was interesting to see those changes. Obviously I prefer the movie, but I'm biased because I've seen it so many more times. But yeah, I enjoyed the stage show. But I think what you said about the location thing is so true cause so many movie musicals feel very, like contained in a soundstage. And this feels very open and like it is its own little world, but it's also like part of the real world. And I think that's really part of what makes it so powerful is like, yeah, it is its own, like, musical world. But it's also like real and yeah, it's not really the real story, but like, it feels like it's part of the world.

Christina

Yeah, and I also think like the historical beats that they're hitting are real, like the way that the play and the movie ends is not actually how they escaped Austria, in part because there's not a border right there. But I do think, like what it's trying to tell us about, like that political moment there is some, some truth there and it's valuable I think. Comparing it to other movie musicals, when I was watching it this morning, one that came to mind was the new West Side Story.

Jane

Oh yeah.

Christina

I haven't seen the old West Side Story in a little while. I know that that one also starts with an aerial shot and they were actually worried about the Sound of Music being seen as copycatting that.

Jane

Oh really?

Christina

Yeah, so it shared some production team and then the, I think it was the screenwriter, like, insisted on the aerial shot of the Alps. And they're like, uh, like people just saw that with West Side Story, so they're probably not gonna like that. But then according to Wikipedia, they couldn't think of anything better.

Jane

Oh, that's so funny because, yeah, I guess they, they are similar, but I never thought of them as being similar before because it's such a different setting that they're showing you.

Christina

It's such a different setting and also like you know, it's written by such a different team. You know it's they're both from that era I guess, but the new- what I was going to say is like the new West Side Story is really a beautiful movie and they put so much work into the details of taking us back to that New York, but at the same time it doesn't have that expansiveness that they were able to have by just like shooting on location in Salzburg because the New York of West Side Story, you know, no longer exists. It kind of like never existed. They just made it up for that musical but like, you know, the New York of the 1950s, like, truly no longer exist. So they really had to create sound stages and sets for that. And despite like the enormous amount of detail and scale that Steven Spielberg was trying to put into it, you just can't match it with like an actual mountain.

Jane

Yeah, that's so true. Also I have to, I have to mention because Julie Andrews mentions it a lot, that that spin that she does that's captured by the helicopter shot. Every single take of it the like downdraft from the helicopter, it would completely knock her over right after they shot, so she would spin around and then she would fall over and they kept doing it. And she so at one point she was like, trying to gesture to the people, like, do a wider turn so you don't knock me over. And they just like waved, they're like,” oh, hi, yeah, we're doing this!” So she fell over on that hill a lot.

Christina

Oh no! Yeah, you can definitely, if you're like, watching very closely to it, you can see her do the spin and then then they immediately cut to

Jane

Yeah, to a close up of her, yeah.

Christina

Yeah, that's so funny. Also, apparently the stream that she crosses is like plastic.

Jane

Oh yeah, and at one point, like a farmer in the area destroyed it because they were mad about, like, people filming there.

Christina

That's fair. I can't, I can't blame him. It's like stop putting plastic streams on this natural beauty. That's it's so funny to me that I understand why they when she like, walks through the Birch trees. I mean that is like so perfect. I was like, I bet they brought those Birch trees in and they did. But with the stream, when I found out that was fake, I was like, you couldn't find a real stream? It seems like they would be all over the place.

Jane

Yeah, I don't know. But moving on from the opening scene, so the next song is how do you solve a problem like Maria? And I just like, I've always loved that song. I think it's very fun, but I remember as a kid I definitely misunderstood what it was about. And I thought that they were asking, How do you solve a problem the way Maria solves problems?

Christina

Oh my gosh, that is so funny.

Jane

Like I didn't realize they were calling her a problem. I thought like, oh, she's such a good problem solver. How do you how do you emulate that, and then later realized what it was actually about? And I was like, oh, OK, that's very different song.

Christina

OK, I actually have half a page of notes just about this song.

Jane

Oh wow. OK.

Christina

And I like knew what it was about the whole time, I'm pretty sure. And I really identify with this song and love it. And like in the same way that you know, on this podcast, you're often talking about, here's my aroace perspective on things and and like looking back on watching these movies, you're realizing maybe why you connected with certain elements. So I definitely do that now that I realize that I'm neurodivergent and had undiagnosed ADHD as a child. And I'm like, oh, like so many things make sense. And this song I am like, oh, like, this is why I loved this song so much because I as a kid was so often criticized for not doing things the way that other people did them, and I was always late and I was always daydreaming and I was just asked by a lot of authority figures in my life. They, you know, they were always like, you're so sweet, and you're so smart. Why can't you just, you know, do things the way that other kids do them? And I think that I found this song very validating, first of all, to see I wasn't the only person in the world to be criticized for that and then to have that person end up being the hero of this story and the central focus of this story, I think, meant a lot to me. And it's, it's part of why I think I always identified with Maria. But I also love that this song is in part people complaining about her, but in part people defending her.

Jane

Yeah.

Christina

Bringing up over and over again all these reasons that they love her and that they find these things that are, you know, weird about her, also to be endearing. And it really holds a special place in my heart because of that.

Jane

Oh, wow. That's great. That makes a lot of sense. The reason I love this song is not anything near as personal as that. I just, I've always loved songs that have a lot of fun lyrics and I just love that there's all these really silly words in it and stuff, and so I've always loved singing along to it because of that. And also it's very fun that Marni Nixon is one of the nuns in that song because she was frequently the singing voice of actors who couldn't sing in movies, and I talked about in the Mary Poppins episode that Julie Andrews was not cast in My Fair Lady because she hadn't done a movie before, and Audrey Hepburn was, even though Audrey Hepburn did not have the singing voice for that character, and so her singing was dubbed by Marni Nixon, who makes an appearance in the Sound of Music, which is kind of funny, that connection there because she didn't often her face was not often in movies, and she was usually uncredited as the singing voice cause the studios wanted to maintain the facade of like, look our stars are such good singers!

Christina

Oh studios. Well, I'm glad that she got to have her due in this one.

Jane

So she's sister Sophia. She’s just in that one scene, I think.

Christina

Yeah, but they all have, like such individual personalities and make such a strong impression, all those nuns.

Jane

Yeah, definitely. And that's also true of the children, which I think is great like that they have seven children and you would think they would kind of blend together, but they really are all distinct. Even the ones that don't get to do very much, like I think Louisa is probably the least developed of the children.

Christina

Yeah, and it's funny, apparently, that Louisa, like the second oldest daughter, is like the one that the historical Maria von Trapp was brought to be her tutor. And was not going to be like a governess for all seven of them. So, you know, they supposedly like probably had the strongest relationship at the beginning of the story historically.

Jane

But they all had different names in real life too, right?

Christina

Yeah, actually that the real life second sister was named Maria, which was part of why they changed all of the names of the kids.

Jane

That would have been confusing.

Christina

Yeah, they're just like, no, this is not necessary. Yeah so I love how do you solve a problem like Maria? And I also love that they bring it back as their wedding song?

Jane

It's just like, yes, of course I will walk down the aisle to song about how I'm a problem.

Christina

I mean, it's crazy cause like if they just played the theme then it would be just like a fun, you know, musical reprise. But they actually have the nuns sing the words!

Jane

Well, and and they don't go in the church, which I'm like, are nuns, not allowed to go to weddings. Is this a rule?

Christina

It seems like it is a rule it because, you know, they're brides of Christ? I don't, I mean, I'm not Catholic, so I, I can't weigh in on this, but I think that it has something to do with like the barrier, and also they were always upset with Maria for just randomly leaving the Abbey and they had all of these rules about that, so maybe they're just like we need special permission to go through these gates.

Jane

Yeah, I don't know. That's always been weird to me, that they're just like standing outside singing the Maria Song while she's getting married. It's like.

Christina

We’re just like, never forget that we thought you were weird.

Jane

And she’s like, This is why I left you guys.

Christina

Yeah, she's just like you know what? It makes me even more glad that I'm committing to this family. OK, so jumping ahead slightly. Maria is with the von Trapp family. OK, so she starts off at the convent. Then let me just go through the whole plot. She starts out at the convent. They're like, you're weird. Please go be a governess for “a while.” Again air quotes because I think that Mother Superior was like, I don't think it's going to work out here, and was like, looking for a long term way to get her out.

Jane

Bye.

Christina

And then she leaves, and then she is like having all these conflicted feelings about Captain von Trapp so then she goes back to the convent. She has always planned to take her vows as a nun and that has always been her dream. And it's always been her dream to serve God and so she's just feeling very conflicted about it. And then when she goes to Mother Superior, which I believe is the scene where Mother Superior sings climb every mountain to her.

Jane

Yes.

Christina

But part of their conversation is Mother Superior basically saying, we serve God here by taking our vows, but that's not the only way to serve God and to have faith, and if you love this man and want to be a mother to these children, that is another way to serve God and you can take your faith out into the community. And I was someone who was raised as Jane, as you know, I was raised in the Christian faith and I think that's another reason I always really connected with Maria was like that longing to connect with God and serve God. But I think another reason I really love this movie is because that is one of the messages is that you can bring whatever your light is, whatever your you know, spark is, there's a lot of ways that you can bring that to the world and be a good in the world and you don't necessarily have to be following like a really strict lifestyle like being a nun.

Jane

Yeah, well, and I think it's sort of backwards to me because they're saying like it's OK to get married and have a romantic relationship. But I think like, part of the way I interpreted it is that there's no correct path.

Christina

Yes, exactly.

Jane

There's no one path for every person like you have to do what feels right for you. And so for Maria, it was very clearly marrying Captain von Trapp. But like, if people are saying the correct path is to get married and have a family like that doesn't mean that everybody has to do that.

Christina

Yeah, that's not going to be for everyone.

Jane

Yeah, so I think that it's even encouraging in that it is a romantic story, it's encouraging for people who don't want that kind of relationship too, to be like, well, but that was right for her. They're not saying everybody has to do that.

Christina

And I don't actually know how you say out loud the the word for ama-normativity?

Jane

Amatonormativity? That's how I say it. I don't actually know if that's how you pronounce it.

Christina

As you have brought up before this idea that is pushed on us by culture, that like there is one way like the normative part of it and then the amatonormative part of it is relationships and romantic relationships, like you have to be in one to be living the right life and, yeah, I definitely think that this movie and this musical is trying to say there is no right way and you can't say being a nun, you know isn't the right way, but then being in a relationship is. No, like, that was what was right for her and what was right for Uncle Max was being a musical group producer and leaching off of his rich friends, and I do think that it ties in to the anti-Nazi themes of the movie because I at least associate a lot of that movement, and like fascism in general with the idea of like there is only one right way.

Jane

Oh yeah, that's a good point.

Christina

And we're going to force people to be this one right way. And the heroes of this movie are all saying that's not how people are. People are going to be different and they need connection and they need to have faith in each other. So yeah, I think those are all…hopefully I've teased out these, these themes that I'm trying to.

Jane

Yeah, no, I think that makes a lot of sense. That, like the movie, presents the only wrong way to live is if you're denying the way you actually feel.

Christina

Right. I also think I was mostly thinking of this topic in comparison to other Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals. I wasn't really thinking about like other musicals or movies in general. But I really think that, despite how much I love other songs from Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, I don't love any of them to the extent that I love this one, and I think that part of it is that this movie is about two people who, their arc is to recognize what their values are and then very purposefully try to shape their lives around their values. And that's really like the arc of Maria and the captain. And I don't think that that's necessarily the arc of most of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, and some of them actually, although they're like, seen as the pinnacle of book musicals, are a little bit messy thematically. Whereas this one Maria is figuring out, OK, I thought that serving God was my only value, but actually family and being in touch with my creative spirit are also very important values for me. And once she's able to choose those things, that's how she ends up being part of the von Trapp family, and then, you know, moving with them to Americ. And the same with Captain von Trapp. Like he's kind of in this place in his life at the beginning of the movie where he's just bogged down in grief. But then during the course of the movie, in addition to him realizing, oh I want my life centered around my children, I again want to connect with like that creativity and the music, and then also for him a big part of it is... I guess, like I'm trying to think of the right word, but like being an Austrian and like having like principles of not giving in to what the Nazis want him to do. He really decides for himself that he has these strong values and then they decide, oh, we can shape our lives around these together. And that's really the arc, like there are two emotional arcs like converging.

Jane

Yeah.

Christina

I'm doing a hand motion that the podcast listeners will obviously really appreciate where I’m moving my hands together.

Jane

Just just imagine the hand motion. Yeah, no, I think that that makes a lot of sense and it's less, I mean, obviously there's romance involved with that, and it's not just like they're getting together because it feels inevitable, but like, I think that that's definitely a big part of it is realizing like that they have similar values and want to live their lives together, and I think that there's, there's a perception of the way the plot is that like the bareness is the villain that's trying to keep them apart and stuff. But like, if you actually watch it, I have very strong feelings. The Baroness did nothing wrong, OK? She was just trying to keep her man. But she realized that they weren't actually meant for each other, and they had different values, and…

Christina

Yeah, she's pretty chill. Although she does bring up sending the kids to boarding school.

Jane

Right. But also like, the kids were probably going to boarding school anyway to be honest. Like we just see them during summer break like we don't know what their normal school is like.

Christina

That's true.

Jane

And also, apparently the children were- this is a thing that bothers me about the movie. They talk about how awful the children are and how they always like terrorized their their previous governesses and stuff but when we see them, they are like the sweetest, most well behaved children.

Christina

We put a frog in Mario's pocket and a pine cone on her chair. Are you just going to ignore these indiscretions, Jane?

Jane

It just doesn't seem like they actually did that though. Like, I mean, I know they supposedly did, but I just can't imagine those children actually doing that. They just they seem too nice.

Christina

Well, I don't know Brigitta is…

Jane

Oh yeah, she's a little mischievous.

Christina

…pretty judgy. I think that if you like a movie too much, you can start thinking a little bit too hard about it. And there's definitely some, like, timeline things because I was like, OK, so Gretl’s five, so their mother can't have passed away more than five years ago, and they've had 12 governesses in five years. So like, they're really going through these governesses fast. And also so Liesel was like 11 when all this started. So I feel like maybe at first, she was like she and Friedrich, like, started out by, like, playing tricks but like, surely they would have aged out of that a little bit by now. And now it's more like Kurt and Bergita who are getting up to these antics. But Gretel and Marta, they've, they've never done anything wrong. Those two sweet angels.

Jane

Oh, yeah, that's fair. And it's also very clear that the children just want attention, and Maria provides them more productive attention. So then they

Christina

Yeah.

Jane

They stop being such troublemakers because they're excited about the singing part.

Christina

And I think in part we could say, oh, you know, it's a, it's a movie and they didn't have the screen time to show us. I mean, they could have, at this…once you hit 3 hours, why not just add in a couple more scenes? But you know, because they're kind of compressing the timeline they wanted to show them just liking Maria immediately. But, you know, maybe also if you're looking at it from, if you're trying to justify it from the perspective of a fan, maybe the idea is that other governesses have come in and like gone along with their dad with the whistling stuff. And they've just been like, yes, we are going to be very regimented. And so from the very first impression, they kind of lumped all of these governesses in together as you're just part of this system that our dad has created to put a cage around his grief and not deal with his feelings and also not deal with us as human beings. And then Maria comes in and just says, No, I'm not going to do that. So maybe even just that first impression they were like, ugh, like we'll just do a frog and then and then by that way, they're singing my favorite things with her, so

Jane

Yeah, well, that's good. And also she comforts them during the thunderstorm. So I think that really, that really broke the ice. And I also I have to share my favorite story about that scene, because apparently that was pretty early on in the shoot. And Julie Andrews taught the kids supercalifragilisticexpialidocious because Mary Poppins hadn't come out yet when they were filming it, to sort of like, break the ice with them. And so they felt really at ease with her in real life, as well as the characters starting to feel at ease with her. So I think that's very cute.

Christina

That's lovely. Yeah, that's so cute. I love, there's a couple little scenes that it's just Liesl and Maria talking, and they really did find a good dynamic there of like, this older girl being like, I need more of a friend than, or like a mentor and less of a governess or a mother really. And I I love their relationship.

Jane

Yeah I always felt sad because when she, when Liesl sneaks in her window after singing in the gazebo in the rain and Maria says “OK, put your dress in the bathtub and then we'll have a talk.” But then they never get to have the talk because the kids come in and it's the thunderstorm. And I'm like, I want to see that scene!

Christina

I think that later they did have a talk. I hope Liesl.. alright, well, like, since we've brought up the topic of Liesl, I have several things to say. First of all, 16 going on 17 such a catchy song

Jane

It really is.

Christina

and it's, it's in my head all the time and it's a great song But it's also…full of red flags.

Jane

Oh yeah, for sure. I don't remember if it was you. Somebody when we were watching it virtually commented that like Rolf, is taking this song very seriously. And Liesl kind of sees it as like flirtatious, like, role play kind of thing. And I think that's exactly what it is. She doesn't realize how serious he is about it because she's into the like little fun, flirty aspect of it. But if you listen to what he's actually saying it's like, Oh dear.

Christina

Like, “I am a men's rights activist and a Nazi.” And then she's just like, “oh, you!” Um, yeah, but having been a 16 year old girl who liked guys, I really enjoy that song still because now I can see, like, how much Rolf sucks. But I also can see how many of the guys that I liked when I was around that age sucked. And like how bad I was at seeing red flags, and you know, nothing really ever escalated to the extent that it does for Liesl’s family. But I do have like a lot of sympathy for her there. And ugh, man, men's rights activist. It just makes you think like they will find any reason to be upset. They can have someone as gorgeous and as fun as Liesl trying to flirt with them, and they're just like, “But what if we were Nazis?”

Jane

And like your dad should be a Nazi. Like, that's what we should be talking about right now.

Christina

Yeah, he basically says that in that scene. He's just like, have you ever, like, told your dad to be a Nazi? And, you know, she doesn't really know what's going on. It is interesting. When I was rewatching this again, I was like, it's interesting how they're able to convey that Nazis are so bad, but they don't actually ever get into, like, why they are bad. They're really relying on the audience to have some of like that historical and cultural context. Like they don't even make it clear that there is going to be a war, really? I mean, they kind of they they do cause they're like we're we need Captain von Trapp to come serve in our military. But they just really like gloss over, like the horrors that are to come and that they're escaping from. They're just like we need to escape.

Jane

Yeah, it. And it is interesting because they do say the thing about like “The Anschluss happened peacefully” or whatever. But like, they don't explain what that means.

Christina

Yeah.

Jane

They're just like, OK, cool. And I mean, there is that tension. I think it's good that they have Max there as a character cause I feel like he sort of voices what most people were probably feeling at the time of like, this is just going to happen, we have to accept it. And Georg being a little bit more unusual with his like, “No, this is horrible. We don't want this!”

Christina

Right.

Jane

But again, they don't really explain exactly what's going on, and I think that probably at the time, well and even like because the stage musical was from 1959 and this is 1965. So people like knew. Like the war had only been like 20 years earlier, like people knew what happened. But I think it's interesting that like this is such a timeless classic and like it's still very much in the pop culture conversation. Like people know Sound of Music. But like, we're much farther removed from the events now, and I do think it's interesting that like a lot of people consider the Baroness the villain of the film and like, are more focused on the love triangle thing. It's like, the Nazis are right there!

Christina

Yeah, Nazis are definitely the villains of the film. I agree with you that the Baroness does nothing wrong.

Jane

She steps away gracefully.

Christina

Yes, but I will say that we see in that scene when Max is like, “what's gonna happen is gonna happen, and it's not my fault that I'm not a political person and I can't help it that other people are,” and then Georg says, “Yes, you can!” And that's really the first time that we're seeing Captain von Trapp recognizing, I have these, like, strong values that I want to shape my life around. And the Baroness is just kind of like, “Everyone, like, chill out.”

Jane

Yeah.

Christina

She is not really siding with Captain von Trapp. And saying, “Yes Georg, like I agree with you. Nazis are so bad!”

Jane

Which Maria does. Yeah, because there's definitely that scene when Max says, “You need to talk some sense into him. He has to cooperate with these people,” and she says, “I can't ask him to be less than he is.” And it's just like, she gets it. The Baroness does not. So, yeah, I agree that the Baroness and the captain do not belong together.

Christina

Yeah.

Jane

But I also don't think that she's like, the most evil character in the story, but yeah, she is again kind of like the typical Austrian or German of like, I'm not a Nazi, but I don't want to stand up to them.

Christina

I would say that the most evil actually is the Butler. He turns them in and it's like…

Jane

It's very subtle, though they like, don't explicitly say that, but then you just see him looking ominously out the window when the Nazis show up.

Christina

Yeah, but it is, gosh, it's so interesting. I know that most or probably most of your audience is not going to be familiar with the more recent musical, Spies Are Forever. I know you are, Jane.

Jane

Well, actually most of my audience is probably my friends who are familiar with it, but yeah.

Christina

That's true, but just in case, there's anyone who's not familiar. It's a musical that you can see on YouTube in full, and it takes place in, like, the 60s. And it's like, sort of a James Bond theme spies thing. And Nazis kind of try to make like a comeback in that, which I guess they do in James Bond as well all the time. They recently did a concert version of that, that musical and the creators were talking about when they wrote it in 2015, they just didn't realize that Nazis actually would make a comeback in 2016, and they would be part of our national conversation so much. Yeah, like during the years of 2016 to 2017, I think a lot of people realized that just random people in their lives actually agreed with very conservative and fascist viewpoints. That because we just didn't talk about our personal politics as much, we didn't realize that about each other. And so that moment of like realizing that your Butler has been a Nazi sympathizer this whole time actually, like, isn't that unrealistic of a moment.

Jane

Yeah ,going back to Max too, like, Georg even says to him like, “Sometimes I don't believe I know you” or something like that, when he he expresses like we should just get along with people is like, yeah, I think that that happened to a lot of people in the sort of 2016 era of like, assuming that everyone agrees with you that certain things are bad and then realizing like, oh, you don't think this is that big of a deal.

Christina

Right. Yeah.

Jane

OK, didn't didn't see that coming. Like Georg always, like he knows what kind of person Max is, that he's like, just trying to make, make a buck as quickly as he can, and like exploiting singers to get money from them and stuff like that. But I think he didn't realize what that would translate to. And I think that Max has a nice arc in that at the end, he helps them escape, even though he knows that's losing him money.

Christina

Yeah, the greatest sacrifice anyone could make: Max giving up the chance to win money.

Jane

Yeah, exactly. And that that escape is so good. I love the way they do it. It's amazing.

Christina

Yeah.

Jane

The way that they sing So Long, Farewell, like a reprise of So Long Farewell and just kind of sneak away. And nobody thinks anything of it. And then there's the lady who bows like 15 times.

Christina

Yes, the bowing lady!

Jane

I love her.

Christina

Yeah, they just keep bowing at each other!

Jane

I know this doesn't actually make sense, but I like to think that she was somehow in on it, and she was trying to do her part to help them escape by delaying their announcement.

Christina

Oh man, she's so great. I also love, at the end when they're like, hiding in the cemetery, and then they leave in the caretakers car and the Nazis’ cars won't start. And then the nuns are like, “Mother Superior….”

Jane

“I have sinned!”

Christina

“I have sinned!” and then they show that they've stolen the parts. What a great moment! Like that is just…

Jane

Yeah, and that's like that's like basically how the movie ends, cause it cuts from that to them walking across the mountains and…

Christina

And just like hearing the song Climb Every Mountain playing over that. Yeah, but like, what a great, like the nuns get the last laugh in the end and I love that for them.

Jane

Yeah, I think, I mean, what you were saying earlier about, like other Rodgers and Hammerstein shows, I'm not actually like that familiar with most of their other shows. Like I've seen most of them, like at least once. And then I guess the one I'm most familiar with is their version of Cinderella, and those songs were actually written for Julie Andrews, to make everything come full circle. But like I just a lot of their other shows, I have like major issues with a lot of the the aspects of them like they're kind of racist, they're kind of misogynistic. They like, have a lot of problematic elements and there's like a little bit of that in Sound of Music. I do think like, I mean, I love that Maria and Liesl have a conversation, but I think that that 16 going on 17 Reprise has a lot of, like problematic moments in there like that. Like “lo and behold, you're someone's wife and you belong to him” is a little bit like, ergh…

Christina

That's very strong written by a man vibes.

Jane

Yeah, exactly. It's like, we got to remind you that it's written by a man, but I feel like it has less of that than their other shows.

Christina

Oh yeah, I feel like most of their other shows, it's like maybe the ending is supposed to be, like kind of happy, but also there was definitely at least one tragic death that we're supposed to just ignore.

Jane

And also just like that, the the romantic leads actually don't have a healthy relationship and you're just kind of like I, I don't actually want them to be together? And so I think that the fact that this one is like they do have a healthy relationship, they clearly do belong together and also like it's more about getting away from the Nazis and standing up for what you believe in than promoting toxic, dysfunctional relationships that I think is part of why this one has become like the one that everyone talks about, and it was their last collaboration because I think Hammerstein died shortly after.

Christina

OK. I didn't realize it was their last one.

Jane

The musical premiered in 59 and Hammerstein died in 60. And so there's a couple of songs that were added for the movie that were just written by Rodgers without Hammerstein because he had died already.

Christina

Oh wow.

Jane

So like I Have Confidence and Something Good, I think.

Christina

And I love those songs. Well especially I Have Confidence, like that is such a great song.

Jane

Yeah, yeah, but some of the lyrics are a little weird, and it's like, maybe they could have used Hammerstein to help with that?

Christina

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I yeah, that's true.

Jane

But it does. It is very a very powerful song and I love that scene a lot.

Christina

Yeah, I guess Something Good is…I'm glad that they put it in there, but, it is like, what? Like it is like, you really have to listen to the lyrics to understand what they're talking about sometimes. Like it's very convoluted logic where they're just like, “I was a bad kid. But I must have done something good to be with you,” and it's like what like?

Jane

Yeah, I don't, and I don't really understand like it does, it seems kind of out of place. I feel like they could have made it better by like, making it be like, “I've never felt at home before. Like, I've always felt like I didn't fit in and, and you make me feel like that.” Like that would be a better message to have in that song instead of just being like, “I'm evil. But I must have done something good to deserve you.”

Christina

So I gotta ask as a as an aroace person, do you just like really avoid glass gazebos in general? Because it's seems like…

Jane

[laughter]

Christina

Based on the Sound of Music, like they're only allowed to be used for romantic moments.

Jane

Romantic songs. Yeah, every time I see one I'm like, “Ahhh! Run awaaay!” Umm, no, I hadn't ever really thought about that before. I do remember thinking that the Something Good scene was very boring and and then I also think just like, finding out that a lot of people love this movie because like they find Christopher Plummer really attractive, was very strange to me. Or like they watch it because of the love story. Because I was always like, yeah, it's there, it's it's fine, whatever but like, I was watching it for like the kids becoming appreciated and people figuring out who they are and stuff and to tell people like, “Oh yeah, Sound of Music is like my favorite movie,” and people would be like, “Oh, yeah, Christopher Plummer!” And I'm like, “He's the dad… Like, what are you talking about?”

Christina

OK, so I'm going to bring my allo perspective here. As someone who finds people attractive, yeah, like Christopher Plummer is so great in this. Also, apparently, like he helped build out the character somewhat from the stage musical version. And a lot of what makes the character in the movie so great came from Christopher Plummer's input so I think like, I just want to give him, like more credit than just like, wow, what a great performance because he he brought so much to it. But I was thinking about it today and I think that one reason people are so drawn to this love story is the way that it's portrayed in the movie, and not not necessarily in the musical or other places, is he basically made Captain von Trapp like a dad version of Mr. Darcy.

Jane

Yeah, I can see that.

Christina

Maria shows up. Really Rich guy is all, like aloof and he's like, “you're all weird and stuff,” and they get into all of these big arguments at the beginning. And you know. She's playing kind of an Elizabeth Bennet, like “I am witty and I'm going to stand up for myself. As opposed to like everyone else in your life who's going to be a yes person, I'm going to speak my mind to you.” And then they, you know, realize “oh, like, I actually really like you.” I think that it is that, like it's not that opposites attract, but it is that being willing to admit that your first impression of this person was not correct and that you actually do have a lot in common, but also that like that is so attractive: the man who starts out aloof, and then his barriers melt and he has a face like Christopher Plummer.

Jane

And he manages to propose to you without insulting your family, so even better than Mr. Darcy.

Christina

Yeah, well, he's improved on the formula. He also like, doesn't, you know, do your sister great harm by separating her from her true love.

Jane

Yeah, that's true too. So even better is if if you want someone better than Mr. Darcy: Captain Georg von Trapp.

Christina

Yeah, but I like, apparently the the real Captain von Trapp, he was not, like, emotionally withholding from his kids at all. And I think that they, like played up that piece for the musical, but then also like the humor that he has and like a lot of his really funny lines are when he's talking to Max actually, like their whole friendship. It’s just like so cunning, but apparently a lot of that originated with Christopher Plummer.

Jane

That makes sense because he, like he does that so well, and I love his little, like he's got a little twinkle in his eye. And when he does his little like teasing thing. Especially the scene when the kids go to say goodbye to Maria and then they come back and they're telling him that they were bery picking and all of that and he's just like letting them dig themselves into a hole is so great. And he does that so well. And then he, like, goes back into the house. You see him do his little chuckle like, “Oh, my kids are so silly.” But oh, that he lets them say that it's blueberries and then he's like, “Oh, it's the wrong season for blueberries,” and so then Friedrich goes, “Well, they were strawberries. It's been so cold lately, they turned blue!” is like one of my favorite moments. And then he just looks, Frederick looks so disappointed in himself. It’s so great! Oh man, there's so many just fun moments like that that I think are part of why I keep rewatching it because it is, it is almost 3 hours long, so I think I would watch it more if it was shorter, but I also like, I don't feel like it drags. I feel like it's engaging the whole time.

Christina

Yeah. I agree with you that probably the slowest part is Something Good.

Jane

Yeah.

Christina

Like I kind of feel like they they have to have it in there. Like, you know, it's like to move from not married to married, they have to have something there. But it is such a slow song and when I was a kid I definitely fast forwarded through it because I was just like, adults having feelings for each other? Whatever. Like this isn’t interesting. And, you know, compared to that amazing dance scene in that same setting with 16 going on 17 and then you just like see them standing in shadow being like, “I think I love you!” You're just like, oh, man, this is ugh…all right, I'm going to get up and like, get a glass of water or something.

Jane

Well, and it just it almost like undermines the message of like, yes, they have the same values and they're belonging together. It's like, “oh, wow, I don't deserve you because I was horrible.” And it's weird to like, have that be the song that they sing there, and I don't know, in the stage version, I don't know if they had a different song there or if they just…

Christina

They do. I looked it up and it's called An Ordinary Couple. I haven't actually listened to it.

Jane

I'm kind of thinking that they might have cut that out of more like modern productions.

Christina

Yeah, I think maybe they just like replaced it with Something Good in more recent stagings.

Jane

Yeah, I I'm trying to think. I don't remember how it was when I saw it on stage.

Christina

But yeah, I feel like now that I know that Hammerstein wasn't involved with that song, I'm like, you could even take another pass. Like you could even try for a future staging of the musical, like try something else there. Something that actually like talks about like in this moment, why they are into each other. At least we have some perspective on Maria, like being criticized when she was a child and a young adult. And then, like, feeling like she, you know, kind of was like, struggling to find her place in the world but that is not at all like anything that we've ever heard about Captain von Trapp, and so the fact that that's what they're singing about, it's they were clearly just like, “We need a song about people being in love with each other.” And then Rodgers was like, “What about this?”

Jane

Yeah, let's just, throw this in. Yeah, but it just it seems weirdly out of character for both of them to be singing about like, “I'm so awful and I don't deserve you,” because they they're more like confident and more self-assured than that.

Christina

Yeah.

Jane

That I think that it's, it's weird. I guess they're being vulnerable with each other and that's what we're supposed to take out of that.

Christina

I think that what Captain von Trapp and Maria need is a song where he's saying, like, “I was trying to stop myself from feeling things, but like, I feel comfortable feeling things when I'm around you.” And then Maria being like, “I never felt like I fit in, but I feel like I fit in when I'm around you.”

Jane

Yeah, exactly. And that would that would make more sense, but…OK, we fixed it. We fixed Sound of Music, guys.

Christina

I mean, we we figured out how to fix it. I don’t know that…we didn't actually write the song.

Jane

That's true. Yeah, OK.

Christina

We're getting there. We're getting there.

Jane

Don't want to get too critical of the movie though. But yeah, that's, I think that the the Something Good part and the 16 going on 17 reprise are like the two parts that really bothered me.

Christina

Yeah, it is one of those musicals that I feel like some musicals fall victim to: Act One, it's like there's so many great song. And then in Act Two they get to a point where they're like, “oh, like, we have so much plot to do before we can get to the end, and so there's not going to be as many songs, or if there are songs, they're going to kind of just be, like, shoehorned in because we've really got to do all this plot right now.” And there's like, so much that happens. You know, they get married and then they have to, like, get to the point where they're in the festival and escaping and they're like, “alright, I guess like we better have Maria and Liesl sing a little song here in the middle just so we have a song.” But it's not like an inspired one. I also, honestly, could cut the goatherd song.

Jane

Oh, I love that song. I mean, it has nothing to do with anything and it could easily be cut. But I just love it so much.

Christina

I mean, I think it does serve a narrative purpose in that it's showing like the way that the von Trapp household has now been transformed and like you know, everyone's having a good time together again and it's all thanks to Maria. But the song is longer than it needs to be, because first they tell the story about the goat herder and then they're like we're going to tell the same story, but just about goats?

Jane

Yeah, I think it's really funny that like they have to turn them into goats before they make the thing about “soon the duet will become a trio” like it's OK that there's a baby goat. If we talk about baby humans, that's going too far. Like we can't imply sex in this show.

Christina

OK, maybe I I never understood that, but I still maintain there's too much of that song.

Jane

Oh, for sure. Yeah, I agree. But I also love it and I think it's really fun seeing the like the kids trying to do the puppet show and like all of that, I I think it's very fun. It is completely unnecessary and way too long. I'm trying to think like what my f- I don't know what my favorite song is, I love so many of the songs, but I do absolutely love the Do Re Mi scene. Even though that goes on way too long. Like it's a very, very long sequence.

Christina

No because they’re going all around Salzburg. No, I I wouldn't cut one second of that song.

Jane

It's so fun. It's so good.

Christina

Do Re Mi and they, they do like all the different versions and stuff. And oh man, I love it. I wish it was that easy to learn how to sing in harmony.

Jane

Yes! Yes, I also love that they're like, “We don't know any songs” and then they're just immediately singing every song.

Christina

Yeah and then when their dad shows back up and they're singing, The Hills are Alive, and then he comes in and starts singing it like I'm not bothered by the fact that he just knows the words because it's a musical. But what is amazing to me is that they're like, oh, like, not only did our governess teach us this song, but we just automatically know how to, like, go into choral, like vocal backing parts for our dad.

Jane

Well, it's it's unclear how much time has passed because clearly the do-re-mi sequence takes place over multiple days because they changed their clothes. I don't know where they got those clothes because she had to make them clothes out of curtains because they only had their like, really like fancy clothes.

Christina

So, OK, so here's my theory. So they have their like uniform clothes, and then she makes them the play clothes. And when they're like, sitting around on the grass and doing more physical stuff, they're wearing the play clothes. And like when they're on the lake, they're wearing the play clothes. But then when they're touring Salzburg and they're like walking through the gardens and in a carriage, that's when we see them in these other casual clothes, and I feel like maybe those were clothes that they did have that were like for some other purpose. Like you wouldn't want to get them dirty so they're not considered play clothes, but maybe they did have more than like 2 outfits to wear.

Jane

OK, OK. That's fair.

Christina

That's my headcanon. I have put a lot of thought into the costuming in this movie, so I do have headcanon about every outfit that people wear.

Jane

OK, that's fair. Because I was thinking like, well, maybe she like takes everybody else's curtains in the area and makes just makes a lot of clothes out of all the other curtains.

Christina

I mean, maybe. The other thing that I noticed when I was rewatching that sequence is they each have like three outfits and they wear them in different combinations at different times, so it is kind of like, like they have the play clothes and then it seems like they each kind of have two non play clothes, non uniform outfits. And there's like, different scenes where, like Maria is wearing her striped dress in one scene. And I don't know. I'm just saying that it seems like it's taking place over like maybe a couple weeks actually, and they just have these three outfits that they're differently cycling through. What I'm trying to say is the costuming department did a great job of telling me the story of like, over time them going out on all these different adventures and it not just happening over a couple of days while their dad was out of town.

Jane

Yeah, because because I don't think they ever officially established how long he's gone. I know that like before he leaves when Maria is talking to Frau Schmidt, she says the last time he went to visit the Baroness, he stayed for a month. So it's implied that it's going to be for a little while, but it doesn't, I mean, it doesn't really matter, but it's nice that they're able to show like, yes, he was gone for a long time without like making it take a long time for the audience.

Christina

Yeah.

Jane

By showing all the different combinations of outfits. But I must admit that, like a lot of the time, I wasn't even really paying attention to that because I don't tend to pay that much attention to costumes.

Christina

That's fine. Since we're on the topic of costumes, though, I do want to bring up my probably favorite costume moment in the entire movie, which is: when she first comes to the von Trapp household, she's wearing this grey dress which multiple people insult her about, and she and the captain have a great exchange where she says, “I don't have any other clothes. All of our clothes are given away to the poor,” and then he says, “What about that outfit?” And she says….

Jane

“The poor didn't want this one.” It's like my favorite line.

Christina

So what I love is that in the second act, when she goes in to talk to Mother Superior, right before she goes in, we see someone who is just entering the convent and she's wearing, like a snazzy green dress and then Mother superior is like, “Go off and we’ll get you wimple” or whatever she says. And then Maria comes in and they have their whole talk. And then when Maria shows back up at the von Trapp family house, she's wearing the snazzy green dress.

Jane

Yes!

Christina

And I love that they took the time to be like, we know that we set up that like they have terrible clothes at the convent, but there is a reason that she is, like dressed to the nine right now.

Jane

It is so great and like it took me so long to notice that. I think I always assumed that the reason they showed the new person coming in is like she was replacing Maria and to be like, yes, Maria needs to leave kind of thing of like, there's no reason for her to be here. We have another postulate lined up.

Christina

We have so many nuns. Don't worry about it!

Jane

It was a relatively recent viewing for me where I was like, “Ohhhh, she's wearing THAT DRESS! OK.” And that's great. I agree. That's amazing. And they don't really like, they don't hit you over the head with it. It's just very subtle, but it's there and it's great.

Christina

Yeah, yeah. So there might be other plot holes in this movie, but that is not one of them. They're like, “Don't worry. We tied this one up in a nice little bow like they added in like a whole little scene.

Jane

Just for that dress.

Christina

I mean, it's like one line, but still. OK, so one of the things that I wanted to ask because I feel like in most of your episodes so far, you've like pointed out like the possible ace identifying characters in the movie and obviously we have a bunch of nuns. So like, there's a lot of people who are celibate but like Max is

Jane

Yeah!

Christina

definitely the one who’s just like, “I’m not interested in like…” And he has friends. You know, it's not that he is like, “I don't need people,” but he's just like, “I'm not out here looking for love. I'm looking for a singing group I can take advantage of.”

Jane

Yeah, I feel like Max is definitely like very queer-coded, and he has, like certain… just the way he reads his lines and certain mannerisms, I feel like could be interpreted as stereotypically gay or something.

Christina

Interesting, I hadn't even thought of that. But now that you're saying it? Yes, I get that.

Jane

Yeah, I feel like that's, I don't know if other people see it that way. And I didn't always see it that way, but in more recent viewings. He doesn't have a partner that we know of and that could just be because that wasn't socially acceptable. But also like being aroace is also queer. So it's not necessarily that he has to be gay.

Christina

Yeah.

Jane

But yeah, and we don't see him showing any sort of like… because I think there is sort of a tendency to be like, OK, well if the Baroness doesn't end up with the captain, maybe like with Max?

Christina

No way.

Jane

But I I love their dynamic as like friends and sort of like, co-conspirators a little bit because I think that Max does want the Baroness and the captain to end up together, at least at first. I don't know how he feels about Maria to be honest, we don't really see them interact very much. But yeah, I definitely feel like he is…he's another example of like there's no one right path, right? That like he knows exactly what he wants out of life. He's not looking for a romantic partner. He's looking for a singing group that he can manage and make money off of.

Christina

Yeah. Well, I will say like, I think that he kind of does ship the Baroness with Captain von Trapp, but then I think he's also just like, yeah, like you guys are adults and like if that doesn't work out like I'm going to be just as welcoming to Maria and I'm going to be happy for Georg for like, finding the person that he actually wanted to be with plus she’s encouraging him to sing.

Jane

Well, and he he uses their their honeymoon as like, “Oh, while you guys are away, I'm going to just like, casually enter your children into a singing contest without talking to you about it, because uh, that's that's cool, right?”

Christina

Yeah, I can't believe they left them alone with Max. I mean, I guess the housekeeper was there.

Jane

Was Max supposed to be like their guardian during that time? It's not really super clear.

Christina

I mean, I guess he, you know, I don't know if he was supposed to be their guardian. I think he was just, like, staying at the house and was just like, “Oh, like, you know, I'm here. You're here. What if we enter this singing festival?”

Jane

Yeah, we don't, we don't actually see how that comes about. We cut from the wedding to them rehearsing, basically. But yeah, I I love that. I think that's so funny being like, “Yeah, just take as long of a honeymoon as you want. I'm just gonna make your children sing. It's all good.”

Christina

Yeah. All right. Well, we've gotten through all of my notes.

Jane

OK. Well, any any other last thoughts?

Christina

Oh man, just that I think I just want to say I think that the musical, the stage musical, has a reputation as being like, way too sweet. And like hokey or something. But if you have never seen the movie, or if you haven't seen it in a long time, I highly recommend revisiting it because the cinematography is beautiful, the acting is amazing, and the dialogue is very witty. And there are just some really funny scenes with Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer and, and they like, they really made a movie that I think has great themes that are told really well, so it's good. Watch that.

Jane

Yeah, I hear it being criticized for being too saccharine and I'm just like, but it's not really though, like there's a lot of really serious moments in this and and

Christina

Yeah, yeah.

Jane

And I feel like the the good ones feel earned like they are not just like oh, but everything's fine now. It's like, but we had to work to make things better again. And I do love that. I also want to mention: Best Picture winner. So I did. Watch it. When I was watching through all the Best Picture winners.

Christina

OK. Yeah.

Jane

What I noticed when I was watching through all the Best Picture winners is that most of them are very long war movies. And this is this kind of fits with that because it is very long and there is a war involved, but it's a little bit more fun to watch than some of the just like 3 hour people fighting.

Christina

One of the most fun World War Two movies there is.

Jane

It truly is. Yeah, I would agree with that.

Christina

Because there's hardly any war in it. It's just sort of like right before the war, so…

Jane

Yeah, the war is implied.

Christina

Yeah, I would say the best part of any war is before it happens.

Jane

Yeah, probably.

Christina

Yeah. What a great note to end this podcast on.

[laughter]

Jane

Anyway, thank you so much for being my guest. My first ever guest.

Christina

Thank you for inviting me. And I just want to say that being your friend is one of my favorite things.

Jane

Oh, I feel the same way!

Hello and welcome back to the Rewatch Rewind! My name is Jane, and this is the podcast where I talk about my most frequently rewatched movies after 20 years of keeping track. Today I will be discussing my 37th most watched movie: Act III Communications’ 1987 fantasy adventure comedy The Princess Bride, directed by Rob Reiner, written by William Goldman based on his novel, and starring Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, and Mandy Patinkin.

This is another film like Mary Poppins that I’m not even sure I have to summarize, I feel like it’s so deeply ingrained in popular culture that anyone who is even vaguely familiar with the concept of movies knows Princess Bride. Even if you somehow haven’t seen it, you’ve almost certainly heard it quoted: I mean, it’s got “Inconceivable!” and “As you wish” and “Mawaige” and of course “Hello, my name is Iñigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!” among many many other extremely quotable lines.

But, just in case you’ve forgotten what it’s about, let me explain…No, there is too much. Let me sum up. The Princess Bride is a story being read to a boy (Fred Savage) by his grandfather (Peter Falk) and tells of the beautiful young woman Buttercup (Robin Wright) and her handsome farm boy Westley (Cary Elwes), whose love overcomes a plethora of obstacles, including pirates, kidnappers, eels, cliffs, swords, poison, fire, quicksand, large rodents, a sadistic 6-fingered count, a torture machine, and a prince who wants to marry but also murder Buttercup.

This movie used to be on TV all the time when I was young, so I remember catching bits and pieces of it a lot, but I can’t recall exactly when I first watched it all the way through. The main first impressions I remember are being terrified of the ROUSes (rodents of unusual size) and not really understanding what was going on. But I know I had figured it out and grown to appreciate it well before I started tracking the movies I watched. Once I started keeping track, I saw it once in 2003, once in 2004, twice in 2005, once in 2006, twice in 2007, once in 2008, twice in 2009, and once each in 2012, 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2021: 15 times total.

If you’ve listened to my previous episodes, you may be wondering how on earth I’m going to argue that The Princess Bride is not a romantic film, and the answer is…I’m not. Though there is a lot of non-romantic stuff going on throughout the movie, I think we can all agree that the extremely romantic love between Westley and Buttercup is the main driving force of the story. And that’s okay, I’m not anti-romance simply because I’m aromantic; I’m anti-amatonormativity, the idea that every human wants and needs a long-term romantic partner. And while The Princess Bride is a love story, it is not amatonormative. None of the other characters besides Westley and Buttercup seem to be looking for romance, even though they are extremely well developed and do have clear objectives. Iñigo (Mandy Patinkin) wants to avenge the death of his father; Vizzini (Wallace Shawn) wants power; Fezzik (Andre the Giant) wants to be useful; Count Rugen (Christopher Guest) wants to torture people; and even Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon) only wants to get married so he can start a war over the death of his bride. Granted, not all of these are presented as good objectives, but at no point is it suggested that any of these characters should abandon their quests and instead search for romance. A significant amount of screen time is devoted to loving but platonic friendship, especially the one between Iñigo and Fezzik, which is fun and beautiful. The camaraderie between them and Westley when the three join forces is a major highlight of the film. Of course, it’s all in pursuit of romance (and vengeance), but that doesn’t diminish the strength of their friendship. Obviously no one can deny that a major recurring theme of the film is that true love (which is generally implied to be inherently romantic) is the greatest thing in the world, besides a nice MLT – a mutton, lettuce, and tomato sandwich – which I assume is that world’s version of cake or garlic bread and Miracle Max is an ace icon, but anyway. My point is that the movie emphasizes that the kind of love between Westley and Buttercup is rare. If you find it, you should hold onto it, but not everybody is going to find it, so don’t sit and wallow in self-pity or despair if you don’t. And this is kind of how I always thought of romance for myself, before I knew that being aromantic was a thing. It would be great if I happened to find it, but if not, there are other things to focus on. So amatonormativity and its consequences – people desperately trying to find a partner, any partner, just to have one; expressions of pity toward single people; etc – really confused me. As did the knowledge, once I figured it out, that most people enjoy romantic movies because of the romance, and not despite it, as I eventually realized I was almost subconsciously doing. Like the kid hearing this story, I tolerate the kissing parts if the rest of the story draws me in enough, which Princess Bride absolutely does. The grandpa telling him “someday you might not mind so much” about kissing rather than something like “someday you will like kissing” was almost certainly not intended to fight amatonormativity, but we can choose to see it that way. The fact that the kid wants to hear about the kissing at the end could be interpreted as “he’s finally growing up and accepting that romance is part of life”; but, it can also be interpreted as, “he’s so into the story that he’ll put up with the kissing at the end so it doesn’t go unfinished,” and that I relate to. I also appreciate that the movie ends with the grandpa saying “As you wish” to his grandson. By echoing the way Westley said “I love you” to Buttercup, the grandfather is implying that those two different kinds of love are equal, refusing to play along with the amatonormative idea that romantic love is far superior to any other form of love.

While I’m sure that a lot of people do watch The Princess Bride at least partly for the romance, I think that unlike many romantic films, the reasons I enjoy it are also the main reasons most other people enjoy it. The script is clever, quotable, and fun; the characters are eclectic and fascinating and perfectly brought to life by fabulous actors; and the tone is unique. Apart from the scenes in the kid’s bedroom, what we’re seeing is not the actual story; we’re seeing what the kid pictures as he’s hearing the story, which is such a cool way to tell it. Everything feels larger-than-life, but in an honest, pure way that makes it feel realistic even in its absurdity. The Princess Bride is a delightful blend of a child’s imagination and an experienced storyteller’s writing skills, and I think that is a major contributor to its enduring popularity, even if most of its fans wouldn’t necessarily articulate it that way. It lives in that elusive space between childhood and adulthood where both children and adults feel at home, and therefore love to revisit. I read the book the movie is adapted from once as a teenager, and I remember being struck by how, even though many of the plot points had changed, the humor and tone were perfectly consistent between the novel and the film, which made it, in my opinion, an extremely faithful adaptation. Of course this makes sense because William Goldman wrote both, and Rob Reiner, the film’s director, was a big fan of the book. But often novel-to-feature-film adaptations get so focused on figuring out how to shorten the story without omitting important plot points that they lose sight of the heart of the original story. That absolutely did not happen here, and that’s a big part of why so many people love this movie. Sure, the plot points are interesting, but we’re really here for the unique comedic tone that was taken directly from the book. Changing the sharks to eels and eliminating the Zoo of Death were no big deal, but trying to tell the story without witty jokes simply would not have worked.

I think of all the movies I’ll be talking about on this podcast, The Princess Bride is the one I’ve watched the most in large groups. Most of my movie watching has been done at home, maybe with a few family members or friends, and I’ve certainly watched this one that way as well, but I remember seeing it several times at big movie night events. While I’ve definitely encountered people who don’t love it and think it’s overrated, most people I know are always up for a Princess Bride rewatch. And because of its wide appeal and quotable script, it’s very fun to see with a big crowd. While I’m too young to have seen it in a theater when it was first released, I did go to a 30th anniversary screening in 2017, which was awesome. My favorite part of that experience was after Buttercup hears that Westley’s ship has been captured by the Dread Pirate Roberts, who famously takes no prisoners, and says, “I will never love again,” a kid sitting behind me muttered, “Well THAT seems a little extreme” and I’ve been laughing about it ever since.

In addition to crowded viewings themselves, just being familiar with this movie in general has been a very social experience. As a teenager who loved old Hollywood and frequently referenced movies most kids my age had never heard of (I know the movies I’ve talked about here so far are fairly well-known, but just wait), it was fun to be able to bring up this one and have most people know what I was talking about for once. A few years ago I got to participate in a Princess Bride script reading with some friends, and I read for Vizzini and a few other minor characters, and it was so fun! I kept losing my place because I was so caught up watching everybody else. The joy of reading this excellent script with other people who also love the movie cannot be expressed in words. Also, a former coworker of mine LOVES this movie, and we used to quote it to each other all the time when we worked together. At one point everyone in our office got these “mood indicators,” which were desk calendar looking booklets where every page had a different emotion and a colorful emoji-style face on it – I guess to give people who approached our desks a heads up on how we were doing that day? I’m not sure how other people used theirs, but this coworker liked to cut out post-it notes in the shape of hair and various props and speech bubbles to add to them, so the ones in our department would quote bits of Princess Bride, mostly parts of the scene when Fezzik keeps rhyming with Iñigo and winding up Vizzini. I’ll post pictures I took of them on Tumblr – have I mentioned that this podcast has a Tumblr? It’s the-rewatch-rewind. The link will be in the show notes. I know most people stopped using Tumblr a while ago but it’s still my favorite social media platform, so that’s where I’ve been putting the transcripts of this podcast.

Anyway, while 15 is a lot of times to watch a movie, it feels like I’ve watched Princess Bride way more than that in the last 20 years, partly because of how frequently it comes up in life. Some films are more memorable than others, and this one leaves a deep impression every time I revisit it, so each viewing feels like multiple. I’m also still noticing new things about it – it took me until writing this episode to appreciate the humor of the man with the extra finger being a count. Obviously, the movie isn’t perfect; it could certainly use more female characters and racial diversity, for a start. But overall I think it deserves its popularity and devoted followers. It’s a well-told story with an excellent sense of humor featuring an ensemble of fascinating characters; what’s not to love?

The year was 2003, the month was January. Gas was $1.50 a gallon, the iPod was in its 2nd generation, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers was #1 at the box office. And 12-year-old me decided to start keeping track of all the movies I watched.

Hello, my name is Jane and I’ve been counting all the movies I watch for TWENTY YEARS. To honor this ridiculous milestone, I decided to make this podcast to talk about my top 40 most-watched movies from 2003 through 2022. So here it is. Welcome to the Rewatch Rewind!

In each episode, after this one, I will be talking about one of my most frequently re-watched movies – about the film itself, and also about my own personal experience with it: how I first discovered it (if I remember), what makes me keep returning to it, etc. Most of the time it will just be me, but sometimes I’ll bring in a guest who also loves the movie so we can talk about it together. Before I dive in, I do want to make it clear that I am not saying these are the 40 best movies. I’m not even saying that they’re my 40 favorite movies, although I do love them all. Sometimes excellent films are hard to watch more than once, and sometimes films that are objectively bad are fun entertainment. This isn’t meant to be a list of the Greatest Films Ever Made, so please don’t expect that or you’ll be disappointed. Bear in mind that I was 12 years old when I started this. While many of my favorite movies when I was 12 are still among my favorites today, most of them would be lower on the list if I’d started ten years later. Part of that is because the way I watch movies has changed significantly in the last 20 years. In 2003, Netflix was still a DVD rental company, so streaming wasn’t really a thing. At the time, I barely owned any movies, so most of what I watched was what happened to be on TV or what my family borrowed from the library. Over the years, the accumulation of more and more VHS tapes and DVDs and streaming subscriptions has led to almost limitless possibilities when I want to watch something, which has led to a decrease in rewatches and an increase in new discoveries. So partly because of that, and partly because of the way time works, movies that were released before 2003 have an advantage over those that were released later, both because I had the full 20 years to watch those, and because the ones I had access to then were more likely to be rewatched, since I had fewer overall possibilities. Also, in 2002, I had started getting into Old Hollywood, which led me to watch a lot of films from well before my time. So the oldest movie I will be talking about was released in 1935, and the most recent is from 2017.

According to my records, in those 20 years, I watched 1,812 different movies a total of 4,592 times. But what exactly counts as “a movie”? Clearly theatrically released feature films count. Direct-to-home-viewing and made-for-tv features also seem obvious to include. But what about short films? What about limited series? Those were a little bit harder to know whether to count or not. I don’t think I was completely consistent, but for the most part, I counted short films if they were at least a half hour long. I didn’t count limited series if I knew they were going to have a second season, but otherwise it’s kind of based on feel. If a mini-series feels like a long movie, I count it; if it feels more like a TV show I don’t. I haven’t been including webseries unless there’s a feature cut, in which case I only counted the times I watched the feature cut, not episodes. Sometimes I counted filmed stage shows as movies, and sometimes I didn’t, but that won’t really affect this podcast because I didn’t watch any of them enough times to make it to the top 40.

Usually, the movies I watch are determined by reasons as simple as, “This movie is available and the people I’m with and I feel like watching it today,” but other times I watch movies for more specific reasons than that. There are certain actors or other filmmakers whose birthdays I celebrate every year by having my own marathon of their work, and there are certain dates that are mentioned in movies that need to be watched on those dates. And over the years, I’ve done a few movie-watching “projects” that have impacted my view counts a bit. In 2010 I started watching through all the Best Picture Oscar Winners in chronological order. Similarly, in 2015 I started watching through the Best Actress Winners, and in 2017 I started on Best Adapted Screenplay, which took much longer since I was also reading the source material to evaluate the quality of the adaptation. I ultimately got tired of that last project before I got caught up…maybe someday I’ll finish, or not. I also did a non-Oscars-related project in 2020 with my brother when we watched through all the theatrically released Disney animated features so we could attempt a definitive ranking. Most of the movies I’m going to be talking about on this podcast weren’t part of any of these projects, but some were, so I’ll mention that when it comes up.

Looking through my list, it strikes me that most of the characters in these films are white, straight, cis, middle-to-upper-class Americans or Europeans, and most of the writers and directors are white, straight, cis men. I have been trying to watch movies from more diverse perspectives recently, but I haven’t been doing that long enough for it to be very noticeable in my top 40. So again, don’t take this as a full and complete list of the best films ever made – that list should have way better representation than this one.

Speaking of representation, or a lack thereof, another thing I do want to mention in this introduction is that in the last few years I have started to understand that I am aromantic and asexual, or “aroace” for short. Those terms represent a spectrum and therefore mean different things to different people, but for me personally, it means I don’t experience romantic or sexual attraction to anyone. It took me until my late 20s to early 30s to figure this out because it was just…never presented as an option. I kind of assumed eventually I would meet somebody I was attracted to in that way because society and media presented it as an inevitability. I was just a late bloomer, just very picky, just… not interested in pursuing that kind of relationship. Once I found and understood and adopted this label, so many things about myself made a lot of sense. Recently I’ve started realizing just how much this part of my identity has impacted every aspect of my life, including the way I consume media. So when applicable, I’m going to be talking about the things about these movies that particularly appeal to me, or that I interpreted in an alternative way, from an aromantic and/or asexual perspective. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie that had official, canonical aroace representation, but there are characters and situations that can be interpreted that way, and I want to talk about that. Part of why I’m making this podcast is because it would have made a huge difference to me if I’d heard anyone talking from this perspective when I was younger, so I’m hoping that sharing my voice might help someone else waste less time being confused about themselves. And I also think it serves everyone to learn more about different identities, whether or not they describe them.

So just to get some definitions out of the way: aro is short for aromantic, which means little to no romantic attraction, and ace is short for asexual, which means little to no sexual attraction. Sexual and romantic attraction are not the same thing – so I’m told; I don’t really know because I don’t experience either of them, but some people have a romantic orientation different from their sexual orientation, hence the different terms. These are the identities that the “A” in LGBTQIA+ stands for; it does not stand for ally. I’m saying all this in the introduction partly so I don’t have to keep defining these terms, and partly to let you know that if, for whatever reason, you don’t want to hear someone talking about asexuality or aromanticism, this is not going to be the podcast for you.

For everyone else, subscribe or follow or whatever you have to do on your platform if you want to hear what I have to say about my most rewatched movies for the last 20 years. I’ve never made a podcast before so I don’t really know what I’m doing, but I’m going to try to get these out weekly, so that I finish before the end of the year – we’ll see if that happens. I’m going to do a countdown, so the first movie I’ll talk about will be the one in 40th place, and I’ll work my way up to my #1 most re-watched movie. I broke all ties using runtimes, so longer movies are ranked higher than shorter movies that I watched the same number of times because I spent more minutes watching them.

Hello and welcome back to the Rewatch Rewind! My name is Jane and this is the podcast where I count down my top 40 most rewatched movies. Today I will be discussing #36 on my list: Disney’s 2013 animated musical Frozen, directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, written by Jennifer Lee, from a story by Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, and Shane Morris inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen”, and featuring the voice talents of Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad, and Santino Fontana.

Frozen is the story of two royal sisters. The older, Elsa (voiced by Idina Menzel), has ice powers that she doesn’t know how to control. As a child, she accidentally injured her younger sister, Anna (voiced by Kristen Bell), who was healed by trolls but has no memory of Elsa’s powers. On Elsa’s coronation day, the palace gates are opened for the first time in years, and Anna meets Prince Hans of the Southern Isles (Santino Fontana) and is immediately smitten. But asking for Elsa’s blessing of their marriage leads to a fight that causes Elsa to unintentionally unleash her powers. Terrified, Elsa runs away, leaving the whole kingdom frozen. Anna goes after her and teams up with mountain man Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), his reindeer Sven, and a magical snowman created by Elsa named Olaf (Josh Gad) to bring back summer, and her sister.

I remember seeing teasers for this movie that made it look like it was about a snowman and a reindeer chasing each other around an ice rink, which seemed very boring. But my sister and I decided to give it a chance and see it in theaters. It had only been out for a couple of days, so we had vaguely heard that people seemed to be liking it, but we still didn’t really know what it was about, let alone how popular it would become. And I know I’m about 10 years too late with this advice, but I highly recommend experiencing Frozen for the first time in a crowded theater, before the hype, with no expectations, next to your sister with whom you have a close relationship. Truly one of my top 5 best cinematic experiences ever. I think I probably would still love this movie even if I’d been introduced to it in a less powerful way, but that first viewing has certainly impacted the way I feel about the movie to this day.

I still remember exactly how I felt when I heard and saw Let It Go for the first time. The song started and it was like, yes, good, an Idina Menzel number, I love Wicked, I’m here for this. And then that first “The cold never bothered me anyway” when she throws off her cloak gave me chills. My brain went, “Oh wow. This isn’t just a song, it’s a FEELING.” And it just. kept. escalating. as Elsa’s confidence grew and she could finally be herself for the very first time. By the end of the number, I was either in tears or too overwhelmed with emotion to even cry, I can’t remember which. Some kid a few rows behind us murmured, “Wow, she’s…way prettier than I thought.” And maybe I was just projecting the way I felt, but to me it sounded like the kid was really saying, “Something needs to be said here, but I can’t find the words.” It’s not that I’d never been moved by a musical number before, but this took it to the next level. And all of this is almost embarrassing for me to admit now, because Let It Go then became one of the most overplayed songs of all time and everyone got sick of it, but listen. It was overplayed for a reason. It’s an epic song, and Idina Menzel frickin kills it. I still stand by this.

Looking back on my other thoughts as I watched Frozen unfold for the first time shows me just how much amatonormativity – the idea that everyone wants and needs a long-term monogamous romantic partner – had affected me. I still thought I was straight, although my standard justification of “I’m not into dating yet but I’m sure I will be when I’m older” was feeling less and less valid, as I was then 23 years old. Anyway, I distinctly remember, during Love Is an Open Door, which is the song that Hans and Anna sing to each other soon after they meet, that my sister and I turned to each other and whispered, “I ship it.” And then Kristoff got thrown into the story, and I was conflicted, because I really liked Anna with him, too. I started thinking maybe Elsa would end up with Hans. And then Elsa wounded Anna’s heart with her ice, which only an act of true love could heal, and it did not even occur to me that that could be anything other than a romantic kiss. I thought Kristoff would bring her back to Hans, she would kiss him but it wouldn’t do anything, and that’s when she’d realize her true love was actually Kristoff. But while I was expecting things to not work out between Anna and Hans, I was NOT expecting Hans to be cruel, so his “Oh Anna, if only there was someone out there who loved you” was shocking and devastating. I thought the scene when Olaf rescues her and explains that “some people are worth melting for” was beautiful – the snowman was far less obnoxious than I’d been anticipating – but even then it never occurred to me that Anna would be cured by anything other than kissing Kristoff. And then. Fighting the blizzard and the ice spreading through her body, almost reunited with her romantic true love, Anna sees Hans draw a sword against Elsa. I’m sure if I’d been able to think clearly in that moment, I would have finally figured out what was coming, but all I could do was gape at the screen as Anna changed course and saved her sister instead. And with hindsight, duh, that was the act of true love, but for a second or two I legitimately thought she was now permanently frozen. And, like, here’s the thing. I’ve loved Disney movies as long as I can remember, so I’m not trying to insult them. But the studio that made Snow White and Sleeping Beauty and The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast and Enchanted had so thoroughly convinced me that when you need love to break a spell, it must be romantic and almost always involves a kiss, that I couldn’t even imagine that a Disney film would ever treat saving a family member’s life as powerful enough for that. But Frozen did. Frozen went there. While I was sitting next to my wonderful sister, one of the most important people to me, this movie showed me that it’s okay for sisterly love to be the most powerful thing in your life. So at that point I definitely cried.

As far back as I can remember, the overemphasis on romance in movies has bothered me, but until then I thought I just had to accept it. Falling in romantic love was a universal human experience, so everyone said; naturally people wanted to tell stories about it. Obviously I’d seen movies, even Disney movies like Mary Poppins and Emperor’s New Groove, that didn’t have love stories before. But a Disney PRINCESS movie, that HAD romantic love, but showed a character actively CHOOSING a non-romantic loved one over a romantic one, and saving herself in the process??? That was mind-blowing. Even though I didn’t know I was aroace at the time, I knew I loved that message. So as my sister and I left the theater, we could not praise this movie enough, and for weeks and months afterward, I couldn’t get this story out of my head, and I didn’t want to. I saw it two more times in theaters, for a total of 3 views in 2013, and then bought the DVD as soon as it was released. The following Halloween I dressed as Elsa, along with thousands of girls 15 to 20 years younger than me. I ended up watching Frozen eight times in 2014. But then…I stopped watching it for a while.

Part of that was just because watching a movie 11 times in a little over a year is a lot, even for me, so I needed a break. But another part of it was people started really hating on this movie, and it got to me. Some of the criticism was legitimate – like, no, we really didn’t need another animated musical about white royalty, and yes, there are several plot holes – but a lot of it boiled down to: this thing is overwhelmingly popular and therefore it’s cool and edgy to say it’s bad. But I bought it. I felt embarrassed by my initial enthusiasm. I was way too old to be obsessing over a movie like this the way I had done in my early teens. Normally I don’t have much trouble loving the movies I love unapologetically, but normally the movies I love are old or obscure enough that the internet isn’t filled with hot takes about why it’s bad to love them. I still enjoyed listening to the songs, and I still defended it when I heard it disparaged in person, but after my 8 viewings in 2014 I didn’t watch Frozen again until 2019. And I only watched it then because Frozen II was coming out and I wanted to refresh myself on the first one before I saw the sequel. I was kind of expecting that viewing to convince me once and for all that I had gotten over it, but I had the complete opposite experience. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of that rewatch. I was reminded that I really do genuinely love and enjoy this movie, and I wished I hadn’t let the haters convince me otherwise. So I watched it once each in 2020, 2021, and 2022, which was partly because of the Disney watching project I did with my brother – we watched through all the animated Disney movies in order in 2020, and then we re-watched the ones we’d ranked in the top 10 in 2022 – yes, we decided Frozen is a top 10 Disney animated film, and no I will not apologize for that.

I think a big reason why I let myself get temporarily talked out of loving Frozen is because I couldn’t articulate what I really loved about it at the time, so I thought that meant I didn’t actually love it. But now that I know I’m aroace, it makes perfect sense. As I mentioned before, even at the time, I knew that seeing a character choose familial love over romantic love in a matter of life and death meant a lot to me, though I didn’t know the extent of it. And I related to Elsa and Let It Go spoke to me, but it took me a long time to recognize the extent of that too. As someone who has struggled with depression, I initially saw Elsa’s self-imposed isolation to try to protect people that ended up hurting them as an allegory for that disease, which I still think it is to a certain extent. Depression dulls all emotions and tricks one’s brain into thinking others would be better off without them, and that describes some of what Elsa is going through. But there’s also the aspect of hiding a part of herself that she knew she wouldn’t be accepted for, and finally breaking away from that to live as her true self, that a lot of LGBTQIA+ people relate to, which I didn’t recognize in myself at the time – and now I wonder if another reason I stepped away from the movie for a while was a subconscious fear of facing my own queerness. I know a lot of people see Elsa as a lesbian, which seemed to be confirmed by a couple of brief moments in Frozen II. While I would argue that it’s not quite canon yet, I wouldn’t mind if Frozen III makes it so – provided the story of Frozen III actually makes sense, unlike whatever the heck Frozen II is supposed to be about. What I’m trying to say is I don’t want to dismiss the Elsa is a lesbian theory, but to me she feels very aroace. She doesn’t seem at all interested in finding a partner, she just wants to hang out in her mountain ice palace by herself, which sounds pretty awesome even though I still don’t understand how she was going to be able to feed herself up there. Also, at the end of the first movie, she seems very surprised to learn that she has the capacity to thaw what she’s frozen by allowing herself to feel love. Elsa has been suppressing all of her emotions because she knows that her ice powers are harder to control when she feels things, which is again similar to depression. But seeing this through an aroace lens of constantly feeling like you’re incapable of the “correct” kind of love, I could see an aroace Elsa being aware of love as a thawing force, but thinking it had to be romantic love and that she was therefore doomed. So seeing Anna using their sisterly love to heal her frozen heart showed Elsa that the type of love she could feel was powerful enough, and that was all she needed to bring back summer. Like most of my aroace headcanons, I’m pretty sure this wasn’t quite what the filmmakers actually intended, but it works and it’s beautiful.

 Whether Elsa is intentional queer representation or not, even the straight romantic relationship in Frozen is unusual for a Disney movie. Anna and Kristoff’s rocky start leading to eventual feelings is nothing new, of course, but the way they leave it (at least at the end of the first movie, which I like to pretend is the end of the story because, again, the sequel makes no sense) is very sweet. They’re not officially dating, let alone engaged or married, but Anna presents Kristoff with a new sled, and he’s so excited that he exclaims, “I could kiss you!” And then he backs off and asks her permission and they only kiss after they both agree that they want to. This may not seem like much, but in a culture that tends to romanticize spontaneity and persistent pursuit at the expense of consent, especially in fairytales, it’s so wonderful to see asking for consent encouraged in such an adorable way here.

I think a big part of what makes Frozen work is that it’s all about subverting expectations. Before the movie came out, they set expectations that the snowman and the reindeer would be annoying, and then Olaf and Sven both turned out to be sweet and genuinely funny. Then at the beginning it makes you think it’s going to be a typical fairytale romance, but it turns out the prince is the actual villain. Plot twist villains are pretty common in this Disney era, and I’m not sure even I would consider Hans the best instance of that trope, but I do love the way the Duke of Weselton is established as a decoy villain, and that he’s voiced by Alan Tudyk, who had just voiced the plot twist villain in Wreck-It Ralph. At first I felt like the Hans reveal was a little too out of nowhere, but there are a few delightfully subtle clues that I completely missed initially, like how he sings about “finding his own place” when he’s pretending to be singing about Anna, or how he’s clearly calculating a way to incapacitate Elsa while making it look like he’s saving her. I would have liked a few more clues, but I also think it’s good to portray that red flags can be hard to spot. And then on top of that there’s the unexpected challenge to the amatonormative idea that romance is the most important and powerful form of love. It was all so completely different from what I was expecting, in the best possible way.

Clearly this movie appeals to people who are not aroace, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the most popular children’s movie of the decade is so focused on platonic love. A lot more kids can relate to familial love than to romantic love. And Frozen proves that you don’t have to eliminate romance from a story entirely to emphasize other types of love. When Anna falls in love with Kristoff, that doesn’t make her relationship with him the only one that matters, or even the one that matters the most, and that’s a message that we don’t get from nearly enough stories. A big fear that many aromantic people share is that all of our friends will eventually abandon us for romantic partners, due to the prevalence of the message that one’s romantic partner should be one’s number one focus at all times. Personally I’ve been fortunate enough to find people who value friendship as much as I do, and therefore want to maintain close platonic relationships whether they’re in romantic relationships or not, and I’m very grateful for all of them. But I know not all aros are as fortunate in that respect. So that’s why I keep emphasizing how awesome it is that in Frozen not only is one of the main characters potentially aroace, but the other main character who is not still chooses to save herself with platonic love instead of romantic love. Encouraging people to cultivate non-romantic relationships benefits everyone, not just aros, because putting too much pressure on one relationship to fulfill all or even most of one’s social needs is unsustainable, and often dangerous. When Hans meets Anna, he correctly observes that she’s lonely and desperate for love, and he hopes to manipulate her by filling that entire void himself. But he ultimately fails because, while Anna does desire romance, she wants to reconnect with her sister even more. Even though Elsa has shut her out for years, as soon as she reveals her powers Anna understands that her sister has been in just as much pain as she has. Instead of festering resentment, Anna is filled with empathy and compassion, which allows her to save herself, her sister, and the kingdom. We need more heroes like Anna. And while it may be overrated, overhyped, and a little underdeveloped, in terms of emphasizing the power of non-romantic love, we need more stories like Frozen.

Thank you for listening to me attempt to express my love for this movie. I still don’t feel like I’ve done it justice, which I suspect will become more and more of a problem as I continue to work my way up this list. If you want to hear about more movies that I love enthusiastically, remember to follow or subscribe on your podcast platform of choice, and leave a rating or review if you feel like it. This episode is coming out during Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week, so I hope any of you out there who are or think you might be on the aromantic spectrum are feeling particularly appreciated and accepted. And if you’re not aro-spec yourself, maybe reach out to any aromantic friends you have and tell them you value them. And if you don’t know of any aros in your life, just reach out to any friend and tell them you care about them. Let’s spread lots of good non-romantic feelings this week! And the next time you get the urge to tell a single friend they need a romantic partner: don’t.

Hello and welcome back to the Rewatch Rewind, where I talk about the top 40 movies I watched the most in 20 years. My name is Jane, and today I will be discussing number 39 on my list, Disney’s 2000 animated comedy The Emperor’s New Groove, directed by Mark Dindal, story by Chris Williams and Mark Dindal and screenplay by David Reynolds, featuring the voice talents of David Spade, John Goodman, Eartha Kitt, and Patrick Warburton.

I find this movie highly entertaining even though – or perhaps because – it has one of the strangest premises ever. It tells the story of the selfish and spoiled Emperor Kuzco (David Spade), whose spiteful and power-hungry advisor Yzma (Eartha Kitt)’s assassination attempt goes awry when her bumbling assistant Kronk (Patrick Warburton) accidentally turns Kuzco into a llama instead of poisoning him. Kronk is meant to finish the job, but loses track of the llama, who ends up on the cart of peasant Pacha (John Goodman), whose village Kuzco intends to destroy in order to make room for a summer palace. Despite this, Pacha sets off to help Kuzco turn back into a human, and to prove that there is some selfless good in the emperor.

I know I saw Emperor’s New Groove in theaters when it came out, but I don’t remember that experience particularly well, other than the scene at the end when they’re climbing on the side of the palace making me very nervous – I’ve always been scared of heights. Then we got it on vhs in one of those big puffy cases – remember those? – so I had definitely seen it multiple times before I started keeping track. Then I watched it once in 2003, twice in 2004, once in 2005, twice in 2006, once in 2008, once in 2009, once in 2011, twice in 2013, once in 2017, and once in each year from 2019 through 2021. For those who weren’t counting, that’s 15 times total.

First of all, this needs to be said: Yzma and Kronk are the best villain team in Disney history, perhaps even in movie history. They are hilarious yet unmistakably dangerous. Of course, most of the humor comes from Kronk’s ineptitude, but let’s not forget Yzma’s ridiculously convoluted original plan to turn Kuzco into a flea – a harmless little flea, and then put that flea in a box, and then put that box inside of another box, and then mail that box to herself, and when it arrives, smash it with a hammer! – it’s brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, I tell you! Yzma and Kronk don’t exactly work well together, but they understand each other, and it’s so fun to watch their dynamic. Kronk is too kind-hearted to be a very effective villain, but he is devoted to helping Yzma as best he can, until she turns on him and insults his spinach puffs. So if I had to point to one reason why I’ve watched this movie so many times, it’s gotta be the villain team. Eartha Kitt and Patrick Warburton are both fabulous and perfectly cast here. And really, the entire voice cast is excellent. David Spade is great at sounding like a whiny spoiled brat, and John Goodman’s voice is perfect for Pacha. There’s also a fun cameo from John Fiedler, whose voice I immediately recognized as the voice of Piglet in Winnie the Pooh, among many other things. However, I do think, since they went to the trouble of at least sort of setting the film in South America, that it would have been great if they’d cast even one South American voice actor. But if they were determined to have such blatant and frankly inexcusable lack of appropriate representation, at least they got the best possible non-South American voice cast.

Partly because of the excellent voicework and partly because of the writing, this movie is just, very funny. There are so many silly little touches that work together to make it an entertaining watch, from the random extra lever to Kronk being able to speak squirrel – and then there’s all the self-referential humor. Most of the story is narrated by Kuzco, so the 4th wall is kind of shaky from the beginning, and it’s completely broken by the time Kronk pulls out a map illustrating the biggest plot hole. And possibly my favorite moment in the whole movie is in the middle of the climax when it cuts to a palace guard saying, “For the last time, we did not order a giant trampoline!” and the trampoline guy replying with, “You know, pal, you could have told me that before I set it up” and then it just so happens that there needed to be a trampoline right there at that moment. For some reason that kind of humor really tickles me. I wonder if a lot of these jokes arose out of necessity because the story went through so many changes – apparently originally it was supposed to be a musical Incan re-telling of The Prince and the Pauper, with songs by Sting? I truly cannot even begin to picture what that would have been like. The movie we ended up with was sort of cobbled together at the last minute after it was clear the story had to be changed and a co-director quit when Disney wouldn’t postpone the release date. This is just speculation on my part, I haven’t seen anyone confirming this, but it kind of feels like instead of pretending they had a fully-formed story they just leaned into the parts that didn’t make sense and turned them into jokes, and somehow made it work way better than it had any right to. Or maybe they just realized it would be funny to intentionally write plot holes into the story. Either way, I love it.

Another thing that sets this movie apart for me is that it has no romance – well, almost. Pacha and his wife – who is voiced by Wendie Malick and whose name is apparently Chicha although they never say it in the movie – clearly love each other very romantically, and I’m actually glad their relationship is portrayed this way. It’s a refreshing departure from the tired trope of married couples who are sick of each other. This is promoting a healthy marriage and we love to see it. But the main storyline has nothing to do with falling in love. Most of the characters in this movie can easily be interpreted as aroace, which maybe isn’t the best representation because most of the characters are also objectively horrible people, especially at the beginning. Nevertheless I think this story successfully avoids perpetuating negative aroace stereotypes. Towards the beginning of the movie, there’s a brief scene where Kuzco is supposed to choose a bride from a line of women, and he’s not interested in any of them. In any other Disney movie, finding someone for Kuzco to marry would have then become an important part of the story – think about Aladdin or Cinderella – but in Emperor’s New Groove it is never mentioned again, and Kuzco goes through the entire rest of the movie without anyone even implying that he should be looking for love. So often in movies, when a jerk is against marriage at the beginning, part of their transformation into a better person is finding a spouse, indicating that not wanting to get married was part of what was wrong with them. Emperor’s New Groove allows Kuzco to become a better, more caring human being without forcing him into a romance. At the end of the movie, Kuzco has become friends with Pacha and his family, but he doesn’t have a partner, and there’s no hint that anyone thinks he needs one, which leads to the conclusion that his aversion to marriage was not part of what needed to change. I’m sure I didn’t consciously notice this as a child, but I think it was important for me to see. Most children’s films end with the protagonist getting married, or about to get married. The fact that this goofy talking llama movie almost feels revolutionary simply for allowing its main character to remain happily single speaks to just how pervasive the assumption that everyone wants and needs a long-term monogamous romantic relationship, an assumption known as amatonormativity, has become in our society. For people like me whose brains are not wired to experience that kind of attraction or to seek that kind of relationship, it’s incredibly confusing and alienating to see that portrayed not just as the default, but as the universal human experience. So every story that portrays not ending up in a romantic relationship as something other than a punishment is noteworthy. Even for people who do want that kind of relationship, it’s important to emphasize that becoming a good person is not synonymous with gaining a partner, despite what so many other films indicate. Don’t be a nice guy just so someone will date you; be a nice guy because that will make you and everyone around you happier.

I would like to point out that while Pacha is ultimately successful in his attempts to bring out the good in Kuzco, the message is not that people should pursue and put up with unhealthy friendships in the hope that toxic people will change. Kuzco is a sheltered 18-year-old, and this is really his coming of age story, which makes it even more noteworthy that it doesn’t include falling in love, since that’s usually portrayed as perhaps the most important milestone toward becoming an adult (in G-rated movies, at least). Pacha is really more of a mentor than a friend, especially at first, and he does leave Kuzco at one point, and only teams up with him again when Kuzco admits that he was wrong – a sign of maturity that I would argue is more important and universal than the ability to feel romantic attraction. Their friendship at the end feels satisfying and earned, and I think the fact that this aspect of the story is so solid is really what allows the movie to get away with the “we don’t know how to resolve this so we’ll turn it into a joke” parts I mentioned earlier. Zany as they are, the characters and their relationships and journeys feel surprisingly grounded and real, so it doesn’t really matter that there’s no way Yzma and Kronk could have gotten to the secret lab before Kuzco and Pacha. This movie takes a few important things very seriously and laughs at the rest, and I think that’s a big part of why I love it so much.

Looking back, the viewing of Emperor’s New Groove that stands out to me the most is the one from 2008 when I was a senior in high school. My two best friends and I were going to a school dance, and we met at my house to hang out beforehand to eat fondue and watch a movie. I don’t remember why but for some reason we decided on Emperor’s New Groove, and soon after we started watching, one of my friends turned to me and asked, completely seriously, if this was based on a true story. Now, granted, we weren’t very far into it at that point, but from the very beginning, the movie makes it clear that it’s about a person who is turned into a llama. So of course we had to make fun of him for asking if it was based on a true story, and of course I still remember that every time I watch or think about this movie.

The other anecdote Emperor’s New Groove always makes me think of is when my family was on a road trip and we got into a discussion about this movie, specifically the scene when Kuzco and Yzma almost run into each other at a restaurant. Kronk ends up taking over for the chef, and both Kuzco and Yzma are trying to order from him at the same time, and they both want potatoes but one wants cheese and the other doesn’t, and it’s confusing everyone, until finally both of them say, “On second thought, make my potatoes a salad.” We spent way too long debating about whether that meant they wanted a green salad instead of potatoes or they wanted potato salad. I had always assumed potato salad, but I think everyone else had always assumed just a regular salad, which is probably definitely the way it makes more sense. Although sometimes green salads have cheese on them and potato salads usually don’t, so I think it’s perfectly logical to assume that potato salad would resolve the cheese argument, even if “make my potatoes a salad” is a weird way of asking for potato salad.

When my brother and I went through all the Disney animated features in 2020, after watching a movie we each separately put it in one of 5 tiers, with 1 being the best and 5 being the worst. Then we decided what tier it belonged in on the combined list by taking the average of our two tiers. I put Emperor’s New Groove in Tier 1 and he put it in Tier 2 (although he asked me to emphasize that he does love this movie dearly), so it ended up tied in Tier 1.5 with The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which he put in 1 and I put in 2. Those two movies are incredibly different, but somehow it felt right to have them at the same level, since they’re both unusual Disney movies that are surprisingly well done. I’ve only seen Hunchback 5 times since I started keeping track, so it makes sense that Emperor’s New Groove was the one of those I ranked higher. The other Disney animated films that I’ll be talking about on this podcast were all put in Tier 1 by both of us, so stay tuned for even better Disney movies in the future. But don’t worry, there will also be plenty of non-Disney films on here, so there will probably be something for you if Disney isn’t your jam.

Hello and welcome back to The Rewatch Rewind! My name is Jane, and this is the podcast where I count down my top 40 most rewatched movies. Today I will be discussing number 28 on my list: RKO’s 1948 comedy Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, directed by H.C. Potter, written by Norman Panama and Melvin Frank, based on the novel by Eric Hodgins, and starring Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, and Melvyn Douglas.

Yes, I’m talking about yet another Cary Grant movie – I warned you there would be a lot of them. In this one, he plays Jim Blandings, an advertising executive who lives in a Manhattan apartment with his wife Muriel (Myrna Loy) and their two children. Tired of feeling crowded, and taken in by an advertisement, they decide to purchase an old house on a large property in Connecticut. They initially resist the idea that the house must be torn down, but ultimately get excited about being able to build one to their own specifications. However, this is not nearly as simple, or as affordable, as they anticipate.

The first time I watched this movie, it was late at night and I was very tired, so I remember almost falling asleep without really getting into it. But I enjoyed it a lot more the second time, and it’s grown on me over the years. I watched it for the first time in 2003, then twice in 2004, and then once each in 2006, 2008 through 2013, 2015, 2016, 2018 through 2021, and then twice in 2022. And while I could barely keep my eyes open the first time I watched it, now I find it difficult to tear them from the screen when the movie is on.

As I’ve said several times in previous episodes, Cary Grant was a brilliant comedic actor, and once again, he is very funny in this movie. Just watching his morning routine in the apartment at the beginning is hilarious. Jim Blandings is very sure of himself, even and especially when he shouldn’t be, and Cary plays that very convincingly and humorously. Myrna Loy is probably best known for playing Nora Charles in the comedy-mystery Thin Man movies, so it should come as no surprise that she is also very funny here. Muriel occasionally tries to rein in some of Jim’s recklessness, but also gets caught up in the dream of the house, and Loy portrays that flawlessly. Apparently critics thought these stars were too old for these roles (they were both in their mid-40s at the time), and that it would have made more sense to show a naïve young couple not knowing how to build a house, but personally I think it works better to show a middle aged couple who have every reason to believe they know what they’re doing find out that they have no clue. The movie also makes it clear that it’s only because Jim is older and more established in his career that he’s able to do this. At one point when he’s venting about how everything’s costing way more than they were anticipating, Jim points out that if he can barely afford it, there’s no way a young couple ever could. And looking at this movie from a modern lens is kind of surreal because like, imagine a single-income family of four being able to afford a house! To put things in perspective, Jim Blandings was making $15,000 a year in 1948, which is the equivalent of approximately $190,000 in 2023, and the final cost of his dream house was $38,000, or approximately $480,000 now. It certainly costs a lot more than he initially thinks it will, but it’s still doable for him – although he does nearly lose his job at one point – whereas it would not have been for a young couple just starting out. And again, Cary Grant and Myrna Loy are so delightful to watch that I cannot comprehend wanting to replace them.

The acting and the writing encourage the audience to laugh at both Jim and Muriel while still finding them sympathetic. There’s a rather beautiful poetic justice in the story of an advertising executive, who spends all day figuring out how to convince people to buy things they don’t need and can’t afford, getting convinced by an ad to build a house he doesn’t need and can’t afford. And yet, we still want him to succeed, and share his frustration when things go wrong. Muriel’s extremely specific demands for the house can be ridiculous, but we still want her to get the dream house she desires. Perhaps her greatest moment in the film is when she spends several minutes describing in detail the exact shade she wants each room painted: one should exactly match the color of fresh butter, one needs to be white – not a cold, antiseptic hospital white, but not to suggest any other color but white; another should be practically an apple red, somewhere between a healthy Winesap and an unripened Jonathan, etc. When she finally gets distracted and walks away, one of the painters says to the other, “You got all that?” and the other replies, “Red, green, blue, yellow, white.” It’s very funny, but also maybe a little bit sexist, in a “These silly women and their ridiculous obsession with detail” way, but at least the movie makes fun of Jim too. He’s constantly taking charge of things he doesn’t understand and making them worse – from illegally authorizing the old house to be torn down to inadvertently instructing builders to rip out their work. So rather than making fun of Jim and Muriel specifically, the movie is really making fun of the gender roles they feel obligated to fulfill, and the way society has made basic needs like shelter immensely complicated to obtain. And while some of that is rather painful to face, this movie manages to make the overall experience mostly enjoyable. It’s thought-provoking without becoming too upsetting.

While a lot of what I love about this movie comes from Grant and Loy, I also love Melvyn Douglas’s performance, and his character, Bill Cole, is probably my favorite. Bill narrates portions of the movie, and introduces himself to the audience as “Jim’s lawyer and quote best friend unquote.” He’s kind of the voice of doom regarding the dream house project, pointing out all the ways Jim gets taken advantage of along the way and repeatedly advising him to give up, but far from being a stick in the mud, he has an excellent sense of humor, and goes along for the ride only slightly reluctantly. There’s a trope that’s especially common in movies from this era of a married couple having a male “friend of the family” who is interested in the wife and kind of waiting for her to either leave her husband for him, or at least have an affair with him. The character of Hank Entwistle in Monkey Business is like this, and there’s a character in the movie I’m going to talk about next week like this. Bill Cole is almost like this, and Jim certainly sees him like this for a good chunk of the movie, but the way I see him, he’s not actually interested in Muriel that way, and is, in fact, if not canonically queer, certainly queer-coded. We do know that he dated Muriel in college. At one point when Jim asks Muriel why Bill’s always hanging around them instead of getting married, Muriel says it’s because he could never find another girl like her, but this doesn’t seem like it’s meant to be particularly serious. When Jim objects to the fact that Bill always takes his leave by shaking Jim’s hand and kissing Muriel on the cheek, Muriel dryly inquires if Jim would prefer it the other way around. There is also a running joke about Jim and Bill getting stuck in a closet, so modern audiences might interpret that to mean that they’re secretly gay, although I’m pretty sure the closet metaphor wasn’t commonly used in 1948. Bill doesn’t seem to really show any attraction toward either Jim or Muriel, so of course I’m inclined to headcanon him as aroace. We do find out that Muriel somehow ended up with both Bill’s and Jim’s fraternity pins – which the Blandings daughters find along with her old diary in the process of moving into the new house. When Jim then confronts Muriel about her having been in love with Bill, she laughs and responds with, “Of course I was in love with Bill! In those days I was in love with a new man every week!” She considers her time dating Bill to be relatively meaningless, and currently sees him as a good friend. Most of Jim’s bouts of jealousy in the movie seem to be misplaced frustration with the way things are going with the house and/or his job, rather than in response to any of Muriel or Bill’s behavior, which is part of the film’s effective commentary on how gender roles leave men feeling like they can’t express their emotions honestly.

Anyway, one evening, when Jim is working late because a slogan he’s been struggling to come up with for months is due the following morning, Bill stops by the new house to visit Muriel, and there’s a major rainstorm. A neighbor informs Muriel that her phone isn’t working and a nearby bridge is out, so her children can’t get home from school, but they’re staying with a different neighbor on the other side of the bridge. This also means that Bill can’t get home, so he’ll have to spend the night in the house alone with Muriel. When he half-jokingly gasps, “Think of my reputation!” Muriel responds with, “Don’t worry, Snow White, you’ll be just as pure and unsullied in the morning as you were the night before,” and he says, “That’s the story of my life.” Now, I feel like there are a couple different ways to interpret this. One way – the allo-heteronormative way – is that they would like to sleep together, but she’s happily married, and he respects that, so they resist. I’m not saying that’s an invalid interpretation, but something about the way they deliver those lines, and the way they interact in the rest of the movie, doesn’t quite feel like that to me. Another interpretation is that they don’t want to sleep together, and they just want to make sure they’re on the same page about that. Think about how much better it makes the scene if Bill is asexual, and his “Think of my reputation!” is his way of making a joke out of not feeling comfortable with the situation, and her response is reassuring him that she understands and doesn’t see him that way either, and his “That’s the story of my life” is him trying to pretend to be disappointed because an allonormative world tells him he should be, but he’s actually relieved. This could also be because Bill is gay, or straight or bi and just not attracted to Muriel, but even then, the point about defying social expectations still stands. Since long before I knew the terms “aromantic” or “asexual,” I have been drawn to stories about people who are expected to fall in love and/or sleep together and then don’t. It has always felt so encouraging to see adults maintaining close platonic relationships, even when society tells them they shouldn’t be platonic. So I love that Bill and Muriel are friends who can spend the night in the same house without becoming overwhelmed by passion or whatever seems to usually happen in situations like that.

Of course, in this particular case, due to production codes there was basically no chance that they would commit adultery anyway, and all of this is probably definitely me reading way too much into something that’s barely there. The following morning, when Jim makes it back home – after giving up on the slogan even though he knows he’ll be fired – and finds out that Bill spent the night, there’s a bunch of other stuff going on with the contractor telling them about more expenses they’ve incurred, but Jim is particularly upset about Bill being there. Then one of the workers shows up at the house and declares, “There’s a matter of twelve dollars and 36 cents” and Jim loses it, going off on a whole rant saying things like, “Why stop there? Just take everything I have!” until the worker clarifies, “No, I owe you $12.36.” Suddenly Jim’s anger melts away, and he also loses every trace of jealousy and suspicion. This certainly supports what I said earlier about Jim’s jealousy really being misplaced frustration, which I also think supports the idea that Bill is asexual, and that even if people didn’t use that term at that time, at least on some level both Jim and Muriel understand that Bill is not a threat to their marriage. Jim is only jealous because he feels like he should be, and it’s a convenient and socially acceptable outlet for his real feelings. The last shot of the movie is of the Blandings family enjoying their front yard, with Jim reading the book the movie is based on. He looks up and says to the audience, “Drop in and see us sometime” and then Bill moves into frame and adds, “Yeah, do that, won’t you?” implying that he has been accepted as practically part of the family, and that if he is aroace, he’s certainly not alone, and I absolutely love that.

I’ve mentioned before that part of why there are so many Cary Grant movies in my top 40 is because I have a multi-day marathon around his birthday every year, and Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House is almost always part of that. I tend to watch this one on his actual birthday because the only specifically Cary Grant-related item of clothing I own is a long-sleeved t-shirt I got for Christmas in 2007 with a quote from this movie on it, which I will probably wear every January 18 for the rest of my life, even though I kind of have mixed feelings about the context of the quote in the movie. The slogan that Jim gives up on during that fateful stormy night is for a product called Wham, which is a brand of ham. He spends all night trying to come up with an acceptable slogan, but they’re all terrible. I would like to point out that he’s working on this with his female secretary, which means he has even less reason to be jealous of Muriel spending all night with Bill, but that’s not really important. I also feel the need to tell you about my favorite bad slogan he comes up with: “This little piggy went to market, as meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks when they slipped him the axe; he KNEW he’d turn out to be Wham!” The extremely concerned look on his secretary (played by Lurene Tuttle)’s face when she hears that is so perfect. But anyway, he finally gives up and goes home, and after all the drama of finding Bill there and owing more money but also getting a refund, the maid Gussie (played by Louise Beavers) is serving breakfast, and when the girls ask if there’s ham, she replies with, “Not just ham; Wham! If you ain’t eatin’ Wham, then you ain’t eatin’ ham!” And Jim does a double take and then exclaims, “Give Gussie a $10 raise!” and then we see a magazine ad featuring Gussie’s face and this slogan, and I have some questions. What exactly did he mean by a $10 raise? Ten dollars per hour? Per week? Per year? Also did he actually give her credit for coming up with the slogan, or did they just use her words and likeness without her really getting anything out of it, apart from this ambiguous raise? Part of me likes to think that she got hired by Jim’s advertising agency after this, but I feel like the more likely explanation is that a white man took credit for a black woman’s work. So again, I have some mixed feelings about my shirt that has a picture of a ham on it with the words “If you ain’t eatin’ Wham, then you ain’t eatin’ ham!” But despite its weirdness and its flaws, I mostly have positive feelings toward this movie. And I will never forget the joy I felt the one and only time someone who hadn’t watched this movie with me recognized the quote from that shirt, so shout out to my 12th grade history teacher.