Tuesday Movie Trivia

[AR]

Yes, Marni also did Natalie Wood's singing in West Side Story.

Hepburn's ego was such that she was sure she could do her own singing, and she actually recorded some if not all of the music prior to the start of shooting (as you probably know, all musicals are "shot to playback" for technical reasons--so the recording can be of the actual actor or a substitute). Anyway, they then proceeded to shoot a couple of Hepburn's numbers with her track. At least one of them appears as a "bonus" on the DVD release, and that's probably what you've seen.

Actually, I thought her singing on these tracks was pretty dreadful, and I'm surprised they even went on the stage with them. But apparently when Cukor saw the dailies he realized it just wouldn't work, and that's when they brought in Marni. Story goes, Audrey was not at all happy about this, but there's really no comparison.

The same thing happened to Jeremy Brett, who played Freddie. He recorded his own stuff too (he had a pretty decent voice), and they shot the scenes to his tracks (of course, "On the Street Where You Live" was his anthem). But somewhere between shooting and release they replaced his tracks with somebody else too, and didn't tell him. As he told the story later, he was not a happy puppy on opening night.

[katlady]

Originally Posted by AR

Yes, Marni also did Natalie Wood's singing in West Side Story.

Hepburn's ego was such that she was sure she could do her own singing, and she actually recorded some if not all of the music prior to the start of shooting (as you probably know, all musicals are "shot to playback" for technical reasons--so the recording can be of the actual actor or a substitute). Anyway, they then proceeded to shoot a couple of Hepburn's numbers with her track. At least one of them appears as a "bonus" on the DVD release, and that's probably what you've seen.

Actually, I thought her singing on these tracks was pretty dreadful, and I'm surprised they even went on the stage with them. But apparently when Cukor saw the dailies he realized it just wouldn't work, and that's when they brought in Marni. Story goes, Audrey was not at all happy about this, but there's really no comparison.

The same thing happened to Jeremy Brett, who played Freddie. He recorded his own stuff too (he had a pretty decent voice), and they shot the scenes to his tracks (of course, "On the Street Where You Live" was his anthem). But somewhere between shooting and release they replaced his tracks with somebody else too, and didn't tell him. As he told the story later, he was not a happy puppy on opening night.

I agree Marni has a much better voice. However, why not cast Julie Andrews who was the Broadway Eliza I think we can all agree Julie Andrews can sing and act. That is cold to not tell Jeremy Brett before opening night that they dubbed his singing voice. The one that still amazes me is Debbie Reynolds was dubbed for "Singing in the Rain"
I saw this trivia and I thought this would make you laugh.

In the "Would You" number, Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds) is dubbing the voice of Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) because Lina's voice is shrill and screechy. However, it's not Reynolds who's really speaking, it's Jean Hagen herself, who actually had a beautiful deep, rich voice. So you have Jean Hagen dubbing Debbie Reynolds dubbing Jean Hagen. And when Debbie is supposedly dubbing Jean's singing of "Would You", the voice you hear singing actually belongs to Betty Noyes, who had a much richer singing voice than Debbie.
The source of this information is IMDb.

[AR]

Of course Julie Andrews should have gotten the part of Eliza. In fact, she was pretty steamed that she didn't. However, it is tough to top Audrey's appearance at the top of the stairs at the Professor's house just before leaving for the ball (and just before the film's intermission). That's one hell of a cinematic moment that I'm not sure Julie could have matched. Hepburn did exude a certain level of class that was pretty tough to beat.

But when Marni was hired as part of the nun's chorus on Sound of Music, she was petrified of meeting Andrews, because by then it was pretty common knowledge that Marni had saved Hepburn's bacon in the singing department while, as you say, Andrews could have easily done her own singing with no problem.

But on the first day on the set, Julie went up to Marni and said something like, "Marni, I'm a big fan. I really love your singing." And that was that. Class act. Marni was very grateful, because that just broke the tension.

[Mean Dean]

Katlady beat me to it, but I was going to mention the Internet Movie Database, www.imdb.com.

It is the absolute best place for movies and TV programs on the Internet.

Dean