UK Release Date: September 1956
Topped the Chart:
· 7th October 1956 (for two weeks)
· 28th October 1956 (for one week)
· 11th November 1956 (for 15 weeks, including one week shared with Original Soundtrack- High Society, 10th February 1957)
· Various weeks throughout 1957 (29 weeks)
· 16th March 1958 (for one week)
48 weeks total
Biggest selling UK album of 1957
It’s with a sense of dread that I step into this week’s entry. I must admit to feeling the same tiredness that record buyers not enamoured with jazz hands and box steps must have felt looking at the LP chart throughout 1956 and 1957. Rogers and Hammerstein musicals dominated with The King and I topping the chart for a mammoth 48 weeks, which can be put down to two prevailing trends: adults with money to burn remaining the main audience for the album format, and there wasn’t a lot of choice out there.
I have history with The King and I too. I remember being taken to see a primary school version of it aged 7 and thinking it was one of the most boring evenings of my life, and a feeling like that sticks at that age. It was this preconception that I sat down to listen to the soundtrack album of the 1956 film, only to be pleasantly surprised. And while it might not work as well as a standalone listening experience as Oklahoma!, its grander scale and set of catchy tunes makes it easy to see why it was so appealing to record buyers in the late 1950s.
The King and I as a film was an enormous hit around the world, but it’s one that isn’t discussed widely these days. Perhaps with good reason: as you would expect from a 1950s film about the relationship between a Welsh schoolmistress and the nation of Siam (now Thailand), there are aspects that are horrifically dated—white and Latinx actors in make up is par for the course, but throw in dodgy stereotyped accents that wouldn’t be out of place in a Jim Davidson routine, and the sneering attitude towards the East of the original Anna and the King source material, and it makes it a difficult movie to pop on BBC Two on a Sunday afternoon these days.
However, once again we are here to discuss the music as presented as an LP experience, and on that front a surprising amount of the colonial story finds its way into the record, which is jarring. It’s important to recognise that the content of the story is seriously out of date, but we do need to set that aside to look at the music.
From that point of view, The King and I feels like a step forward from Rogers and Hammerstein—the songs are bigger, the score is richer and the songs themselves are an impressive move from operetta to straight opera in places, if you like that sort of thing. Rueben Fuentas (dubbing for Carlos Rivas as Lun Tha) in particular booms in a classical tenor that doesn’t feel out of place. For its time, the score sounds a little chintzy and “Oriental”, but it certainly carries a sweep that would have benefitted Oklahoma!’s Wild West on screen at least. Mercifully, there are fewer ballet sequences this time around, and the score segments on the album are shorter. Having said that, The March of the Siamese Children (used as a recurring motif) feels like it goes on for about a month, despite only being three and a half minutes in length.
Many of the songs themselves have quietly wormed their way into popular culture in a way that the film hasn’t, which means most will recognise the slightly stiff I Whistle a Happy Tune and the more appealing Getting to Know You immediately. Other highlights include the booming, blustering Shall We Dance, which roars and swings to bring the image of Deborah Kerr and Bryner twirling the ballroom from the album’s cover to life, as well as the soft and heartbreaking Something Wonderful. Its combination of orchestral backing and the vocals of Terry Saunders makes it achingly beautiful. Best of the lot is Hello Young Lovers, which balances sighing regret and sweeping romanticism perfectly to a melancholic peak.
Speaking of Hello Young Lovers—a key song in Kerr’s Anna’s character arc—it is on King and I that we are quietly introduced to Hollywood’s ultimate understudy Marni Nixon, here singing for Deborah Kerr on everything save the Rex Harrison-esque Shall I Tell You What I Think Of You? (cruelly cut from the finished film). She would go on to be the singing stand-in for like the likes of Natalie Wood in West Side Story, Janet Leigh in Pepe and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady. In popular culture, Nixon’s role wouldn’t be recognised for decades in these films, but she does a superb job here nonetheless, matching with Kerr’s speaking voice seamlessly. She certainly does a better job than Yul Bryner, who approaches his songs with all the subtlety of Russell Crowe riding a rhino. A Puzzlement is particularly painful.
A pleasant surprise then overall, and perhaps one better enjoyed when performed by Hollywood professionals than out-of-tune eight year olds, it turns out. Having said that, I think we can all look forward to a break from big budget musicals, as next week we finally get to delve into rock n roll…
Score: 8/10
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