THE KING AND I

TWENTIETH CENTURY-FOX, 1956 | COLOR (DELUXE)/CINEMASCOPE 55, 133 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: WALTER LANG PRODUCER: CHARLES BRACKETT SCREENPLAY: ERNEST LEHMAN, BASED ON THE MUSICAL PLAY BY OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN II, FROM THE BOOK ANNA AND THE KING OF SIAM BY MARGARET LANDON SONGS: RICHARD RODGERS (MUSIC) AND OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN II (LYRICS) CHOREOGRAPHER: JEROME ROBBINS STARRING: DEBORAH KERR (ANNA LEONOWENS), YUL BRYNNER (KING MONGKUT OF SIAM), RITA MORENO (TUPTIM), MARTIN BENSON (KRALAHOME), TERRY SAUNDERS (LADY THIANG), REX THOMPSON (LOUIS LEONOWENS), CARLOS RIVAS (LUN THA), PATRICK ADIARTE (PRINCE CHULALONGKORN), YURIKO (ELIZA)

Cultures clash when a British widow travels to Bangkok to serve as schoolteacher to the children of the King of Siam.

Rarely in a musical does conflict take precedence over romance. It does here, and works as well on film as on the stage. For this, much credit must go to a peerless star duo, a magnificent ballet, and some of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s greatest songs.

The King and I has been so loved for so long that it’s easy to forget a couple of key points. One is that the real Anna Leonowens was never as great an influence on King Mongkut of Siam (now Thailand) as she claimed. The other is that the musical derives far less from its credited source material, Margaret Landon’s book Anna and the King of Siam (based on Leonowens’s original books), than from the 1946 film with Irene Dunne and Rex Harrison. For that version, Landon’s rambling narrative was made more concise and a minor character, Tuptim, elevated in importance. It was theater legend Gertrude Lawrence who, after seeing the film, envisioned it as a musical and, for her, an ideal vehicle. In the hands of Rodgers and Hammerstein, it became far greater, and as played by the all-but-unknown Yul Brynner, the role of the King became equal to that of Anna. Lawrence died during the Broadway run, Brynner repeated his role on film, and The King and I quickly became one of the largest grossers in Twentieth Century-Fox history. His Academy Award for the role ensured that Brynner’s stamp would long remain on the King, and he later returned to the stage to play thousands of performances of The King and I virtually until the end of his life.