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LUIS BUNUEL VERSION OF "THE SOUND OF MUSIC"  The "lost" version of the musical has a sequence where Maria von Trapp is surprised in the shower by legless twin brothers from Mexico. |
Naughty Spanish version
'smokes,' say sources
of TheColumnists.com
Often we film buffs muse openly about how a certain film might have turned out if a different director had been put in charge. For example, I'd give anything to see what John Ford would have done with Michael Cimino's all-time giant western turkey "Heaven's Gate." I'm sure there would have been a huge stack of paper next to Ford's desk as he busily tore out unnecessary pages of the lengthy script.
So you can imagine how excited I was when I first saw this headline in one of the Hollywood trade papers the other day:
OF LUIS BUNUEL FILMS
DISCOVERED BY AFI
Naturally, I wondered if this discovery finally would settle the rumors that the controversial Spanish filmmaker had actually made a version of Rodgers & Hammerstein's musical "The Sound of Music" BEFORE the famous Oscar-winning version made by Robert Wise.
The article explained that scholars from the American Film Institute (AFI) had found several sealed crates of previously unseen films by Bunuel in an ante-chamber of an old Spanish mission now undergoing restoration in Hermosillo, Mexico. The report confirmed that one of the films was a nearly complete version of "The Sound of Music," which 20th Century-Fox studios had denied ever authorizing. Notes in Bunuel’s handwriting found with the 65mm. negative suggested the studio never made any release prints of the film and that Bunuel had to hide the negative in the mission near to prevent its destruction by studio personnel.
For those readers not familiar with the
works of the late Senor Bunuel, he was a bold and daring Spanish
movie director who began his career as an experimental filmmaker
in Paris in the 1920s, joining with surrealist artist Salvador
Dali on the shocking 1928 classic "Un Chien Andalou"
(The Andalusian Dog), whose many shocking scenes included
the slitting of an eyeball with a razor blade. They followed
it with the 1930 feature "L'Age d'or" (The Golden
Age), which established Bunuel as a controversial character,
but also a promising filmmaker with a distinctly odd sense
of humor.
Among Bunuel's great films, many of which were banned in his
native Spain, were "Los Olvidados" (1950), a
blistering look at Mexican poverty and its impact on youngsters;
"The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" (1952),
his English language version of that famous story; "Nazarin"
(1958), the story of a priest that many interpreted as his open
attack on Christianity; "Viridiana" (1960),
the story of a novitiate plunged into the corrupt outside world;
"Belle de Jour" (1967) with Catherine Deneuve
playing a well-respected married woman who has a secret life
working in a whorehouse; "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie"
(1972), about guests at a dinner who are unable to finish their
meal, and "That Obscure Object of Desire" (1977)
about an old man's love of a virginal young woman. Bunuel died
in 1983.
Bunuel's willingness to shock never failed him. Religious leaders still tremble at the thought of his infamous scene in "Viridiana" in which a girl lifts her skirts in front of a group of diners at a long table and the scene of their reactions is frozen into a close approximation of Da Vinci's "The Last Supper."
So one has to wonder how Bunuel might have dealt with the usually inspiring story of the real-life von Trapp family fleeing Austria as the Nazis took over, desperately trying to reach freedom in the west. Nuns are all over that story and so it's hard to imagine Bunuel ever passing up the opportunity to debauch a few of them.
In my follow-up inquiries, I'v learned that the few AFI researchers who have viewed a hasty answer print made from Bunuel's negative have made no public comment, but a source close to the team handling the rarities said it shows members of the Trapp family having sex with Catholic priests and nuns and includes a bizarre version of the song "Do Re Mi" performed by legless amputees whirling themselves around in a circle on wooden planks attached to roller skates while scattering flower petals. (Bunuel was fascinated by amputees and included them in many of his films.)
But what about the famous opening scene in Wise's version, showing Julie Andrews rnnning through a vast field of flowers singing the title tune? Well, I'm told Bunuel's opening sequence features well-known Mexican brothel madam Tatiana Lopez running naked through a field of bright yellow blossoms. Her voice, they tell me, was dubbed by someone who sounds like Betty Boop.
"That bastardo Wise stole that scene from me!" Bunuel wrote in notes found with the film cans.
When I asked about how some of the memorable songs were handled by Bunuel, nobody wanted to get very specific, but one source did tell me "Sixteen Going On Seventeen" was "gross" and came close to child pornography while several told me the "Lonely Goatherd" number involved bestiality and was the clincher for Fox refusing to release Bunuel's film.
However, I did find one source, no longer associated with the AFI team, who told me he thought the film was a "warped masterpiece" and that the sequence where Maria von Trapp is surprised in the shower by legless amputees "really smokes."
I'm now concerned that there will be a legal battle over ownership of the film, but I feel confident that somebody, somewhere already has pirated a copy and will someday make it available for all to see.
I'm told they also found an uncensored version of Bunuel’s "Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" in which Crusoe wakes from a nightmare in which he believes he's making love to the Queen Elizabeth of England, but awakes to discover it's really his man Friday he's doing. I'm told Bunuel originally wanted to call the film, "Thank God, It’s Friday!" Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed.
Though it's entirely possible we'll never see these rare Bunuel films because of their controversial content, I consider it my responsibility here at TheColumnists.com to track down as many of these "lost" films as I can and will endeavor to report on them to you whenever I have something worthwhile from my research.
©2009 by Ron Miller. The illustration is not approved by anybody. This column first posted May 11, 2009.
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