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Everyone’s quick to claim The Sound of Music as the best of the Rodgers and Hammerstein II film adaptations, but The King and I more than holds its own. Perhaps since this one ends more tragically than happily, it’s not quite afforded the same amount of respect. Shame then, as Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner banter wonderfully in this story of culture clash and changing ideals.
Something of a strange romantic musical-drama, The King and I tells the story of a widowed English schoolteacher taking a job tutoring the numerous children and wives of the King of Siam, a ruler interested in bringing his country into greater prominence on the political and international scene. Brynner makes the king extremely prideful, but still intellectually curious and open to changing customs and attitudes. Kerr is the living embodiment of British gentility, and no less a source of stubborn pride herself. Their clash is as equals, and while I earlier dubbed it a strange romance, it’s more of an acknowledged friendship and mutual admiration/respect that fosters between them.
The story is solid, if prone to one too many needless and dull detours, but remarkable as a connective tissue for the musical numbers. The score is one of the better ones from Rodgers and Hammerstein II, featuring beloved institutions like “Getting to Know You” and “I Whistle a Happy Tune.” The musical sequences reach a high point with an impressionistic ballet that retells Uncle Tom’s Cabin through Jerome Robbins’ controlled choreography. “Shall We Dance?” is simplistic but elegiac in its demonstration of opposites enjoying a moment of connection and levity.
This simplicity actually works in the film’s favor, giving the entire enterprise a confidence within its source material that’s quite nice. The massive, elaborate sets provide more than enough razzle-dazzle, and the costumes are no sumptuous and ornately detailed. These sequences also don’t need elaborate dance routines because they’re built so solidly into the fabric of the narrative that they hit their emotional punches with ease.
In fact, Kerr gets one of the better roles of her career with this English tutor. Her natural lady-like charm and lilting voice lend themselves a bit of subterfuge to Anna’s steel core. For all of her hoop-skirts and gentility, Anna is an emotional firecracker, quick to call out injustices and hold the king accountable. While Brynner brings his infamous role to the screen after originating it on-stage, winning an Oscar for his trouble. His performance is quiet fine, layered with bits of humor and iron pride, but in glancing at his competition that year, perhaps his win is a bit questionable in hindsight. Would anyone argue this was truly better work than Kirk Douglas in Lust for Life or the one-two punch of Rock Hudson and James Dean in Giant? I doubt it.
Yet that doesn’t detract from The King and I’s numerous strengths as a movie musical. It’s one of the best ever, and certainly a high point of the 50s, a decade with no shortage of great musicals. And after spending well over two hours with these characters, that ending is still a deeply moving moment in which we understand that we’re not so different after all, once we learn how to get along with each other.
