Irving Cummings
Irving Camisky was an American movie actor, director and writer. Cummings was born in New York City, he is the father of the screenwriter and producer Irving Cummings, Jr. Cummings started his acting career in his late teens on Broadway stage, appeared with the legendary Lillian Russell, he entered into movies in 1909 and became a popular leading man. Few of the films he made as an actor are available, except for Buster Keaton's first feature film, The Saphead, in which Cummings plays a crooked stockbroker and Fred Niblo's film Sex, one of the first films to depict a new phenomenon in 1920s America, the Flapper. Both films are available on home video, as well as The Round-Up, a Western drama starring Roscoe Arbuckle and featuring Wallace Beery. Around that time, he started to occasional comedies. In 1934, Cummings directed Grand Canary, in 1929, he was nominated for an Academy Award for his direction of In Old Arizona. Cummings was known for the big splashy 1930s Technicolor musicals with popular leading ladies such as Betty Grable, Alice Faye, Carmen Miranda, Shirley Temple he directed at 20th Century Fox.
In 1943, as part of the 50th anniversary of the birth of the motion picture industry, Cummings was awarded the Thomas A. Edison Foundation Gold Medal for outstanding achievement in the sciences. Irving Cummings on IMDb Irving Cummings at the Internet Broadway Database
Grand Hotel (1932 film)
Grand Hotel is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film directed by Edmund Goulding and produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The screenplay by William A. Drake is based on the 1930 play of the same title by Drake, who had adapted it from the 1929 novel Menschen im Hotel by Vicki Baum. To date, it is the only film to have won the Academy Award for Best Picture without being nominated in any other category; the film was remade as Week-End at the Waldorf in 1945, served as the basis for the 1989 stage musical of the same title. Another remake, to be directed by Norman Jewison, was considered in 1977, to take place at Las Vegas' MGM Grand Hotel, but the project fell through. Grand Hotel has proven influential in the years since its original release; the line "I want to be alone", famously delivered by Greta Garbo, placed number 30 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes. The phrase "Grand Hotel theme" has come to be used for any dramatic movie following the activities of various people in a large busy place, with some characters' lives overlapping in odd ways and some of them remaining unaware of one another's existence.
In 2007, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally or aesthetically significant." Doctor Otternschlag, a disfigured veteran of World War I and a permanent resident of the Grand Hotel in Berlin, observes, "People coming, going. Nothing happens" — after which a great deal transpires. Baron Felix von Geigern, who squandered his fortune and supports himself as a card player and occasional jewel thief, befriends Otto Kringelein, a dying accountant who has decided to spend his remaining days in the lap of luxury. Kringelein's former employer, industrialist General Director Preysing, is at the hotel to close an important deal, he hires stenographer Flaemmchen to assist him, she aspires to be an actress and shows Preysing some magazine photos for which she posed, implying she is willing to offer him more than typing if he advances her career. Another guest is Russian ballerina Grusinskaya; when the Baron is in her room to steal her jewelry and she returns from the theatre, he hides in her room and overhears as she talks to herself about wanting to end it all.
He comes out of hiding and engages her in conversation, Grusinskaya finds herself attracted to him. The following morning, the Baron returns Grusinskaya's jewels, she forgives his crime, she invites him to accompany her to an offer he accepts. The Baron is desperate for money to pay his way out of the criminal group, he and Kringelein get a card game going, Kringelein wins everything becomes intoxicated. When he drops his wallet, the Baron stashes it in his pocket. However, after Kringelein begins to search for his lost belongings, the Baron – who needs the money but has become fond of Kringelein – pretends to have discovered the wallet and returns it to him; as part of a desperate merger plan, Preysing must travel to London, he asks Flaemmchen to accompany him. When the two are in her room, which opens on to his, Preysing sees the shadow of the Baron rifling through his belongings, he confronts the Baron. Flaemmchen sees what tells Kringelein, who confronts Preysing, he insists he acted in self-defense.
Grusinskaya departs for the train station. Meanwhile, Kringelein offers to take care of Flaemmchen, who suggests they seek a cure for his illness; as they leave the hotel, Doctor Otternschlag again observes, "Grand Hotel. Always the same. People come. People go. Nothing happens." Producer Irving Thalberg purchased the rights to Vicki Baum's novel Menschen im Hotel for $13,000 and commissioned William A. Drake to adapt it for the stage, it ran for 459 performances. Pleased with its success, Thalberg had Drake and Béla Balázs write the screenplay and budgeted the project at $700,000. There was some controversy about Greta Garbo, with her strong Swedish accent, playing a Russian; the film was seen as an artistic achievement in its art direction and production quality. The art director, Cedric Gibbons, was one of the most important and influential in the history of American film; the lobby scenes were well done, portraying a 360° desk. This allowed audiences to watch the hotel action from all around the characters.
It changed. As Grusinskaya, Greta Garbo delivers the line "I want to be alone" and following, "I just want to be alone." Soon after, in conversation with Baron Felix von Gaigern, she says "And I want to be alone." Referring to its legendary use as a characterization of her personal reclusive life, Garbo insisted, "I never said I want to be alone. There is all the difference." Alfred Rushford Greason of Variety said the film "may not please the theatregoers who were fascinated by its deft stage direction and restrained acting, but it will attract and hold the wider public to which it is now addressed." He added, "The drama unfolds with a speed that never loses its grip for the extreme length of nearly two hours, there is a captivating pattern of unexpected comedy that runs through it all, always fresh and always pat."Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times praised the performances of Greta Garbo and John Barrymore, in a positive review. "The picture adheres faithfully to the original", he said, "and while it undoubtedly lacks the
Warner Baxter
Warner Leroy Baxter was an American film actor from the 1910s to the 1940s. Baxter became known for his role as The Cisco Kid in the 1928 film In Old Arizona, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 2nd Academy Awards, he played womanizing, charismatic Latin bandit types in westerns, played The Cisco Kid or a similar character throughout the 1930s, but had a range of other roles throughout his career. Baxter began his movie career in silent films with his most notable roles being in The Great Gatsby and The Awful Truth. Baxter's most notable talkies are In Old Arizona, 42nd Street, Slave Ship with Wallace Beery, Kidnapped with Freddie Bartholomew, the 1931 ensemble short film, The Stolen Jools. In the 1940s, he was well known for his recurring role as Dr. Robert Ordway in the Crime Doctor series of ten films. For his contributions to the motion picture industry, Baxter has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Baxter was born in Columbus, Ohio to Edwin F. Baxter and Jane Barrett.
Baxter was 5 months old. Baxter and his mother went to live with her brother in Ohio, they moved to New York City, where he became active in dramatics, both participating in school productions and attending plays. In 1898, the two moved to San Francisco; when the 1906 San Francisco earthquake struck and his mother lived in Golden Gate Park for eight days and went to live with friends in Alameda for three months. In 1908, they returned to Columbus. After selling farm implements for a living, Baxter worked for four months as the partner of Dorothy Shoemaker in an act on the Keith Vaudeville Circuit. Baxter began his film career as an extra in 1914 in a stock company, he had his first starring role in Sheltered Daughters, starred in 48 features during the 1920s. His most notable silent roles were in The Great Gatsby, Aloma of the South Seas as an island love interest opposite dancer Gilda Gray, an alcoholic doctor in West of Zanzibar with Lon Chaney. Baxter's most notable starring role was as the Cisco Kid in In Old Arizona, the first all-talking western, for which he won the second Academy Award for Best Actor.
He starred in 42nd Street, Grand Canary, Broadway Bill and Kidnapped. By 1936, Baxter was the highest-paid actor in Hollywood, but by 1943 he had slipped to B movie roles, he starred in a series of "Crime Doctor" films for Columbia Pictures. Baxter had roles in more than 100 films between 1914 and 1950. Baxter married Viola Caldwell in 1911, but they were soon separated and divorced in 1913, he married actress Winifred Bryson in 1918, remaining married until his death in 1951. He was a close friend of William Powell with whom he had starred in three films, was at Powell's side when Jean Harlow died in 1937; when not acting, Baxter was an inventor who co-created a searchlight for revolvers in 1935 which allowed a shooter to more see a target at night. He developed a radio device that would allow emergency crews to change traffic signals from two blocks away, providing them with safe passage through intersections, he financed the device's installation at a Beverly Hills intersection in 1940. Baxter suffered from arthritis for several years, in 1951 he underwent a lobotomy as a last resort to ease the chronic pain.
On May 7, 1951, he died of pneumonia at age 62 and was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. In 1960, Baxter posthumously received a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6284 Hollywood Boulevard. List of actors with Academy Award nominations Warner Baxter on IMDb Warner Baxter at the Internet Broadway Database Warner Baxter at AllMovie Warner Baxter at Find a Grave Photographs of Warner Baxter Warner Baxter and his mother Jane tour the Fox lot in Hollywood: #1...#2
The Valiant (1929 film)
The Valiant is a 1929 American drama film released by Fox Film Corporation in the Fox Movietone sound-on-film system on May 19, 1929. It is produced and directed by William K. Howard and stars Paul Muni, Marguerite Churchill, John Mack Brown. Although described by at least one source as a silent film containing talking sequences, synchronized music, sound effects, The Valiant has continuous dialogue and is a full "talkie" made without a corresponding silent version; the credits, segue into title card: "A city street-----where laughter and tragedy rub elbows." A crowded block lined with tenement buildings, on Manhattan's Lower East Side, comes into view, followed by a look into the hallway of one of those buildings a shot is heard, a door to one of the apartments opens and a man holding a gun backs out, closes the door, puts the gun in his pocket walks down flights of stairs and into the busy street. While he passes along sidewalks teeming with human activity, an Irish American policeman berates a driver for parking in front of a hydrant, but when the driver removes his scarf, revealing a clerical collar, the abashed officer apologizes and offers to accompany the priest to the beat of "that cop on the next corner, he's not one of us".
At that point, the shooter approaches and makes a gesture to speak, but the priest has started to drive off, with the officer standing on the car's running board. Continuing to walk, the shooter goes inside. Approaching the desk lieutenant, who asks, "Well, what's on your mind?", he replies, "I killed a man", explaining that the victim lived at 191 East 8th Street, was named John Harris, "deserved to die". Asked for his own name, he hesitates and, spotting a wall calendar with a large ad for "Dyke & Co. Inc.", says "Dyke... James Dyke". To "Why are you giving yourself up?", he answers "It was the only thing to do". The subsequent title card states: "Civilization demands its toll." In court, the killer is only willing to explain that "I never struck anybody in anger in all my life, but when I knew what he had done, I had to kill him." The judge proclaims that "it is the duty of this court to sentence you to be executed at the state's prison during the week of August seventeenth." Another title card: "Meanwhile------in a far-away home...."
In the backyard of a countryside house, a young woman is attending to her dogs, while her wheelchair-bound mother is sitting nearby. A young man arrives and greets the mother as "Mrs. Douglas", while she addresses him as "Robert" and tells him that it was on such a nice day as this that she last saw her son Joe. Robert hands her "your Columbus paper" and goes to greet the young woman, "Mary", who calls him "Bob", he unsuccessfully attempts to help Mary bathe one of the dogs and, when she falls trying to catch the dog, Bob impulsively kisses her and proposes. Mary's mother calls and shows them a photograph of "James Dyke" in the paper with the lead "Condemned Man's Story Of His Life As It Should Have Been. A Lesson To Youth On Folly Of Crime By The Man Of Mystery", she tells them that he looks like the long lost Joe, but Mary says that it must be a mistake and there's happy news in that Bob proposed and after the marriage they will all live together. The next title card describes "Gray walls, claiming their forfeits of liberty------and life."
Prisoners are seen laboring in a field outside the prison and, as they return to the mess hall for a meal, a stage above the dining area features an orchestra consisting of African American prisoners, replete with a smiling bandleader, playing dance music for the prisoners as they eat. "Dyke" is brought to the office of the warden who asks him about any family members whom he might like to contact, but the condemned man replies that he has no one. Leaving the office, he hears the jaunty melodies resonating from the dining area and says, "I didn't know you had music... here". A newspaper's printing machines are seen churning out the evening edition with the headings: "Mystery of Dyke's Identity Secret as Hour of Death Nears. Prisoner Staunchly Refuses to Divulge Secret of Himself or the Motive for His Crime Though He Faces Chair. James Dyke Maintains Silence as He Writes News Paper Articles Warning Youth on the Folly of Crime." One of the printers tells the other that he heard the paper was paying Dyke $2,500 for his writings and that Dyke was buying Liberty Bonds with the money.
Sitting in her bedroom, the infirm Mrs. Douglas visualizes long-ago memories of teenage Joe describing to his little sister Mary about being cast in a local Shakespeare play and that, at bedtime, instead of "goodnight", she should recite to him the "parting is such sweet sorrow" lines and he would respond with the "sleep dwell upon thine eyes" lines. Meanwhile, in the living room and Bob are in the midst of a party to celebrate their engagement and, as the happy couple and invited guests dance, everyone joins in singing a fast chorus of "Hosanna, sing hosanna today". Leaving their guests to check on Mrs. Douglas and Bob hear from her that despite fragile health, she has decided to make the long trip to visit "James Dyke" in prison, because the possibility that he might be Joe is making the uncertainty unbearable. Mary offers to travel on her mother's behalf, with Bob accompanying her on the trip and, as they are riding on the train, a little girl passenger who says that her name is Suzanne asks if they have a little girl, prompting Mary to tell Bob that she couldn't marry
United Artists
United Artists Corporation doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American film and television entertainment studio. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, the studio was premised on allowing actors to control their own interests, rather than being dependent upon commercial studios. UA was bought and restructured over the ensuing century; the current United Artists company exists as a successor to the original. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired the studio in 1981 for a reported $350 million. On September 22, 2014, MGM acquired a controlling interest in Mark Burnett and Roma Downey's entertainment companies One Three Media and Lightworkers Media merged them to revive United Artists' TV production unit as United Artists Media Group. However, on December 14 of the following year, MGM wholly acquired UAMG and folded it into MGM Television. UA was revived yet again in 2018 as United Artists Digital Studios. Mirror, the joint distribution venture between MGM and Annapurna Pictures was renamed as United Artists Releasing in early February 2019 just in time for UA's 100th anniversary.
Pickford, Chaplin and Griffith incorporated UA as a joint venture on February 5, 1919. Each held a 25 percent stake in the preferred shares and a 20 percent stake in the common shares of the joint venture, with the remaining 20 percent of common shares held by lawyer and advisor William Gibbs McAdoo; the idea for the venture originated with Fairbanks, Chaplin and cowboy star William S. Hart a year earlier. Hollywood veterans, the four stars talked of forming their own company to better control their own work, they were spurred on by established Hollywood producers and distributors who were tightening their control over actor salaries and creative decisions, a process that evolved into the studio system. With the addition of Griffith, planning began; when he heard about their scheme, Richard A. Rowland, head of Metro Pictures said, "The inmates are taking over the asylum." The four partners, with advice from McAdoo, formed their distribution company. Hiram Abrams was its first managing director, the company established its headquarters at 729 Seventh Avenue in New York City.
The original terms called for each star to produce five pictures a year. By the time the company was operational in 1921, feature films were becoming more expensive and polished, running times had settled at around ninety minutes; the original goal was thus abandoned. UA's first film, His Majesty, the American, written by and starring Fairbanks, was a success. Funding for movies was limited. Without selling stock to the public like other studios, all United had for finance was weekly prepayment installments from theater owners for upcoming movies; as a result, production was slow, the company distributed an average of only five films a year in its first five years. By 1924, Griffith had dropped out, the company was facing a crisis. Veteran producer Joseph Schenck was hired as president, he had produced pictures for a decade, brought commitments for films starring his wife, Norma Talmadge, his sister-in-law, Constance Talmadge, his brother-in-law, Buster Keaton. Contracts were signed with independent producers, including Samuel Goldwyn, Howard Hughes.
In 1933, Schenck organized a new company with Darryl F. Zanuck, called Twentieth Century Pictures, which soon provided four pictures a year, forming half of UA's schedule. Schenck formed a separate partnership with Pickford and Chaplin to buy and build theaters under the United Artists name, they began international operations, first in Canada, in Mexico. By the end of the 1930s, United Artists was represented in over 40 countries; when he was denied an ownership share in 1935, Schenck resigned. He set up 20th Century Pictures' merger with Fox Film Corporation to form 20th Century Fox. Al Lichtman succeeded Schenck as company president. Other independent producers distributed through United Artists in the 1930s including Walt Disney Productions, Alexander Korda, Hal Roach, David O. Selznick, Walter Wanger; as the years passed, the dynamics of the business changed, these "producing partners" drifted away. Samuel Goldwyn Productions and Disney went to Wanger to Universal Pictures. In the late 1930s, UA turned a profit.
Goldwyn was providing most of the output for distribution. He sued United several times for disputed compensation leading him to leave. MGM's 1939 hit Gone with the Wind was supposed to be a UA release except that Selznick wanted Clark Gable, under contract to MGM, to play Rhett Butler; that year, Fairbanks died. UA became embroiled in lawsuits with Selznick over his distribution of some films through RKO. Selznick considered UA's operation sloppy, left to start his own distribution arm. In the 1940s, United Artists was losing money because of poorly received pictures. Cinema attendance continued to decline; the company sold its Mexican releasing division to Crédito Cinematográfico Mexicano, a local company. In 1941, Chaplin, Orson Welles, Selznick, Alexander Korda, Wanger—many of whom were members of United Artists--formed the Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers. Members included Hunt Stromberg, William Cagney, Sol L
Lionel Barrymore
Lionel Barrymore was an American actor of stage and radio as well as a film director. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul, remains best known to modern audiences for the role of villainous Mr. Potter in Frank Capra's 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life, he is particularly remembered as Ebenezer Scrooge in annual broadcasts of A Christmas Carol during his last two decades. He is known for playing Dr. Leonard Gillespie in MGM's nine Dr. Kildare films, a role he reprised in a further six films focussing on Gillespie and in a radio series entitled The Story of Dr. Kildare, he was a member of the theatrical Barrymore family. Lionel Barrymore was born Lionel Herbert Blythe in Philadelphia, the son of actors Georgiana Drew Barrymore and Maurice Barrymore, he was the elder brother of Ethel and John Barrymore, the uncle of John Drew Barrymore and Diana Barrymore and the great-uncle of Drew Barrymore, among other members of the Barrymore family. He attended private schools including the Art Students League of New York.
While raised a Roman Catholic, Barrymore attended the Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia. Barrymore graduated from Seton Hall Preparatory School, the Roman Catholic college prep school, in the class of 1891, he was married twice, to actresses Doris Rankin and Irene Fenwick, a one-time lover of his brother, John. Doris's sister Gladys was married to Lionel's uncle Sidney Drew, which made Gladys both his aunt and sister-in-law. Doris Rankin bore Ethel Barrymore II and Mary Barrymore. Neither child survived infancy. Barrymore never recovered from the deaths of his girls, their loss undoubtedly strained his marriage to Doris Rankin, which ended in 1923. Years Barrymore developed a fatherly affection for Jean Harlow, born about the same time as his daughters; when Harlow died in 1937, Barrymore and Clark Gable mourned her. Reluctant to follow his parents' career, Barrymore appeared together with his grandmother Louisa Lane Drew on tour and in a stage production of The Rivals at the age of 15, he recounted that "I didn't want to act.
I wanted to draw. The theater was not in my blood, I was related to the theater by marriage only, he soon found success on stage in character roles and continued to act, although he still wanted to become a painter and to compose music. He appeared on Broadway in his early twenties with his uncle John Drew Jr. in such plays as The Second in Command and The Mummy and the Hummingbird, the latter of which won him critical acclaim. Both were produced by Charles Frohman, who produced other plays for Barrymore and his siblings and Ethel; the Other Girl in 1903–04 was a long-running success for Barrymore. In 1905, he appeared with John and Ethel in a pantomime, starring as the title character in Pantaloon and playing another character in the other half of the bill, Alice Sit-by-the-Fire. In 1906, after a series of disappointing appearances in plays and his first wife, the actress Doris Rankin, left their stage careers and travelled to Paris, where he trained as an artist. Lionel and Doris were in Paris in 1908 where their first baby, was born.
Lionel confirms in his autobiography, We Barrymores, that he and Doris were in France when Bleriot flew the English Channel on July 25, 1909. He did not achieve success as a painter, in 1909 he returned to the US. In December of that year, he returned to the stage in The Fires of Fate, in Chicago, but left the production that month after suffering an attack of nerves about the forthcoming New York opening; the producers gave appendicitis as the reason for his sudden departure. He was soon back on Broadway in The Jail Bird in 1910 and continued his stage career with several more plays, he joined his family troupe, from 1910, in their vaudeville act, where he was happy not to worry as much about memorizing lines. From 1912 to 1917, Barrymore was away from the stage again while he established his film career, but after the First World War, he had several successes on Broadway, where he established his reputation as a dramatic and character actor performing together with his wife, he returned to the stage in Peter Ibbetson with his brother John and achieved star billing in The Copperhead.
He retained star billing for the next 6 years in The Letter of the Law. Lionel gave a short-lived performance as MacBeth in 1921 opposite veteran actress Julia Arthur as Lady MacBeth, but the production encountered negative criticism, his last stage success was in Laugh, Laugh, in 1923, with his second wife, Irene Fenwick. He received negative notices in three productions in a row in 1925. After appearing in Man or Devil in 1926, he signed a film contract with MGM and after the advent of sound films in 1927, he never again appeared on stage. Barrymore joined Biograph Studios in 1909 and began to appear in leading roles by 1911 in films directed by D. W. Griffith. Barrymore made The Battle, The New York Hat and Three Friends. In 1915 he co-starred with Lillian Russell in a movie called Wildfire, one of the legendary Russell's few film appearances, he was involved in writing and directing at Biograph. The last silent film he directed, Life's Whirlpool, starred his sister, Ethel, he acted in more than 60 silent films
The Sound of Music (film)
The Sound of Music is a 1965 American musical drama film produced and directed by Robert Wise, starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, with Richard Haydn and Eleanor Parker. The film is an adaptation of the 1959 stage musical of the same name, composed by Richard Rodgers with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II; the film's screenplay was written by Ernest Lehman, adapted from the stage musical's book by Lindsay and Crouse. Based on the memoir The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria von Trapp, the film is about a young Austrian woman studying to become a nun in Salzburg, Austria in 1938, sent to the villa of a retired naval officer and widower to be governess to his seven children. After bringing and teaching love and music into the lives of the family through kindness and patience, she marries the officer and together with the children they find a way to survive the loss of their homeland through courage and faith; the film was released on March 2, 1965 in the United States as a limited roadshow theatrical release.
Although critical response to the film was mixed, the film was a major commercial success, becoming the number one box office movie after four weeks, the highest-grossing film of 1965. By November 1966, The Sound of Music had become the highest-grossing film of all-time—surpassing Gone with the Wind—and held that distinction for five years; the film was just as popular throughout the world, breaking previous box-office records in twenty-nine countries. Following an initial theatrical release that lasted four and a half years, two successful re-releases, the film sold 283 million admissions worldwide and earned a total worldwide gross of $286,000,000; the Sound of Music received five Academy Awards, including Best Director. The film received two Golden Globe Awards, for Best Motion Picture and Best Actress, the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement, the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written American Musical. In 1998, the American Film Institute listed The Sound of Music as the fifty-fifth greatest American movie of all time, the fourth greatest movie musical.
In 2001, the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it "culturally or aesthetically significant". In 1938, Maria is a free-spirited young Austrian woman studying to become a nun at Nonnberg Abbey in Salzburg, her love of music and the mountains, her youthful enthusiasm and imagination, her lack of discipline cause some concern among the nuns. The Mother Abbess, believing Maria would be happier outside the abbey, sends her to the villa of retired naval officer Captain Georg von Trapp to be governess to his seven children—Liesl, Louisa, Brigitta and Gretl; the Captain has been raising his children using strict military discipline following the death of his wife. Although the children misbehave at first, Maria responds with kindness and patience, soon the children come to trust and respect her. Liesl, the oldest, is won over after Maria protects her from discovery when she is nearly caught sneaking back into the house after meeting with Rolfe, a messenger boy she is in love with.
While the Captain is away in Vienna, Maria makes play clothes for the children and takes them around Salzburg and the surrounding mountains, teaches them how to sing. When the Captain returns to the villa with Baroness Elsa Schraeder, a wealthy socialite, their mutual friend, Max Detweiler, they are greeted by Maria and the children returning from a boat ride on the lake that concludes when their boat overturns. Displeased by his children's clothes and activities, Maria's impassioned appeal that he get closer to his children, the Captain orders her to return to the abbey. Just he hears singing coming from inside the house and is astonished to see his children singing for the Baroness. Filled with emotion, the Captain joins his children. Afterwards, he asks her to stay. Impressed by the children's singing, Max proposes he enter them in the upcoming Salzburg Festival but the suggestion is rejected by the Captain as he is opposed to his children singing in public, he does agree, however. The night of the party, while guests in formal attire waltz in the ballroom and the children look on from the garden terrace.
When the Captain notices Maria teaching Kurt the traditional Ländler folk dance, he cuts in and dances with Maria in a graceful performance, culminating in a close embrace. Confused about her feelings, Maria breaks away; the Baroness, who noticed the Captain's attraction to Maria, hides her jealousy while convincing Maria that she must return to the abbey. Back at the abbey, when Mother Abbess learns that Maria has stayed in seclusion to avoid her feelings for the Captain, she encourages her to return to the villa to look for her life. After Maria returns to the villa, she learns about the Captain's engagement to the Baroness and agrees to stay until they find a replacement governess; the Captain's feelings for Maria, have not changed, after breaking off his engagement the Captain marries Maria. While the Captain and Maria are on their honeymoon, Max enters the children in the Salzburg Festival against their father's wishes; when they learn that Austria has been annexed by the Third Reich in the Anschluss, the couple return to their home, where a telegram awaits informing the Captain that he must report to the German Naval base at Bremerhaven to accept a commission in the German Navy.
Opposed to the Nazis and the Anschluss, the Captain tells his family they must leave Austria for Switzerland. Many of the Von Trapps' frie
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