The King and I (1956)

Directed by Walter Lang. Starring Deborah Kerr, Yul Brynner, Martin Benson, Terry Saunders, Rita Moreno, Alan Mowbray, Rex Thompson, Geoffrey Toone, Patrick Adiarte, Carlos Rivas. [G]

Five Academy Awards went to this lavish movie musical translation of the Rodgers and Hammerstein stage show, including Best Actor for Brynner in his most celebrated role (which he not only played repeatedly on stage, but also in a short-lived TV series called “Anna and the King”). Like nearly all major movie musicals of its time, overlength saps away the enjoyment (did we really need that entire “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” performance piece?), and only one of the show tunes was catchy enough to wind up achieving long-term ubiquity (“Getting to Know You”), but sumptuous production values and the two lead performances are absorbing enough to keep the viewer in his or her seat. Widowed schoolteacher Kerr comes to Siam (Thailand) to tutor the children of Brynner’s king and his many wives, inspires change in the stubborn monarch, “et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.” Same story, from Margaret Langdon’s book, was later told in a 1999 non-musical film, Anna and the King, the same year as an animated remake from Morgan Creek.

61/100