Puppets in films:THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965, 20th Century Fox)

THE SOUND OF MUSIC

The Lonely Goatherd scene

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"The Lonely Goatherd" is a popular show tune from the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music that makes use of yodeling.

In the 1965 film adaptation, screenwriter Ernest Lehman repositioned this song to a later part of the film wherein Maria (played by Julie Andrews) and the children sing it as part of a marionette show they perform for their father.The song in place of "The Lonely Goatherd" was "My Favorite Things", which was originally sung earlier in the original musical at the office of the Mother Abbess as a duet between her and Maria, just before she gets sent to serve Captain von Trapp's family as governess to his seven children.

The famous marionette puppetry sequence in the film was produced and performed by the leading puppeteers of the day, Bil Baird and Cora Eisenberg. William Britton "Bil" Baird (August 15, 1904 – March 18, 1987) was an American puppeteer of the mid- and late 20th century. In 1934, Baird formed his own company, the Baird Marionettes. With his wife Cora Eisenberg Baird (1912–1967) he produced and performed the famous puppetry sequence for "The Lonely Goatherd" in the film version of The Sound of Music. They toured Russia, appeared in "The Lonely Goatherd" sequence in the film The Sound of Music (1965).

Legacy of puppets

Short note on puppets:  Puppets in the movie are: lonely goatherd, one little girl in a pale pink coater and her mother, one male goat, two female goats and a baby goat, the prince, two mountaineers, barman, two bar guests, three musicians and three dance pairs. As seen in the presenting part of a film, the marionettes were a cabaret type puppets, we can think about them also as a trick marionettes. Puppets in the film have movable jaws and eyes: some for up/down and some for left/right movement of the eyeballs. Trick marionettes have also inflatable cheeks for the tuba musician, prolonging necks for two guests in the bar not to forget that dance pairs can rotate and male dancers can lift lady dancers. Those three pairs of marionettes dancers were controlled each through long marionette control that has in the middle point on the bottom fixed a wooden part for lifting up lady dancers. Basic marionette control for persons (not animals) is made of two separate parts in which the main part controls the body, while removable part controls hands. An interesting part on such control is a leather safety part which prevents control for hands falling from hands (in film actors shows poor knowledge of controlling the puppets, but the eldest son of the family Friederick has a safety on the hand). Safety might also be used for the hanging of the marionettes while not active.

Bil Baird's children Laura and Peter sold nearly all of the Bil Baird Marionettes at auction. This 800-lot auction sale was held at The Greenwich Auction Room, 110 East 13th Street, NY, NY over two days September 19–20, 1987.

Bill Baird wrote The Art of the Puppet (1965)

In popular culture

Julie Andrews performed this song with The Muppets as the opening number to her guest appearance on The Muppet Show in 1977.

Personally this performance I like most - it is so much work to make the whole scene: hill, cottage, additional puppets and I just love Kermit, Gonzo and Rolf in somewhat should be red Austrian folk costumes. Precious.