Oklahoma!
Short description
Set in the Oklahoma Territory in the early 1900s, this musical romance centers on Curly McLain, a cowboy in love with the farmer Laurey Williams. Both are too stubborn to admit their feelings, and when Curly asks Laurey to accompany him to a box social, she turns him down and accepts the offer of Jud Fry, a surly ranch hand. Laurey's friend Ado Annie is similarly caught between the cowboy Will Parker and the peddler Ali Hakim. The two women must sort out their hearts before the social arrives. The film is adapted from the stage musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II.
Fred Zinnemann directed the film, which followed High Noon and From Here to Eternity in his filmography and preceded The Nun's Story. Sonya Levien and William Ludwig wrote the screenplay, and Arthur Hornblow Jr. produced. Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones play Curly and Laurey, with Gloria Grahame, Charlotte Greenwood, Eddie Albert and Rod Steiger in supporting roles. The production, backed by RKO Radio Pictures and Magna Corporation, cost about 6 million dollars and took roughly 14 million dollars worldwide.
On IMDb the film holds a rating of 7 out of 10 from around 16,000 votes, while on TMDB it rates 6.6 out of 10 from about 196 votes. A critics' rating of 7.3 out of 10 from 30 reviews places it slightly above the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Finding 'corn as high as an elephant' proved difficult – it simply wasn't the season. Help had to be sought from the agricultural department of the Amazon University. They managed to grow corn over seven meters high, so producer Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960) even joked that 'the corn is now as high as an elephant standing on the back of another elephant'.
- When, in one scene, the heroines Lisann Trues (1931-2013) and Jane Fisher (1930-2018) jump from a moving train straight into the arms of cowboys, everything had to be calculated very precisely. Just before the first take, a representative of the Screen Actors Guild suggested 'changing something', and it turned out that due to the danger of this action (jumping from the train), the actresses were entitled to additional payments of $250. The scene was shot in seven takes. Trues was delighted because she had recently purchased a 1951 Ford and was just making payments on it at the time.
- The film was shot in Arizona because Oklahoma was already so developed and densely built up by 1955 that it would have been difficult to find sparsely populated and underdeveloped areas from the beginning of the century, where the musical's plot unfolds.
- Preparation for filming began a year before the actual shooting commenced. During preparation, the film's art director, Joseph S. Wright (1892-1985), learned that spring floods occurred in the areas where filming was planned. The budget-conscious producers objected, but he insisted on building a dam for $15,000 anyway. When the spring waters came as he had warned, the dam saved the sets worth over $250,000 from destruction.
- “Oklahoma!” was the first widescreen film in history shot using the Todd-AO system. Simultaneously with the 70mm widescreen version, the film was shot in the more common widescreen system “CinemaScope” on standard 35mm film. This was done to allow cinemas without 70mm equipment to show the film. As a result, the two versions of the film differ significantly, as each uses different camera positions and editing plans.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
