How we roared!

To most people Christopher Plummer means Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music. Plummer would not be in the least ashamed by this. A year or so ago he found himself forced to watch the film at a children’s Easter party:

The more I watched, the more I realised what a terrific movie it is. The very best of its genre — warm, touching, joyous and absolutely timeless. Here was I, cynical old sod that I am, being totally seduced by the damn thing — and, what’s more, I felt a sudden surge of pride that I’d been a part of it.

It is an odd book, though. The production is calamitous: some of the illustrations are blurred to the point of mystery; unforgivably, there is no index; if an editor has been anywhere near the text there is no evidence of his existence. Trivial inaccuracies abound. Most pages have a phrase or two in French, put in for no apparent reason except, presumably, to demonstrate the author’s mastery of that language.

Initially, at least, Plummer writes with a relentless showbiz jollity that sets the reader’s teeth on edge. Names are dropped in what becomes a torrential downpour and much of the author’s life seems to have been spent in a drunken stupor, roaring with laughter at bad jokes. ‘We had all consumed an enormous amount of hooch and everything started to sound hysterically amusing’ appears on a thrill-packed page in which the author contrives to include the Dukes of St Albans and Devonshire, Princess Margaret, Patrick Lichfield and Rex Harrison. The previous page boasted Prince Rainier, David Niven, Sean Connery and Trevor Howard ‘and of course beaucoup des jeunes filles mal gardés [sic]’.