The Boys: A História dos Sherman Brothers

I don't know about the previous reviewer, but what possibly could have been done better than this superb documentary? Lifeless it isn't, clumsy it isn't. It's touching, and filled with many fascinating insights. The use of seeing parallel home movies by the brothers during their estrangement was an inspired one. It's very well done, people. It does exactly what it sets out to do, and then some. I hope people will seek out this film and see for themselves just how good it is.

For a Disney release, it's also interesting to see non-Disney films incorporated to give a more balanced look at the brothers' film scores. For baby boomers, this film will be an added pleasure, since so much of this music here most likely was a strong presence during their growing years. Don't miss this one!

This is the third Disney documentary I've seen in the last couple months (this includes this film, "Walt and El Groupo" and "Waking Sleeping Beauty") and all three were enjoyable bits of nostalgia. However, unlike these other two films, the Shermans were most famous for their work but they wrote music for a wide variety of projects--not just ones for that studio.

The film begins in a way that took my by surprise. Apparently it was made by one of Bob Sherman's sons and one of Dick Sherman's sons. Neither knew each other and their families never really interacted--despite their fathers being brothers and long-time writing partners! Now that is weird and caught my attention, as it seems that over the years the two became more and more estranged from each other and were so unalike. What follows is a nice nostalgic look at these men and their lives and shows the many ways in which their music has shaped films and our culture.

The film is well made, fascinating and great for Disney fans and non-fans. While not as amazingly good as "Waking Sleeping Beauty", it is some documentary.

"The Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story" is a documentary about Robert and Richard Sherman, the legendary songwriting brothers who composed the music for such films as "The Jungle Book," "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," "Bednobs and Broomsticks" and their indisputable masterpiece "Mary Poppins," which features one of the finest scores ever written for an original movie musical.

Though "The Boys" was produced and distributed by The Disney Studios - for whom the duo worked for many years – and was written and directed by their sons, Gregory V. and Jeff Sherman, this is no hagiography designed to provide a whitewashed account of its subject. On the contrary, it provides us with a warts-and-all look at the siblings who, while they could make great music together on a professional level, found it virtually impossible to harmonize on a personal one. In fact, their relationship was so strained that they essentially raised their families in isolation from one another (they even attended separate funeral receptions when their parents passed away) - and still today, the two men, even in the twilight of their lives, have yet to heal the breach that separates them.

What's interesting – and, frankly a little maddening - about the film is that we're never quite sure what it is that caused this rupture, mainly because the boys themselves seem unable to account for it (half the time they seem to be unaware it even exists). All we know is that, for decades in public, they were able to put on a happy face and maintain the fiction that they were every bit as close as brothers as they were as songwriters, while out of the limelight and to the awareness of those who knew them, they had drifted irrevocably apart.

Through interviews with their children, co-workers and admirers over the years, as well as with Bob and Dick themselves, the movie chronicles their childhood growing up in New York City, then Beverly Hills; their devotion and indebtedness to their songwriting father, Al Sherman; Robert's injury in World War II and the trauma of helping to liberate Dachau; their early years writing pop songs together and with others; their entry into composing for the movies with a song for "The Parent Trap." Then it's on to their years as the only songwriters lucky enough to be under contract to Disney; their close personal relationship with Walt himself; their Oscar-winning triumph with "Mary Poppins;" their eventual split with the studio after the death of Walt; their later work through the '70s and beyond; and their reunion at the London premiere of the stage version of "Poppins" in 2006.

Despite the fact that the rift between the two is never adequately explained, the movie provides a treasure-trove of information, clips and snippets from that period in which they produced their work. There are moments of ribald humor and wistful nostalgia as we relive the memories the Sherman boys have provided for those of us fortunate enough to have grown up on their songs (they were even responsible for that most maddeningly memorable of ditties, "It's a Small World"). Indeed, in the face of all the personal animosity between the two men, it's the music and the memories that ultimately "help the medicine go down" while watching "The Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story."

Starting in 1961 with an inauspicious tune called "Strummin' Song" from Walt Disney's live-action "The Horsemasters", brothers Robert B. And Richard M. Sherman, sons of Russian-Jewish immigrants, became the in-house, go-to songwriters for the Disney Company. They turned out one melodious, deceptively simple ditty after another until they eventually hit upon Oscar gold with their score for "Mary Poppins". As it turns out, the fabulously talented Shermans are not unlike most siblings: there are rivalries between the two, personality differences which cause them to clash, and they're not really the best of friends. This incredibly moving documentary, directed by the duo's sons, Gregory and Jeff Sherman, was a valiant attempt to get Robert and Richard to reconcile their feelings for one another--and to acknowledge their extensive body of work, which is often unfairly criticized as being sappy or sugary. Indeed, it may seem a bit of a stretch to compare the Shermans to John Lennon and Paul McCartney...but after hearing such wonderful songs as "Feed the Birds" (Walt's personal favorite), "On the Front Porch" (Robert's favorite), "A Spoonful of Sugar", "Winnie the Pooh", and "It's a Small World", among others, their resume becomes a virtual collection of childhood memories. The Shermans deserved this valentine to their talents as sentimental and romantic songwriters par excellence, and the family story which plays out behind-the-scenes underscores their sunshiny output with realistic melancholy. It is quite an achievement. ***1/2 from ****

Although I've been a movie buff most of my life, for my first few decades I didn't pay much attention to the people behind the movies, other than the actors. So, when I began studying the silver screen in earnest several years ago, I was surprised at the list of accomplishments of the Sherman Brothers. Then, I recently watched a newer DVD of "Mary Poppins," which I hadn't watched for many years. It had some bonus video short subjects, including background on the music. That peaked my interest more and I bought the DVD of the Sherman Brothers' story, "The Boys." I was further surprised to learn of their personality clashes over time. While they never broke out in angry turmoil, it became too stressful for Robert, who then moved away.

That their different interests, personalities and characters should be a source of creative conflict is amazing. But, they both testify to that in the numerous interview snippets included in this biographical documentary. The separation of their families for nearly four decades – when they lived just houses away from each other while the kids were growing up – that was tragic. All the more reason to congratulate their sons Gregory and Jeffrey for meeting to bury the hatchets they didn't even know they had, and make this biodoc as a way to tell the story of the Sherman Brothers and their accomplishments. And, in the process, to hopefully get their dads back together.

The documentary is first-rate in all aspects. It is excellent work, with excellent material that they researched and put together from the past. The interviews with others who worked with The Boys were spot on. And, this DVD too has some bonus material that gives even more information.

I'm sure that the people interviewed are right – that many of the Sherman Brothers' songs will live on for generations. The most popular and well known are "Chim Chim Cher-ee," "A Spoonful of Sugar," "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," "Winnie the Pooh," "The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers," "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," "It's a Small World," and "Anything Can Happen." The brothers had great praise and admiration for Walt Disney. It was he who made them the resident music creators for all of the Disney ventures. Besides the two Oscars they won, they had dozens of nominations for major awards over the years and won a number.

They wrote 31 major movie scores, live action and animated, for Disney and others. They wrote dozens of songs for the Disney theme parks and for the Disney TV programs. Several became pop hits over the years – in addition to the above songs from their shows.

One thing that I found especially interesting about Bob, was his experience toward the end of World War II. He had just turned 17 and got permission form his parents to enlist in the Army in 1943. In this film, Bob says he and his squad were the first Americans to enter the Dachau prison camp. He said the sight of the corpses and ovens would be "nightmares for the rest of my life."

The film has a number of interviews with A.J. Carothers. He was a long- time playwright and TV writer with Disney, and a close friend of both Bob and Richard. He said that the positive songs of the boys were uplifting to everyone who worked around them. He described their musical output as joyful, fun and romantic. They didn't create sentimental music, but romantic songs. He quoted author F. Scott Fitzgerald for his definition. "A sentimental person thinks things will last, and a romantic hopes against hope they will not." That's from Fitzgerald's first novel, "This Side of Paradise."

Bob tells a story about how they came up with the word, "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." "When we were really young kids, we went to summer camp. And, they had a contest. Who could make a longer word than antidisestablishmentarianism. That was a very famous word. And, we messed around. We came up with an idea for a word."

The Boys and others have asked how many people can say "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" backwards. Richard said he could, and he rattled off a word. Unfortunately, the IMDb review won't accept my giving these examples with syllable breaks. The Web site says that my review contains too many spelling mistakes. So, I will just finish this with general references here. Julie Andrews said it the same way, but she admitted it as the syllables in reverse order – not the full word actually spelled and pronounced backwards. But even that wasn't the case, because in their example they recited six of the seven syllable breaks in reverse order but then said super backwards as well. So, their rendition is a mixed bag of some of the syllables backwards and in reverse order. For fun, I then spelled the word in reverse with syllable breaks for those who might want to take a crack at it. With this, it's obvious why the songwriters chose to try for just saying the syllables in reverse.

For trivia fans, the one-word song title has 34 letters and uses 15 of the 26 letters of the alphabet. Of those, 16 are vowels and 18 are consonants. The vowel used most is the letter "i," which appears seven times. I offer this all in the spirit of the Sherman Brothers and Walt Disney who brought us so much laughter and many smiles in their music, movies and stories.