#oh Sally Ann we're really in it now

[carolinanadeau]

In Praise of Sally Ann Howes

As I've made it one of the purposes of my blog to share photos and songs and general positivity about the wonderful English actress Sally Ann Howes, I thought I'd make a post to talk in much more detail about all the great things about her and why I adore her so much!

This classy English beauty possessed a highly expressive face and eyes, an astonishingly powerful soprano, a great sense of humor, and the world's most charming laugh. One thing I cannot stop saying about Sally Ann is that she did not and does not get nearly enough credit and recognition for her immense talent and prolific career, and it's precisely for that reason that I'm here to do my part in giving it to her!

This overlong rambling post is a combination of biographical information and my personal fawning over her performances... whatever I felt I most wanted to put out there in the world and what I'd like people less familiar with her to know.

Click on Keep Reading and I'll take you on a journey!

As she preferred to work on the stage and didn't really pursue a film career, the catalog of Sally Ann's work that can still be viewed today is unfortunately small - though you can find almost all of her early films on the internet if you look hard! In her early film days, mostly made before she was able to pursue her true passion of musical theatre, her extraordinary singing talents weren't utilized by the producers at all.

However, we were fortunately blessed with exactly one musical film role from her, and it's an iconic one: the aptly-named role of Truly Scrumptious in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), the golden-haired, golden-hearted candy heiress who falls in love with and eventually marries Dick van Dyke's character Caractacus Potts after joining him and his children on a madcap adventure. She's a sweet, intelligent ingenue with hidden depths and one of my favorite sorts of character arcs - the uptight, lonely woman who becomes more and more warm and open as she discovers newfound freedom and joy in life and falls in love.

There is something about Sally Ann that just glows in every scene of Chitty, and it's not only that bright blonde hair! The way she widens her eyes sometimes, the way she raises her eyebrows, her gentle and soft presence in the happiest scenes, and the particular airy lilt she has to her speaking voice are all so distinctive and appealing, and I can't take my eyes off her. And her smile! When I say she glows it's barely even a metaphor, the woman just emits light. 

(Funnily enough, I started to realize that many of the laudatory quotes I've found about her also refer to her in this way, like this quote from a 1965 TV Guide article, from playwright Sidney Kingsley: "She's luminous as an actress. I mean that literally. In Brigadoon she really lit up the stage.")

For me, I'm weak for any actress who can do the defrosted-ice-queen trope so incredibly well. Truly starts out as closed-off and prim, and nearly reverts to that state when she and Caractacus have a Big Misunderstanding near the end, but in the scenes where she's happy and carefree, the warmth just radiates off of her.

She also has the most adorable chemistry with Dick van Dyke in an annoyances-to-friends-to-lovers relationship that absolutely shaped my young brain. Whenever Sally Ann and Dick glance at each other, whether with irritation and frustration early in the film or with warmth and affection later on, their chemistry is obvious and natural, and there's so much expressed in each one of those glances. One has no difficulty believing that these characters are going to be very happily married.

(Here's a cute on-set interview where she talks about, among other things, how easily she and van Dyke clicked.)

While I acknowledge that the character of Caractacus Potts was absolutely originally planned to be an actual Englishman, Dick van Dyke played him with an American accent, and to me they will always be an adorable English-American couple. It's a whole part of the charm of this pairing to me!

Sally Ann also had a great relationship with child actors Adrian Hall and Heather Ripley who played Jeremy and Jemima Potts, and did her best to help make them more comfortable and happy during the many very long days on set. Having been a child film star herself, she knew a great deal about how difficult and alienating it could be. The genuine affection the three of them shared is obvious in their scenes together, especially in the extremely adorable "Truly Scrumptious" number, and it really makes the developing mother-child relationship between the characters so believable.

The beach scene, where so much of the relationship between Truly and Caractacus and the Potts children is developed, is incredibly cute and heartwarming, and a lot of that rides on Sally Ann's performance and how her previously prim-and-proper character shows herself to be warm and loving, once she (literally) lets her hair down. We've already seen how happy the Potts family is together; now we see how Truly fits in perfectly and makes them all even happier.

Look at her! Literally glowing!

(One thing I should mention: I think both the plot and the love story of CCBB are greatly improved if one just treats the "dream sequence" as real events, which was possibly the original intention anyway, so just note that is always the perspective I'm coming from here. It's the only way to make some things make sense and for the characters and their relationships to fully develop.)

"Lovely, Lonely Man" is Truly's big solo moment, and was probably the least comprehensible part of the movie to me as a kid (lol), but is now indisputably one of the very best parts to me as an adult. It's an exquisitely beautiful love song, especially the bridge, and I somehow love it more and more every time I rewatch it. Sally Ann's dreamy, graceful movements and the way the whole scene is shot make her look like a princess, and the slow build of the song is masterfully done. She has this distinctive crisp way of articulating her words while singing, especially the closing consonants like N and M, that I just love to listen to. The string section and the building countermelodies are so beautiful it makes me want to weep. Everyone involved in creating this scene and song deserved an award, I'm being so serious. While it's not the highest of soprano songs and doesn't fully show off Sally Ann's astonishing range, she shows an incredible amount of vocal control here through the many diminuendos and crescendos, and she's mesmerizing to watch and listen to. One of her "glowiest" scenes, for sure!

While I've seen people call this song irrelevant to the plot, I strongly disagree - the romance is part of the plot, of course, and while I didn't fully understand the meaning as a kid, this song establishes how much Truly's outlook on life and hopes for the future have already changed since meeting Caractacus, and how much happier she is with the poor Potts family than she's ever been in her life of luxury. Plus, now we know for certain that she's head over heels for Caractacus, but he doesn't know... increasing the dramatic irony of the pining and yearning to follow!

In the reprise of "Hushabye Mountain", which was sung in a much earlier scene by Dick van Dyke alone, Caractacus loses the will to continue the song because he's overwhelmed with emotion thinking of his children being held captive. Truly comes in to aid him with the final verse - another pivotal moment in the developing romance - and Sally Ann's singing here is nothing short of breathtaking.

And of course, I can't neglect to mention the "Doll on a Music Box" number, where Sally Ann, who was not a trained dancer and in fact considered herself to be "appalling" at it, performs an incredibly precise, incredibly impressive clockwork song-and-dance number while on a spinning turntable! She practiced it so well that she managed to successfully complete the shot in a single take, prompting the stage full of extras to burst into applause.

This is another important character moment for Truly, though it's disguised in a diegetic performance: though it's another thing that went over my head as a child who only got to see the movie once, the lyrics about being trapped up on a music box and longing to be freed by love pretty clearly symbolize how trapped the real Truly's high-society life makes her feel, and how she yearns to break free from class restrictions and live happily-ever-after with Caractacus, as it's only with him and his family that she really feels free.

Then there's that incredibly warm romantic look that Truly and Caractacus share at the end of the song when she silently acknowledges the love confession he's just made while singing in counterpoint with her, though they're still in a dangerous situation and can't give themselves away by appearing too human and breaking their disguises... sadly this vital moment is cut off on all the Youtube videos of the scene I can find, because none of the people who clipped it understand that that's the whole point of it all, apparently. But here's a gif!

The character of Truly doesn't exist at all in the original (quite different) book by James Bond author Ian Fleming - surprising, I know, given her name! - and, honestly, the fact that Truly and the romantic subplot of this movie exist are why it had such a strong impact on me as a child, and very much why I fell in love with it again as an adult. Even though the score is wonderful anyway and the story is charming and magical, I can confidently say that I would not have become as completely enchanted or had such a strong desire to revisit it again and again if there'd been no Truly and no love story. The fact that Sally Ann's performance makes Truly so loveable is, obviously, a pretty crucial factor there.

Sally Ann's delivery of "Well, Mr. Potts... now you'll have to marry me!" after Caractacus kisses Truly... that slide from prim mock-outrage to the playful, warm, you-can-hear-the-smile-in her-voice conclusion is flawless. Not even exaggerating when I say that this was the moment that made me into a hopeless romantic as a 9-year-old child. Sure, this wasn't the first movie I'd seen where two people fall in love and live happily ever after, but I distinctly remember that this was the first romance story that had me in a giggling, kicking-my-feet, "I ship it so hard" state of mind. And after revisiting it as an adult for the first time last year, I have confirmed that yes, child me already had great taste in fictional romances!

Oh, I could say so much about the difference in her body language between the two scenes where Caractacus carries Truly out of her car that's become stuck in a pond. The first time, Truly is affronted and extremely embarrassed by the situation, holding herself so stiffly and awkwardly to avoid an accidental embrace that she causes him to nearly lose his balance and drop her. The second time, when they're in love and they know it, she snuggles right up into his arms without hesitation and it's the cutest thing ever. Sally Ann was 5'6" but looks so tiny in that scene!

(And that kiss! Maybe I'm getting off-topic here in terms of strictly focusing on Sally Ann's contributions, because Dick van Dyke deserves tons of credit for making this kiss so good... but wow, the kiss. Several times I have called it "the Most Kiss they could have gotten away with in a children's movie." Again, giggling, kicking my feet etc.)

While Truly's costumes and hairstyling are rarely historically accurate (the film is set around 1910), the stylized nature of her fashion is iconic and memorable in itself. Sally Ann also completely pulls off playing a fresh-faced ingenue who is 12+ years younger than her actual age - and I do wonder if the aging-down of Sally Ann is at least part of the reason why Truly wears her hair loose throughout most of the movie! Either way, it works perfectly and I was shocked when I first learned how much older she was than her character. (If you watch her in The Admirable Crichton, where she is also in Edwardian costume and was closer to Truly's actual age, she really doesn't look all that much different. If anything, I think she looks even more glowingly beautiful in Chitty!)

Also, as for Truly wearing her hair down... it may just have been an intentionally anachronistic stylistic choice, but in-story, I think it actually contributes to her character by showing a willingness to flout convention and pursue whatever will make her happy instead of what's expected of her, which happens to be a key theme of her character arc.

Another thing that led me to adore Sally Ann as a person as I learned more about her over the last year: in the 1960s, she appeared as a panelist in quite a few episodes of the game show To Tell the Truth (as well as a few episodes of Password), and these can be found on Youtube. I really adore how her personality shines through - she's unfailingly bubbly, witty, self-deprecating, and a bit quirky. Just listening to her speak is a delight and she has one of the best laughs I've ever heard. Here is one of my favorite little moments that I clipped. 

By all accounts, she was a delightful person to know and work with, witty and clever, very professional, and very serious about her craft. She also always maintained a great affection for and pride in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and her role as Truly, which is always a wonderful thing to know about an actor in a beloved role.

Another bonus: here is a super charming interview with her after a backstage disaster at What Makes Sammy Run? on Broadway.

She was also, along with Twiggy and Diahann Carroll (as Julia Baker), one of the first three celebrities to have her likeness made into a Barbie doll.

Two of her earlier films I recommend are the comedies Fools Rush In (1949) and The Admirable Crichton (1957), if you can find them (hint-hint, you can.) You may also be able to find the 1966 TV movie of her reprising her Tony-nominated role of Fiona in Brigadoon with Robert Goulet, and although I feel like the oddly close-up way the film was shot kinda does a disservice to the actors at times, it's still amazing to be able to see and hear her in a role she performed on Broadway.

Richard Rodgers once called Sally Ann "the greatest singer who ever sang on the American musical stage." Now, I don't quote this to claim this superlative as some kind of objective fact. If you know anything about me, I am very, very strongly opposed to pitting women against each other and all the Golden Age sopranos are absolute queens who deserve crowns, no matter how much mainstream success or present-day name-recognition they have/had. I just think it's phenomenal that she received such high praise from a man who worked with many of the best musical theatre singers who ever lived... and to think, many people today have never even heard her voice. Without her performance as Truly Scrumptious, it's possible almost nobody would in the future! I am so glad that Sally Ann's lasting legacy was ensured by such a beloved film role.

Sadly for us, many of the theatrical roles which she originated (and thus, for which cast albums featuring her exist) were in shows that either flopped quickly or at least did not enter the theatrical canon, so she never achieved the level of mainstream recognition she clearly deserves. But Sally Ann also played such legendary and challenging roles as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, Fiona MacLaren in Brigadoon (for which she received a Tony nomination), Maria Rainer von Trapp in The Sound of Music, Anna Leonowens in The King and I, and, much later, Desiree Armfeldt in A Little Night Music. She received great acclaim for all of these performances and, judging by what we know of her process on My Fair Lady, was excellent at making roles distinctly her own and never merely imitating another performer.

Even in her iconic original role of Truly Scrumptious, you don't get to hear the true full power of Sally Ann's extraordinary soprano. For that, I highly recommend listening to "Another Time, Another Place" from Kwamina (1961), and "Something to Live For" from What Makes Sammy Run? (1964). I'm always sad that we don't have any recordings of her in her "fiery" star turn as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, but you can at least hear her do a Cockney accent, be silly, and sing "With a Little Bit of Luck" with Bing Crosby here!

If it weren't for the enduring success of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, few people might have even heard of Sally Ann Howes today, and that would be a terrible loss. I cannot overstate that I am so grateful that we all know who she is because she played this role and we get to see her give this radiant performance of a character that's all her own. Maybe this sounds strange, but I think the fact that this was Sally Ann's only musical film role (and the ONLY role most people will ever see her in) makes it even more precious, and makes everything she brings to the character that much more distinctive and unique and special.

Both for all of the talent and charm she brings to the role itself, and everything else that I and many other fans have been able to learn of so much of her otherwise-obscure work because of it, the world is incredibly lucky to have the lovely Sally Ann Howes immortalized as our Truly Scrumptious, and I wouldn't have it any other way 💖

[myupsteadheart]

@natalianetto 😘 here you go, Sally

Confession time chapter was soooooo good! I'm still smiling like an idiot. Not only made these idiots me smile but also the girl talk and somehow some tough love from Vanessa. I love this friendship as much as I love these idiots 💜

¹ Gosh, H*tshot is going through it and my heart is aching for him 🥺🥺

² Oh! 👀 Vanessa learns the news from JAY???? ...and he's slightly concerned that telling it V was 'his next' mistake?? 🫣 I kinda wanna give him a hug

³ "Hailey Anne Upton." There's the tough love from Vanessa, Hailey needs so much 🫂

⁴ "Then fix it." *cheers to that*

⁵ "I think I really hurt him." 😭 Well, I have to admit I'm crying with Sweetheart - she sounds so scared and unsure of herself - I want my sassy Sweetheart back 😭

⁶ I loooooved this Vanessa-Hailey conversation 🥹 It was the needed tough love with lots of honesty from both sides and the much needed bff comfort Hailey deserves. ...now, GO GET YOUR MAN, Sweetheart

⁷ "We need to talk." Probably not the best choice of words, Sweetheart 🫣🫣

⁸ Omg! The ANGST coming from Jay definitely overbears Haileys nervousness and it makes ME nail-biting nervous

⁹ "I'm kind of falling in love with you. Already fell actually." THERE IT ISSSSSSSS!!! I might wanna scream!!

¹⁰ Their confession time had me on the floor! Just so we're clear!!!!!

¹¹ "I feel like I'm still that thirteen-year-old girl. Alone and broken." All of this is so damn devastating and heartbreaking, and I'm CRYING. 😭 My heart and soul are crying for Sweetheart

¹² As much as I want them to f*ck, I really, like REALLY, love his "No, Hailey." 🫠 He's such a GOOD MAN

¹³ And ofc, the ending made me smile like an idiot!!! 🥰🥰🥰

like you wanted it forever - chapter 20

Happy Hockey Jay Day! I know the last chapter was brutal, but this one might make up for it. I did make some changes while editing so there’s no ice skating in this chapter, but it’s coming later. 🥰

Hope you still enjoy this one! Happy reading! 🏒📸✨

Read on AO3

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

What if you & Vinelle are somehow magically transported back to the time of the HP-books? You two are 11, invited to hogwarts, given materials/books, and you have all your knowledge + memories. You're in harry potter's year. What happens? Do you try to change the ministry?

You guys enjoy your isekei, don't you? Well, after a brief discussion with @therealvinelle on what she would do, this is what we've got.

Also, I'm assuming we're starting in different households here.

The Beginning

First, we're faced with a choice that isn't a choice. Given Vinelle and I are suddenly transported into this world, and I'm guessing an important family line wasn't added, we're more than likely both muggleborn.

We're suddenly eleven and Minerva McGonagall is showing up to tell us a) magic is real b) CONGRATULATIONS YOU CAN GO TO HOGWARTS.

Neither of us is really thrilled by this.

First, it's a bit much and can't possibly be real but also... Magic is grand and all, but the wizarding world is not a welcoming place to muggleborns. When we graduate we're looking at unemployment, alienation from our families and culture, and in general a rough time.

Plus, frankly, Hogwarts sounds boring. Oh my god is that curriculum boring. Am I going to spend seven years working on my diction and hand swishing? Where my worth as a witch is judged by how many of these nonsense phrases and hand swishes I can memorize and say quickly? Sweet Jesus.

But on the other hand, we have this gift we have no means of controlling other than going to Hogwarts, and we likely don't actually have a choice.

Both of us, independently, realize this and go on to Hogwarts.

We then realize the year is 1991, Harry Potter is discussed everywhere, and we're about to have a grand old time.

I imagine we both start working on learning the most useful spells we can in preparation for the Hogwartsening.

Arriving at Hogwarts

We get to Hogwarts after an uneventful train ride (I imagine both of us avoided Harry and friends like the plague, no thank you, not getting tangled in that nonsense). It probably looks nothing like the films which is both somewhat surprising and somewhat pleasing.

The sorting begins and for the most part is what we've come to expect. Harry Potter's here, sits under the hat forever, then is put in Gryffindor.

Except... now neither of us have the full cast of Harry's year NPCs memorized, but we're pretty sure the numbers are off. Of course, we know that we were never in Harry Potter but there's another unfamiliar name that's not "Sally Ann Perks".

Now the question is, where do Vinelle and I wind up. Despite running the nerdiest blogs on the internet there's... I hate to admit it, but something very brash and Gryffindor to our personalities. It takes a certain kind of gall to run a blog of pure heresy using fandom tags. So, we both end up in Gryffindor.

Which means we immediately know that 'the other' doesn't belong here as we know exactly who the Gryffindor NPCs are. We have no idea what this other person is doing here, if this isn't Harry Potter but instead some almost matching simulacrum, but we do feel an ominous sense of dread.

We resolve ourselves to keep out of the other's way.

That doesn't work out.

Vinelle and the Muffin Get Up to Nonsense Independently

What happens next? We step on each other's toes, constantly.

Hagrid is fired by the board fairly soon into the semester. The ministry got two independent tips that the man was raising a dragon on school grounds (funny that).

One of us sneaks into the boy's dormitory to steal Scabbers, only to find that Scabbers is already missing, and Ron is beyond distraught, there's a giant hullabaloo of what happened to Scabbers. There's no Crookshanks to blame yet and each of us eyes 'the other' knowing, somehow, that they know.

That the other is up to no good is only confirmed when Sirius Black is not exonerated (we likely sent him directly to Shacklebolt in the ministry but with no preparation and just a ridiculous note of 'I swear, he's Pettigrew', Pettigrew is probably just murdered for being a gross rat).

In 1992 we're both constantly raiding Ginny Weasley's things. She thinks she's being absolutely tormented. One of us finds the diary but then the other becomes absolutely terrified. We then raid each other's things, constantly. The diary never gets used but neither of us know this for certain.

We both stay up obscenely late to plaster mirrors all over the school walls. Neither of us give any explanation for this, we just stare, having caught each other in the middle of the night, waiting for the other to leave and knowing that they, somehow, know about the basilisk.

There is no basilisk because no one's using the diary, by the way.

With no attacks happening we're both increasingly paranoid that Tom has taken over the other and is now playing the long game in which he has no need for the basilisk distraction.

(The diary probably gets hidden somewhere in the room of requirement as neither of us could destroy it, this is done by whichever of us managed to steal it last. This worries whoever did it to no end, but beyond putting it in a room no one's likely to access (as this would require, I need to find something that must never be touched), what can you do?)

Third year, both of us are hiding from the dementors inside. We skip going to Hogsmeade, just not worth it. We are the only people who do this and everyone thinks we're insane. We think the other's insane too.

As for Sirius, well, we murdered Pettigrew already so he's on his own. Sorry, bud.

This sort of thing continues with both of us skipping our seventh year of Hogwarts to stay out of that mess and always vaguely suspecting the other.

We never realize who the other is.