Film pays tribute to two gifted American songwriters

“So many people know the songs, but not the boys,” observes singer-actress Julie Andrews in a defining comment, referring to Robert and Richard Sherman, whose simple, singable, sunny songs rarely fail to touch the heart. (with video)

Robert, left, and Richard Sherman

“So many people know the songs, but not the boys,” observes
singer-actress Julie Andrews in a defining comment, referring to Robert
and Richard Sherman, whose simple, singable, sunny songs rarely fail to
touch the heart.  

Robert, left, and Richard Sherman

Andrews’ remarks occur in the opening moments of The Boys: The Sherman Brothers’ Story, which is currently playing in Toronto theatres.

This illuminating and entertaining documentary pays tribute to two sometimes unheralded men who wrote more movie musical scores than anyone else in the history of film.

“Can you believe the output of those gentlemen?” asks Dick Van Dyke, the actor and comedian who had starring roles in movies in which their memorable songs were featured.

In a highly productive partnership  spanning five decades, the Shermans produced the scores for, among other motion pictures, Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Parent Trap, The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, Charlotte’s Web, Winnie the Pooh and An American Tail.

They also wrote iconic pop songs  – You’re Sixteen and Pineapple Princess – and the hummable theme song for the 1964 New York World’s Fair, It’s a Small World (after all), which may be their best-known song.

Earning  nine Academy Award nominations, the Shermans won two Oscars for Mary Poppins, two of whose signature songs are Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and Chim Chim Cher-ee.

Yet The Boys is not just about an astonishingly successful songwriting team, but also about a fraught relationship. Although the Shermans are synonymous with the eternally optimistic songs they composed for Walt Disney, they had a serious problem getting along.


Call it a case of sibling rivalry.

As kids, they rarely spoke, and as adults, they did not socialize.

The brothers lived only seven blocks apart in Los Angeles, but their families were like strangers. At movie premières, they never mingled, and when the patriarch of the family, Al Sherman, died, the brothers opted for two separate shivahs.

Indeed, the directors of The Boys, Gregory Sherman and Jeffrey Sherman, the sons of the brothers, had no contact whatsoever for 40 years until they decided to make this documentary in honour of their fathers.

Different lifestyles and clashing interests broadly account for this dysfuntional situation. Beyond revealing that the Shermans did not enjoy each other’s company, and that their wives were incompatible, the directors leave viewers pretty much in the dark about their contentious relationship. Too much is thus left to the imagination.

Paradoxically enough, the mutual animosity paid career dividends. “The crucible of creativity of these guys was conflict,” explains Disney’s biographer. “Somewhere in their songs they do meet.”

Born in New York City, they were the sons of Al Sherman, a Tin Pan Alley songwriter whose father, Samuel, a concertmaster and composer in the royal court of the Austro-Hungarian Empire emperor, immigrated to the United States in 1909.

Al’s songs, including his hits Potatoes Are Cheaper, You Gotta Be a Football Hero and Now’s the Time to Fall in Love, were recorded by the finest performers: Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Peggy Lee, Patti Page and Bing Crosby.

Al encouraged Robert and Richard to collaborate, and their first song, Gold Can Buy You Anything (but love), sung by Gene Autry, proved to be popular.

But it was not until they landed a gig with Disney – supposedly the only songwriters who were ever on contract with him – that their star rose. “They were paying us money to write songs,” says Robert effusively. “I couldn’t believe it.”

Disney was a generally remote figure, but he liked the Shermans, admired their talents and developed a special bond with them. Disney’s nephew, Roy, who appears in The Boys, says, “They could write a song over lunch hour.”

After Disney’s untimely death, the assignments dried up, and the brothers had to fend for themselves. The Boys does not delve into that disruptive period, nor does it elaborate on Robert’s  singular trauma. As a soldier in the U.S. army in World War II,  he was one of the liberators of the Dachau concentration camp in Germany. The things he saw in Dachau left a deep impression and caused him a nervous breakdown after the war. “The horror lasted a long time,” Robert muses.

Regrettably, The Boys does not go into details, nor are we told how this experience affected him as a songwriter.

Despite such glaring gaps, The Boys is a credible film about two amazing brothers.