Maria and the children are rowing in the boat towards the house and they see Captain Von Trapp, so they all stand up and the boat tips over. Watch how Gretel falls in the water head first and Louisa is all the way on the other side, nowhere near Gretel. Then, it shows Louisa on the other side carrying Gretel. Not a big deal, but check it out anyways.
In an interview with Julie Andrews she says the actress who played Gretl couldn't swim and nearly drowned it the scene. Luckily the actress playing Louisa caught this in time and helped her out of the water.
I used the zoom feature on my DVD player and when she and Louisa are coming out of the water they are laughing. They are because this part of the scene was refilmed (and Maria wears a different dress) and all because Gretl nearly drowned.
If you have one of the special anniversary editions of the movie, in the beginning there's a long clip with interviews and information about the movie. The director says that Gretel can't swim and so it was actually pre-arranged for Louisa to watch out for her and carry her out of the water. This would explain her "quick" movement to pick her up.
The directors had known beforehand that Kym Karath (Gretl) could not swim. So they asked Julie Andrews if she could catch her so that she wouldn't drowned. However, when the boat tilted, Julie took a dive backwards as Kym went forward. Therefore, Julie could not be there for Kym. When Julie couldn't rescue her, the Assistant Director jumped in the water and rescued her. Since the shot was ruined, they had to redo the shot. The put in charge of Kym Heather Menzies (Lousia) in subsequent shots. The earlier shot was used (the one where Julie was supposed to get Gretl), but the shot after is the one where she is rescued by Heather. So, basically, it's an edit of two different takes.
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