Question: Gretel was 5 years old and the mother died seven years ago. Who is Gretel's mom?
Question: How exactly did Leslie initially intend on crossing the Bering or Chukchi Sea from Alaska into Russia? I know he and Professor Fate end up floating on a large mass of ice to do so, but that's not exactly something you can plan for.
Chosen answer: The cars and drivers were supposed to make the trip by ship from North America across the Bering Strait to a Russian port, where they would resume the race. As it happened, Leslie and Fate were stranded in a blizzard on the North American side before they reached the ship. The ice beneath their cars unexpectedly broke away and drifted across the Bering Strait, improbably arriving at the intended destination port in Russia. As they drift into port, we see Leslie's right-hand man, Hezekiah, waving at them from the Russian dock, which is only possible if Hezekiah made the journey by the very ship that Leslie and Fate missed.
Answer: In the film, the Mother Abess explains to Maria that the Captain Von Trapp's wife died "several years" ago. This is commonly misheard by viewers as "seven years." In reality, the actual mother of the Von Trapp children was Agathe Whitehead, who died of scarlet fever in 1922, just four years before Maria came to the Von Trapp home, initially as a tutor (not a governess) in 1926.
Michael Albert