The Sound of Music

• Title: The Sound of  Music
• Director:  Robert Wise
• Date:  1965
• Studio:  20th Century Fox
• Genre:  Musical, Romance
• Cast:  Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Angela Cartwright
• Format:  Color, Widescreen (70mm film)
• DVD Format:  R1, NTSC

"Fraulein, were you this much trouble at the abbey?"  - Capt Georg von Trapp
"Oh, much more, sir." -- Maria

"Activity suggests a life filled with purpose." - Capt. von Trapp

"Maybe the flag with the black spider makes people nervous." - Greta

The Sound of  Music is a big showy musical film, which appears to be shot at least partially on location rather than being studio-bound, like most MGM musicals.  However, it is also long, at least three hours.  When the intermission card came up, I was ready for the film to be over.  yet, despite it's length, The Sound of  Music is a good film, and one that many consider a classic.

Julie Andrews is Maria, a young noviate at a convent -- it's clear to the Mother Superior and other nuns, that, while she is likable, Maria is not quite nun material, so the Mother Superior suggests she at least attempt to make her way in the world before returning to the abbey to take her vows.  Not quite ready to put the young woman out on the street with nothing but the clothes on her back, the Mother Superior sends her to Capt. von Trapp to become governess to his seven children.

A widower, Capt. von Trapp has become increasingly cold and withdrawn since the death of  his wife.  This is shown with the scene where he introduces the seven children to Maria by blowing their call signs on a whistle.  Maria finds this ridiculous.  The Captain then criticizes Maria's clothes.  When she tells him she doesn't have any others, she gave hers away when she went into the convent, he buys her fabrics to make new dresses.  He also has new drapes put in her room in his villa (it's a small castle).  She takes the old fabric and makes play clothes for the children.

Soon Maria becomes the best governess the children have ever had, taking them on field trips and teaching them to sing.  At first, stern Capt. von Trapp is appalled at Maria's light-hearted way, but eventually she draws him in too.  However, he's seeing Baroness Elsa, a cold-hearted widow.  At first, it seems like the Captain and the Baroness are a perfect couple, but eventually it's clear that he belongs with Maria.

Eventually, Elsa breaks off  her engagement with Capt von Trapp, as she realizes she's just not capable of being a mother of seven.  Capt. von Trapp then immediately proposes to Maria, they marry and leave for their month-long honeymoon, leaving the children in the care of  "Uncle Max".  The Captain and Maria return to discover that the Captain's beloved Austria has been annexed by Germany.  Not only that, but he is ordered to report to a naval base and become an officer in the German Navy.  Capt. von Trapp would literally rather die, and he and Maria plot their escape.

Here, Max comes to the rescue -- the von Trapp Family Singers will sing in the Salzburg Folk Festival, something the Captain had been against, and their escape will be arranged after the performance.  The plot eventually works, they escape, hide in the abbey, then go first by car, then by foot through the mountains and into Switzerland.

List of  Musical Numbers

• The Sound of  Music
• How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?
• When You're 16, Going on 17
• My Favorite Things
• Doe a Deer / Do Re Mi
• The Lonely Goatherd (during the children's puppet show)
• Edelweiss
• So Long, Fare Well, Auf  Wiedersehen, Goodnight
• The Sound of  Music (reprise, slower version)
• My Favorite Things (reprise)
• I Must Have Done Something Good
• How Do  You Solve a Problem Like Maria? (reprise)
• When You're 16, Going on 17 (reprise)
• Doe a Deer / Do Re Mi (at the folk concert, reprise)
• Edelweiss (at the folk concert, reprise)
• So Long, Fare Well, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodnight  (at the folk concert, reprise)

The good things about The Sound of  Music -- the full frame (though widescreen) filming of  the singing and the few dance numbers ("When You're 16, Going on 17" and the folk dance Maria and the Captain dance together during his grand party) is very nice, though the dances aren't as complex as either a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers musical or an MGM musical.  The location filming is gorgeous -- and it's nice to see a musical that isn't so studio-bound.  However, the film is overly long.  The second half (post the intermission card) does actually move faster, and I'm not sure what I'd cut if  I was the editor (well, yes I do -- I'd dump a lot of  the montages between Maria and the children and show more concrete examples of  how she reaches them).  Anyway, over three hours is really pushing it for a musical.

Recommendation:  See it, at least once, it is a clasic

Rating: 3.8

Next Film:  Spaceballs