The Sound of Music (1965)

The Sound of Music is an American romantic film drama first released in 1965, directed by Robert Wise.  The film stars Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Eleanor Parker, Richard Haydn and Peggy Wood.  It has also been released under the title: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music.  Our overall rating for this film is: excellent.


Salzburg, Austria, in the late 1930s.  Maria is an idealistic young woman whose only goal in life is to become a nun.  Unfortunately, the sisters at the convent where she is preparing to take her vows are unsure whether she is suited for this life and so she is sent away for a period of reflection.  She is employed as governess to the seven children of Baron von Trapp, a widow and former captain in the Austrian navy.  Maria is appalled by the way in which Von Trapp disciplines his children, treating them like low-ranking sailors on his ship.  Von Trapp, likewise, is unimpressed when Maria encourages the children to sing and play.  In time, however, Maria and her employer grow to like one another.  When she learns that Von Trapp is going to marry a wealthy baroness, Maria realises that she is in love with him and hastily steals back to the convent.  The mother abbess persuades Maria that she must return to the Von Trapp household and face whatever her destiny has in store for her...

Like a certain oddly textured yeast-derived product that you may choose to spread on your toast, Robert Wise’s 1965 film The Sound of Music is a thing that you either love or hate, and with the kind of passion that has been known to cause wars.  In the old dark days before VHS and DVD were invented, those who loved the film would rather have had their grandmother and children turned into mincemeat than miss the annual television screening of the film.  And those who hate it most and ridicule it most fervently tend, by and large, never to have never watched it, although they once heard someone in the pub rubbish it - such is the wisdom of opinionated ignorance.   

Certainly, The Sound of Music has come in for some pretty harsh criticism, on account of its sugar-coated sentimentality, its über-idealised portrait of family life and Christopher Plummer’s inability to carry a guitar, let alone a tune, but none of this has prevented it from becoming one of the best-loved and most enduring musicals of all time.  Despite some very unfavourable reviews when it was first released, the film proved to be one of the most successful film musicals ever.  It was nominated for ten Oscars and had wins in five categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Music, Best Editing and Best Sound.  Forty years on, it continues to be a film with an enormous appeal.

As with many Hollywood musicals, The Sound of Music started out as a stage production of the same name.  Opening on Broadway in 1959, this stage version was the last work to come out of the legendary partnership of composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II.   The musical was based on a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, which was inspired by the memoirs of Maria von Trapp.  Most of the musical numbers of the original stage production found their way into the film and have passed into popular culture, becoming familiar to just about everyone in the English-speaking world.   These include enduring favourites such as  My Favorite Things, Do-Re-Mi, Edelweiss, Climb Ev’ry Mountain, as well as the haunting title song.  Julie Andrews stars in her most memorable role, that of the sugar candy governess Maria, a part that makes good use of her talent as both an actress and a singer but one that that would blight her future career.

The Sound of Music is often criticised for its sentimentality and, admittedly, it does get very syrupy in its first half.  It portrays a perfect world in which children are transformed from little monsters into angels by the drop of Julie Andrews’s hat.  It is a fairytale in which a lonely middle-aged sea captain and a young governess fall in love, get married and, so we are led to believe, live happily ever after.  It is quite a shock when, in the third act, the mood of the film suddenly darkens and it looks as if the entire Von Trapp family are destined to end up with a one-way ticket to Auschwitz.  Of course it all ends happily (this is, after all, family-friendly escapism, not a slasher movie), but just for an agonising ten minutes or so you do wonder where the film is heading and whether we might be in for a horrible surprise.  

The jury is still out as to whether The Sound of Music deserves to be labelled a masterpiece, but no one doubts that it is a classic, a film that you can watch again and again and derive pleasure from.  It is also a film with a very broad appeal, catering for all age groups and most tastes – it is a comedy, a musical, a romance, a war film and, if you like, an idiot’s guide on how to bring up children properly (use the guitar, not the whistle).  Yes, the plot is horribly contrived and there’s enough industrial strength saccharine to sweeten the daily cuppa of everyone in England for at least three hundred years.  But the charm of the film is such that its failings are easily overlooked, if not entirely forgiven.  It offers you everything you could want in a Hollywood musical.  Sumptuous photography, stunning art design, infectious music and Julie Andrews at her most radiant as every boy’s dream nanny.  Is it really so shameful to admit that you enjoyed watching The Sound of Music?

© James Travers 2008

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