The Sound of Music (film)
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The Sound of Music is a 1965 film directed by Robert Wise and starring Julie Andrews in the lead role. The film is based on the broadway musical The Sound of Music.
The musical originated with the book The Von Trapp Family Singers by Maria von Trapp. It contains many hit songs, including "Edelweiss", "My Favorite Things", "Climb Ev'ry Mountain", "Do-Re-Mi", "Sixteen Going On Seventeen" and "The Lonely Goatherd", as well as the title song.
The film version was filmed on location in Salzburg as well as Hollywood studios.
Plot
Part I: In Salzburg, Austria, Maria, a woman studying to become a nun, is sent from her convent to be the governess to seven children of a widower naval commander, Captain Georg Ritter von Trapp. The children, initially hostile and mischievous, when given care and made aware of the fun of life come to like her, and Maria finds herself falling in love with the captain. He was soon to be married to a baroness but marries Maria instead.
Part II: The Nazis take power in Austria as part of the Anschluss, and attempt to force Captain von Trapp back in service. Unwilling to do so, during a singing performance in a guarded theater, the whole family flees and hikes over the mountains to Switzerland.
Production
The film, which was released in 1965, was named Best Picture of the Year. Robert Wise won an Academy Award for Directing for the film, which stars Julie Andrews as Maria and Christopher Plummer as Captain von Trapp. Hammerstein died before the film was made, and two of the numbers added to the score were written solely by Rodgers: "I Have Confidence" and "Something Good", while three secondary songs were cut from the score and others were shifted to different scenes. The film grossed over $158 million at the North American box office. Adjusted for ticket price inflation this is the equivalent of $911 million at 2006 prices, putting it third on the list of all time inflation adjusted box office hits according to boxofficemojo.com. [link] The soundtrack album on the RCA Victor label has sold over 11 million copies worldwide.
The film has since been seen on television and (re-)released on VHS and DVD for its 40th anniversary. When Plummer did not re-join the rest of the cast for a 40th anniversary re-union in New York, reports said Plummer was distancing himself from the movie. The reports were fuelled by a comment from the President of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Society who said "[Plummer] used to refer to it as the 'Sound of Mucus'". As Plummer took part in interviews and commentaries for the DVD version of the 40th anniversary, and is overwhelmingly positive about the experience in those recordings, it is difficult to know where his feelings truly lie.
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Julie Andrews | Maria von Trapp |
| Christopher Plummer | Captain Georg von Trapp |
| Charmian Carr | Liesl von Trapp |
| Peggy Wood | Mother Abbess |
| Richard Haydn | Max Detweiler |
| Nicholas Hammond | Friedrich von Trapp |
| Heather Menzies | Louisa von Trapp |
| Duane Chase | Kurt von Trapp |
| Angela Cartwright | Brigitta von Trapp |
| Debbie Turner | Marta von Trapp |
| Kym Karath | Gretl von Trapp |
| Eleanor Parker | Baroness Elsa Schrader |
| Daniel Truhitte | Rolfe |
Trivia
- Many people believe "Edelweiss" to be a traditional Austrian song, or even the national anthem. In fact the song was written for the musical and is little known in Austria.
- The Ländler dance that Maria and the Captain shared was not performed the traditional way it is done in Austria.
- "I Have Confidence" is a song that Rodgers wrote as a "bridge", needed in the movie to get Maria from the convent to the Von Trapp manor (as he explained). During that segment, at one point Julie Andrews passes under an archway. As pointed out in one of the DVD's extras, the real Maria, one of her daughters, and one of her daughters (Maria's granddaughter) can be seen starting to cross the road at that point. The von Trapps arrived on set that day and director Wise offered them this walk-on role. It has also been reported that Andrews tripped at one point during the filming, a moment the editors left in because it seemed to fit the character.
- The order of several of the songs is markedly different between the stage play and the film, thanks to the screenwriting of Ernest Lehman. One example is that in the play, "My Favorite Things" is sung at the convent, whereas in the movie it is sung to the children. A couple of the songs were altered. "How Can Love Survive?" (which did not fit the flow of the movie very well) was reduced to an instrumental, one of several waltz numbers played at the party occurring just before intermission. The title song's four-line prelude ("My day in the hills has come to an end, I know..."), sung by Mary Martin in the stage play, is reduced to an instrumental hint during the overture and dramatic zoom-in shot to Julie Andrews on the mountaintop at the start of the movie.
- Despite the enormous popularity of the movie, which at the time became the largest grossing picture of all time, noted film critic Pauline Kael blasted the film in a review in which she called the movie "The Sound Of Money." This review allegedly led to Kael's dismissal from McCall's magazine.
- The Sound of Music became the highest grossing film of all time in December 1965, when it beat Gone With the Wind by slightly less than one million dollars. The Sound of Music remained the highest grossing film of all time, until 1970 when Gone With the Wind was rereleased and it became #1 again. After that, several films (The Godfather, Jaws, etc) have pushed The Sound of Music further down on the list.
- In 2001 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
- According to [boxofficemojo], the film ranks third in both all-time number of tickets sold (142,415,400) and in gross adjusted for inflation ($911,458,400) in North America (behind Gone with the Wind and Star Wars) Combine this with its success around the world in sales of tickets, videocassettes, laserdiscs, DVDs and its frequent airings on television, it is called "the most widely seen movie produced by a Hollywood studio" by [Amazon.uk]
- The film was released in several foreign countries. In Germany it was re-titled Meine Lieder, Meine Träume (My Songs, My Dreams); France -- La mélodie du bonheur (The Melody of Happiness); Portugal -- Musica no coracao (Music of the Heart); Brazil -- A novica rebelde (The Rebel Novice); Italy -- Tutti insieme Appassionatamente (All Together with Passion); Netherlands -- De mooiste muziek (The Most Beautiful Music); Spain -- Sonrisas y Lágrimas (Smiles and Tears); Greece -- E meloudia tees Efti-hias (The Melody of Happiness); Israel -- Tze-leh ha-musica (The Sound of Music); Saudi Arabia -- Sauth el musika (The Sound of Music); Mexico -- La Novicia Rebelde (The Rebel Novice);
- Controversy surrounded the film's release in Germany. According to a 2000 documentary: "...the film's Nazi overtones brought about the unauthorized cutting of the third act." The third act, with its intial images of post-Anschluss Austria, begins directly after Maria's wedding to the Baron. Eventually, the third act was restored to the German release, but audience attendance did not improve.
References
External links
- [Details of the touring singalong version of the movie]
- [The Sound Of Music Kids - Where are they now]
- [The Real Story of the Von Trapp Family (from the US National Archives)]
- Robert von Dassanowsky, "An Unclaimed Country: The Austrian Image in American Film and the Sociopolitics of The Sound of Music." Bright Lights Film Journal. Issue 41, August 2003, [link].
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1961: West Side Story |
1962: Lawrence of Arabia |
1963: Tom Jones |
1964: My Fair Lady |
1965: The Sound of Music |
1966: A Man for All Seasons |
1967: In the Heat of the Night |
1968: Oliver! |
1969: Midnight Cowboy |
1970: Patton |
1971: The French Connection |
1972: The Godfather |
1973: The Sting |
1974: The Godfather Part II |
1975: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest |
1976: Rocky |
1977: Annie Hall |
1978: The Deer Hunter |
1979: Kramer vs. Kramer |
1980: Ordinary People
[Complete List] | [ Winners (1927–1940)] | [ Winners (1941–1960)] | [ Winners (1981–2000)] | [ Winners (2001– )]
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