The Sound of Music (film)
The Sound of Music is a
1965 film directed by
Robert Wise and starred
Julie Andrews in the lead role. The film is based on the
Broadway musical The Sound of Music, with songs written by
Richard Rodgers and
Oscar Hammerstein II, and with the musical book written by the writing team of
Howard Lindsay and
Russel Crouse.
The musical originated with the book
The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by
Maria von Trapp. It contains many popular 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 movie version was filmed on location in
Salzburg,
Austria and
Bavaria in
Germany, and also at the
20th Century Fox Studios in
California.
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.
 |
Julie Andrews as Maria, seeks guidance from the Mother Abbess, played by Peggy Wood, in this scene from the 1965 film version. |
The film, which was released in
1965, won the
Academy Award for Best Picture.
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, who wrote the lyrics, died in 1960, several years before the film adaptation went into production, so Rodgers had to write the lyrics for two songs that were added to the score:
I Have Confidence and
Something Good. Three songs from the Broadway production were cut from the score (
How Can Love Survive,
Laendler and
No Way to Stop It) 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. [
1] 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 join the rest of the cast for a 40th anniversary reunion 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.
All songs: Music by
Richard Rodgers, Lyrics by
Oscar Hammerstein II unless otherwise noted.
In order of appearance:
*
The Sound of Music*
Morning Hymn/Alleluia (based on traditional songs)
*
Maria*
I Have Confidence in Me (Lyrics by Rodgers only)
*
Sixteen Going On Seventeen*
My Favorite Things *
Do-Re-Mi*
The Lonely Goatherd*
Edelweiss*
So Long, Farewell*
Climb Ev'ry Mountain*
Something Good (Lyrics by Rodgers only)
Several key members of the cast had their singing voices dubbed by others.
Peggy Wood, who played Mother Abbess and received an
Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for this movie, was dubbed by Margery McKay.
Anna Lee, who played Sister Margaretta, was dubbed by Marie Greene. Several of the children were dubbed by Darlene Farnon (aka Darlene Carr) who is the sister of
Charmian Carr, who played Liesl. Darlene sang the high note for Nicholas Hammond, who played Friedrich, in the song,
So Long, Farewell. Randy Perkins, Diane Burt and Sue McBain.
Christopher Plummer was dubbed by Bill Lee, who also did the singing voice for
Yogi Bear. Plummer, who has performed in stage musicals, did have his singing recorded but decided it was not good enough. Ironically, the movie featured a rare onscreen performance by
Marni Nixon, who plays Sister Sophia and is well known to have dubbed the singing voices for many famous movie stars such as
Audrey Hepburn in
My Fair Lady.
Marc Breaux and
Dee Dee Wood did the choreography for the film.
The movie garnered 10
Academy Award nominations and won five:
* Best Picture (
Robert Wise, producer)
* Best Director,
Robert Wise * Best Sound
* Best Score - Adaptation or Treatment,
Irwin Kostal* Best Film Editing,
William ReynoldsIt was also nominated for Best Actress (
Julie Andrews), Best Supporting Actress (
Peggy Wood), Best Cinematography (color), Best Art Direction - Set Decoration (color) and Best Costume Design (color).
The cast album was nominated for a
Grammy Award for Album of the Year. It spent 161 weeks in the
Billboard Magazine Top 40.
* 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 song was the last that
Oscar Hammerstein II wrote.
* The
Ländler dance that Maria and the Captain shared was not performed the traditional way it is done in Austria.
 |
Maria with her young charges. |
*
I Have Confidence is a song that Rodgers wrote as a musical 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
Kevin Costner's sci-fi film
The Postman, the bleak post-apocalyptic landscape is brightened by an outdoor screening of
The Sound of Music* 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
Musica no coracao (Music of the Heart); Brazil
Tutti insieme Appassionatamente (All Together with Passion); Netherlands
Sonrisas y Lágrimas (Smiles and Tears); Greece
Tze-leh ha-musica (The Sound of Music); Saudi Arabia
La Novicia Rebelde (The Rebel Novice); Iran --
Ashkha va labkhandha (Tears and Smiles)
* 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.
* According to the British tabloid
The Sun, the movie was selected by
BBC executives as one to be broadcast after a
nuclear strike, to improve the morale of survivors. The BBC did not confirm or deny the story, saying "This is a security issue so we cannot comment"
[The Sun 7th October 2004].
* Legend has it that South Koreans were even more taken by the movie. A theatre owner in
South Korea, wanting to show the movie more times per day to take the money of more customers, allegedly cut out the musical pieces
[''This apocryphal tale is recounted, for instance, at the IMDb].
*
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, [
2].
