Movie Review: The Sound of Music (1965)

The Sound of Music

Note: This is #44 in my 52 Classic Movies in 52 Weeks challenge for 2009.

Well, THAT was certainly wholesome.

Where to start? Well, Julie Andrews plays Maria, a young woman with a terrible haircut and aspirations to become a nun. But Maria is really bad at being a nun, what with all the skipping vespers in favor of singing and prancing the hills of Austria. As a way of letting her sew her wild oats (or getting rid of her, if you take a more cynical view), the Mother Superior sends Maria into town to serve as a nanny for the seven children of an Austrian naval Captain who has lost his wife and replaced her with a huge stick up his bum.

Initially the children are bratty and try to put the new nanny in her place, but after singing some songs and making them some truely horrendous clothes out of curtains, Maria gets on their good side and begins taking them out to cavort and play. This puts her at odds with their father, as the loss of his wife has left him wiht a dearth of humor and a surfeit of discipline. He also, however, has retained his love for Austria and a disdain for the Nazis, who were trying to shoulder their way into the country on the eve of World War II.

As you could guess from the title if you didn’t already know, The Sound of Music is a musical, with lots of tunes and lyrics by the famous composers Rodgers and Hammerstein. Again I was struck by how many of the songs I recognized and kept saying “That’s from this?” every few minutes. There are a few pretty iconic numbers in there, like “Do-Re-Mi,” “Edelweis,” and “Climb Every Mountain” and it was entertaining to see where they had originally come from before seeping into popular culture at large.

It’s also noteworthy that I watched this one with my wife and two young daughters (age 5 and 2), and the kids were mostly transfixed by the movie. They loved the songs and the scenes with the von Trapp children, especially if they were singing. The music is good and recognizable, and the movie is not bad if you don’t mind something so saccharine. With Nazis.

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6 thoughts on “Movie Review: The Sound of Music (1965)

  1. Do you mean you’d never seen The Sound of Music before now? Wow, how’d you manage that? I seem to recall that some major network used to air it ever year around Christmastime, just like Wizard of Oz used to air every year around Halloween.

  2. I’ve actually never seen this movie either and much like the fact that I have never seen a James Bond movie, I feel it is now a badge of honor and I must not see them. I did see a James Bond movie being filmed in Italy however so I may have tainted myself.

  3. I’m like Bethany. I don’t know how many times I saw this growing up, but it was plenty. I haven’t seen it for years, though. Not specifically avoiding it. Just haven’t. However like Shawn I will likely never see Titanic, ’cause I resisted through the entire furor and now I just don’t want to break the seal.

  4. Geralyn talked me into watching Dirty Dancing last night and was utterly incredulous when she learned that I had never seen it before.

  5. I wear the badge of honor of not seeing Titanic either. I know how it ends and it does not end well.

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