I can't remember a time when I didn't know this film - and all the songs in it. It is indelibly imprinted in my childhood memories. We had the original release of the film soundtrack on vinyl - it's one of the things I remember listening to with my cousins on my Nana's great big sideboard record player in her front room, and I can't have been more than five or six at the time. I have no idea how old I was when I first watched the film, but I probably wasn't old enough to understand Nazis (although I always understood Nuns!). I have no idea how many times I've seen it - but my most memorable viewing was one that was interrupted by our Curate popping round halfway through, just at the point where they are serving Pink Lemonade. It became a thing, and next time Fr McMahon came round we served him Pink Lemonade! (it was very pink!). A friend of ours called Maria walked down the aisle at her wedding to Maria's Wedding March and I have jumped up and down those steps with my classmates singing Do-Re-Mi on a school trip to Salzburg. Suffice it to say, The Sound of Music has always been ringing in my ears!!
Andy had never seen it until he met me - he was fairly ambivalent to the music and had just never really fancied watching the film. I converted him first time round. Which is just as well, because we're about to sit through three hours of Nazis, Nuns and singing children yet again. I can't wait!!
It's the only time that the Oscars have been held on my birthday - well, to be correct, exactly six years to the day before I was born, but on my birthday nevertheless. 18th April 1966 at Santa Monica again, and hosted by Bob Hope again! It was also the first ceremony to be broadcast live in colour.There were two big contenders on the night - The Sound of Music and Doctor Zhivago both had ten nominations and won five awards. They are also - still to this day - two of the top ten most commercially successful films of all time. A fairly rare occasion where the Academy and the public were in complete agreement.
Other Notable Winners That Night:
The Sound of Music took the two big ones, leaving Doctor Zhivago with a Screenplay award along with lesser sound and vision awards (which is fair enough, because it does look and sound great!)
Also worth noting is the Animated Short winner for this year. Again, something very of its time, but something I remember really clearly from my childhood - Norman Juster's "The Dot and the Line: a Romance in Lower Mathematics". A real classic, and here it is:
Best Song:
Nothing from The Sound of Music, because none of them were originals for the movie. And no "Lara's Theme", because it didn't have any words until after Doctor Zhivago was released, (Incidentally, I used to have a musical jewellery box that played Lara's Theme while a little ballerina spun round. Which just shows how commercially influential the film was....)
Instead we get The Shadow of Your Smile from The Sandpiper. (It wouldn't have been my choice - I'd have gone for The Ballad of Cat Ballou all the way!!!!)
What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:
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| Lara and Yuri heading a spike in demand for furry Russian hats! (insert appropriate Seinfeld reference here!) |
Of course I'm going to agree with the Academy on this one. The Sound of Music all the way for me!
However, it could have gone one of two ways on the night. The other three nominees never really had a chance (Darling, Ship of Fools, A Thousand Clowns) - but Doctor Zhivago probably wasn't very far behind in the voting. It's a really good film and one I haven't seen for a while, so I would have been very happy to watch it again (and I will do some time soon!)
Dubbing Alert:
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| Bill Lee - one of the best singers you've heard, but never heard of! |
The sound of the Von Trapp children was enhanced by several other voices, including that of Charmian Carr's sister Darleen - who also sang Kurt's high notes!
Peggy Wood didn't do her own singing for the iconic Climb Ev'ry Mountain - it was Margery MacKay. If you look carefully, you can't see her face when the song starts. Her wistful look out of the window at the beginning is not an artistic decision, it's because she couldn't get the timing right when miming to the pre-record.
Most significantly, adding to the reasons why Christopher Plummer really couldn't stand the film, all of the Captain's singing is provided by Bill Lee. Like Marni, he was well known for doing a great job of sounding like the people he was dubbing for - and when you listen to Edelweiss particularly, he really sounds like you'd expect Plummer to sing. Lee's other most famous job was probably on South Pacific, where he sang Younger Than Springtime, among other things. He can also be heard in several Disney cartoons of the 60s and early 70s - and was the voice of one of the brothers in 7Bfor7B. It's very sad that most of his credits listed on IMDb weren't actually credited in the films themselves.
Our Verdict:
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| There she is!!!! |
I was definitely relieved when I showed Andy the film for the first time. He had been given the impression that it was going to be a bit sickly sweet and cheesy (and wasn't too fond of the music). That's certainly the impression that Christopher Plummer likes to give of the film. He famously called it "The Sound of Mucus" and really didn't enjoy making it. Thankfully, Andy agrees with me and not with Plummer. I actually think that one of the strengths of the film is that it *isn't* too sugary or cheesy when it could so easily have been. This is a film that runs just short of three hours and is, all things considered, about the Austrian Anschluss. It has some pretty heavy politics running right through it and it doesn't water them down. It also has Nuns who talk quite deeply and seriously about their vocation and it has a central love triangle that takes some dramatic turns. When you take the film properly, as a whole, it's quite a serious drama - and it's all the better for it.
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| Marni alert! |
Having said all this, there are lots of songs and there are seven singing children - and this is the aspect of the film that most people remember (and what really makes it the classic that it is). They dress up in old curtains and run around Salzburg singing, as well as performing several different set pieces in their lavish mansion. Julie Andrews is looking after them, just as she looked after the Banks children the year before - and the combination of Julie and the singing children melts the heart of the stern and grieving Captain.
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| Awww. Don't they scrub up well? |
The songs are so well known - and probably overdone - that it's hard to appreciate them back in their original context. Particularly songs like My Favourite Things and Do-Re-Mi. But they are very good songs, and so are the others on the soundtrack - they punctuate the film very well and all serve their purpose. And I love the fact that Edelweiss is thought by many around the world to be an Austrian folk song, despite the fact that most Austrians have never heard of it!
There are several other great characters in the film - Max has always been a favourite of mine, and the Baroness is an interesting and (potentially) complex part of the story (Andy and I disagree about her motivations - he's much kinder toward her than I am!). The various Nuns are shown as both very holy and very human - and one of them is actually Marni Nixon, actually on screen! The Nazis are suitably menacing, without being too scary for a family film, and the character of Rolfe gives a more rounded and human side to the Austrian response to the Anschluss.
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| Not too sweet, not too sour.....just too pink! |
More than anything else, I enjoy watching this film. It looks great, it sounds great, it is well paced and tells a good story with a satisfying ending. It hasn't dated and still plays to packed cinemas today (mainly ones full of people in fancy dress singing along!). Robert Wise produced and directed two Oscar winners in the 60s. Two quite different films, but two of the greatest film Musicals ever. And I still can't decide which one I like better!
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