20th Century Fox, 1965
Starring Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Eleanor Parker, and Richard Hayden
Directed by Robert Wise
Music by Richard Rodgers; Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein
Yes, I know the next musical to win an Oscar was actually My Fair Lady, but I covered that one back in October before I decided on this theme. We're going to skip ahead a year to our next winner. This was one of the biggest musicals of the 60's, in every way possible. It solidified Julie Andrews' status as a major star after the success of Mary Poppins and proved that musicals could still do big business in a changing Hollywood. How does the real-life tale of the Von Trapp Family, singers who fled Austria during World War II, look now? Let's make swooping tracking shot on a certain hill overlooking Salzburg, Austria and find out...
The Story: Maria (Andrews) is supposed to be a novice nun at an Abbey outside of Saltzburg in Austria, but she just can't seem to conform to the church's strict rules. At a loss with what to do with her, the Mother Superior (Peggy Wood) sends her to former naval officer Captain Georg Von Trapp (Plummer), who needs a governess for his seven children. They've driven off other governesses in an attempt to get their frequently-absent father to notice them, but Maria wins them over with her honesty and imagination. She especially becomes friendly with the oldest Von Trapp child, sixteen-year-old Lisel (Charmian Carr), after she helps the girl cover up her outdoor rendevous with a young messanger boy, Rolf (Daniel Truhitte).
The Captain has forbidden both play and music after the death of his wife. When he goes away for a month, Maria introduces the children to both, teaching them how to sing and have fun all over Saltzburg. The Captain is angry that Maria disobeyed him, but his new fiancee Baroness Elsa von Schraeder (Parker) and friend Max Liberman (Hayden) are so enchanted by the children's singing, he ends up encouraging Maria to stay. Maria, however, is quite smitten with the Captain, to the consternation of the Baroness. She tells her that his feelings are mutual. Confused, Maria returns to the Abbey, only to be sent back by the Mother Abbess when she realizes that the young woman is trying to hide her feelings.
Even as they confess their love, the Nazis are marching on Austria, annexing it into Germany. The Captain is against the Nazis and being conscripted into their navy. It'll take a little help from their friends in Saltzburg...including Max and the nuns at the Abbey...to help the Von Trapp Family Singers escape to Switzerland and freedom.
The Song and Dance: What I like about this film (and our previous Oscar winner West Side Story) is the dynamic cinematography. These films inhabit the slums of New York and the majestic Austrian alps in a way seldom seen in musicals. The stunning color and camerawork, including those famous tracking shots in the opening, give this movie a feeling of intimacy. The Von Trapps are a part of their world in a way characters in films, let alone musicals, almost never allow for. Maria takes the kids swimming and boating; we see them dancing and singing in various real-life locations, many of which still exist today.
The script is much better than I remember it (and than most critics give it credit for), especially in the first half, where the emphasis is more on the kids and the triangle between the Baroness, Maria, and the Captain. (I also appreciate how the Baroness bowed out gracefully, instead of prolonging things or fighting.) Andrews, Plummer, and Parker were all excellent, Carr was lovely in "Sixteen Going on Seventeen," and the other kids were adorable.
Favorite Number: The movie almost literally soars whenever it's outside. Andrews' opening rendition of the title song, shot as she twirls around the hills, is iconic today, as is Maria teaching the kids how to sing "Do-Re-Mi" as they frolic across a glowing Saltzburg. Maria and the Captain's "Something Good" in the gazebo in the second half is warm and touching, while Rolf and Lisel's "Sixteen Going On Seventeen" earlier in the same place is too cute. Andrews also has fun performing the holiday standard "My Favorite Things" with the kids during a thunderstorm.
But my favorite song from this show is the gentle ballad "Edelweiss," originally performed by the Captain solo after the kids and Maria do "The Lonely Goatherd." It's such a sweet number, one of Rodgers and Hammerstein's best ballads, and Plummer's dubber Bill Lee gives it the right soft sell.
Triva: "Edelweiss" isn't just sentimental for the Captain and the citizens of Austria. It was the last song Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein wrote together. Hammerstein had been diagnosed with stomach cancer; he died nine months after the opening of the stage show.
Rodgers wrote the movie songs "Something Good" and "I Have Confidence" solo. Some current stage versions of the show will occasionally add them in.
The original Broadway show debuted in 1959, with Mary Martin as Maria and Theodore Bikel as the Captain. It ran for four years and shared a Best Musical Tony with Fiorello! It was an even bigger hit in London, running for nearly a decade. A Broadway revival in 1998 with Rebecca Luker as Maria and Michael Siberry as the Captain also did fairly well, running a year and a half. There was a live TV version in 2013 and another one in England in 2015.
The movie was the blockbuster film of 1965, running in theaters for over four years. It was the biggest hit film of all time until The Godfather surpassed it in 1972 and remains on the list of all-time top-selling movies today.
There's a lot of historical fudging here. The Captain did hate the Nazis and was supposed to join the German navy, but the family escaped by train to Italy, not by foot to Switzerland, and he and Maria had been married for almost a decade by that point. The real Von Trapp villa was closer to the border to Germany than Switzerland. Max is fictional as well.
What I Don't Like: With Maria and her children still alive then (Georg died in 1946), there's no way this was going to be anything like accurate. A lot of critics in the 60s, and even to this day, deride the film as overly sentimental...and while it's not nearly as treacly as Going My Way, it can get a bit cutesy at times. "The Lonely Goatherd" marionette number is cute and funny, but it seems kind of shoehorned in for no reason other than to use the song and pad the already overlong running time. And yeah, the mood whiplash at the end, from romantic comedy-drama to tense thriller, is a bit much.
The Big Finale: Too sweet? Maybe a little, but it's also beautifully shot and acted, with wonderful songs and some of the most stunning camerawork of any musical film. If you're a musical lover or a fan of Andrews, you owe yourself to check this one out.
Home Media: As one of the most popular films of all time, you can pretty much find this one in any format of your choosing, including many streaming platforms.
DVD
Blu-Ray
Amazon Prime
Reviews of musical films, from 1930s black and white to widescreen 21st century extravaganzas.
Emma, have you seen the stage version? While the main story is essentially the same, some of the songs are shifted about. "My Favorite Things" is actually sung by Mother Superior to cheer up Maria, and the song Maria sings to the kids during the thunderstorm is "The Lonely Goatherd," so it fits much better into the story. The way they did it in the film was basically to show off the Bill Baird marionettes! Also, Max and the Baroness have a subplot in which they represent the people in a crisis who don't care about consequences so long as the consequences don't affect them. They have a song about it.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen it, but I do have the Original Cast LP with Mary Martin. Actually, as much as I like "My Favorite Things" where it is in the movie, "Lonely Goatherd" works there, too. And while I'm not the biggest fan of the Baroness and Max's song, I wish they'd kept it anyway for that representation you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteSee if your library has the Carrie Underwood SOM that aired a few years back on Fox. Carrie doesn't have the voice for the role (her voice is beautiful, but you need a big voice for a Broadway show), but it does the stage play, not the film. The other roles were enjoyable, and the girl who plays Liesl actually looks like a 17-year-old German girl. There's a British version, too, that aired just recently on PBS that does the stage version as well.
ReplyDeleteIt does! The Haddon Township Library has it. I'll likely be reviewing it sometime in the near future, possibly later this spring. :)
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