It is weird to see certain movies that are new to me but which have been so famous for so long. And yet, here I am in the ass half of middle age watching 1965’s The Sound of Music for the first time. Is there any way I can judge it fairly, given my disdain for musicals? Really, I doubt anybody can fairly judge this movie anymore, as it has been so thoroughly entrenched in popular culture that it is like I had already seen it before I finally deliberately watched it.
The film opens in a way I definitely did not anticipate, with aerial photography of the alps stunning enough to make me wonder if I accidentally threw on one of the Lord of the Rings movies instead. That is a hint of the quality of filming throughout. Although the majority of the picture takes place on a soundstage, the remainder is filmed outdoors, and usually captured in stunning photography and shot compositions.
That opening sequence of images leads up to where it inevitably would, had I thought about it, and that is Julie Andrews slowly spinning around, singing about how the hills are alive with the sound of music, etc. Just as assuredly as millions of hearts around the world swell in joy during this number, so I was proportionately underwhelmed. To her credit, Andrews has an astonishing voice, but that “belting to the rafters” style of showtune singing is something I doubt I will ever appreciate. Also, just the general nature of the scene, and the sentiment it conveys, is sickly sweet enough to make me wish I had a blood sugar testing kit at home.
My interest waned with each additional number. It didn’t help I had heard many of these way too many times before I ever watched the film for the first time. There are nuns discussing how to solve a problem like Maria. There’s Andrews singing about her favorite things, in a song I have always founding cloyingly sweet. There’s Andrews’s suggestion that Plummer’s moppets learn a song to sing to his fiancée and, though I was hoping it would be “Fat Bottomed Girls”, she does that irritating “Do Re Mi” thing. All I could think of was The Simpsons bit where Homer hits a deer with his car resulting in this from him, Lisa and Marge: “Doh!” “A deer!” “A female deer!” Like I said, it’s as if I have somehow seen this entire picture many times over before intentionally watching it.
One problem I had with this production is it is too long (there’s even an intermission) and too stuffed with characters for so slight a story. I think I can sum up the entire plot in one sentence: in Austria on the brink of WWII, an easily distracted nun-to-be becomes the governess for the children of a stern captain, whom she organizes into a singing group, only to have the whole lot of them flee for their lives.
I left out a lot of tangents there, and it wouldn’t have hurt the film if it had jettisoned some of those. The strongest of the subplots has Eleanor Parker as a Baroness and fiancée of Plummer. She is obviously not the right woman to marry him, as she is awkward with the children. To the film’s credit, she is not made to be a total bitch. While staying at Plummer’s mansion, she is chaperoned by a Richard Haydn, in a performance that made me realize the “woman’s gay friend” role existed well before this century’s rom-coms.
There’s another tangent I would have, if not jettisoned, then at least trimmed. Daniel Truhitte is a telegraph delivery boy with whom Charmian Carr, the eldest of Plummer’s children, is in love. Damn, but she sure seems to get excited by his song that there’s a whole world of men out there. It’s like we can see her thinking of a whole buffet of cock, and this in a G rated film. I bet the actress also wishes this number had been cut, as she supposedly put a leg through one of the panels of the round glass structure the choreography has her leaping around in. Odd question but, why is this staged inside what appears to be a glass gazebo and, for that matter, why use real glass for the set?
What did pleasantly surprise me, however, was the shift in tone when the threat of the Nazis comes too close to home. If there is a reason for Truhitte’s character to be here, it is to show his transformation into a jackbooted thug when he joins that movement. It is no coincidence the third act of the film has very few songs in it. There is an especially tense scene where the family hides in a cemetery. I could picture myself watching this film again someday, but just skipping to this part.
Then I wouldn’t have to watch Andrews make play clothes for the children out of curtain fabric that would have to be as think and inflexible as linoleum. I wouldn’t have to watch the film fulfill its threat in the opening credits that there would be puppets, ones used in a show supposedly staged by the kids, which basically boils down to an ode to goats getting their freak on. I wouldn’t have to endure the petty grievances the nuns have towards Andrews, such as the one that makes her kiss the floor after each time they argue. I have never heard of that custom before but, apparently, it happens enough for Andrews to just start smooching the pavement when she sees another nun approaching. I started wondering if Andrews ever took her relationship with flooring to a more, um, intimate level. Now there’s a movie I want to see.
I like a lot of innocent, optimistic cinema, but The Sound of Music was as nauseatingly sweet as I always suspected it might be. That said, I was surprised by the tonal shift in the final third. It wasn’t enough to fully redeem the movie, but it was interesting to see some realism creep in. As another song Andrews for which is famous puts it, it takes a spoonful of sugar to make that medicine go down. The problem I had here is there’s far more than a spoonful of the stuff—it’s like a bowl of sugary cereal covered by a small mountain of the stuff, topped with a tiny Julie Andrews spinning around, belting out how the hills are alive with the sound of sweetener.
Dir: Robert Wise
Starring Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Eleanor Parker
Watched on blu-ray