The Sound of Music (film)
The Sound of Music is a 1965 American musical drama film produced and directed by Robert Wise from a screenplay written by Ernest Lehman, and starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, with Richard Haydn, Peggy Wood, Charmian Carr, and Eleanor Parker. The film is an adaptation of the 1959 stage musical composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Lindsay and Crouse. It is based on the 1949 memoir The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria von Trapp and is set in Salzburg, Austria. It is a fictional retelling of her experiences as governess to seven children, her eventual marriage with their father Captain Georg von Trapp, and their escape during the Anschluss in 1938.[4]
Filming took place from March to September 1964 in Los Angeles and Salzburg. The Sound of Music was released on March 2, 1965 in the United States, initially as a limited roadshow theatrical release. Initial critical response to the film was mixed, but it was a major commercial success, becoming the number one box office film after four weeks, and the highest-grossing film of 1965. By November 1966, The Sound of Music had become the highest-grossing film of all-time, surpassing Gone with the Wind, and it held that distinction for five years. The film was popular throughout the world, breaking previous box-office records in 29 countries. It had an initial theatrical release that lasted four and a half years and two successful re-releases. It sold 283 million admissions worldwide and earned a total worldwide gross of $286 million.
The Sound of Music received five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.[5] The film also received Golden Globe Awards for Best Motion Picture and Best Actress, the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement, and the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written American Musical. In 1998, the American Film Institute (AFI) listed The Sound of Music as the fifty-fifth greatest American film of all time, and the fourth-greatest film musical. In 2001, the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot[edit]
Maria is a free-spirited young Austrian woman studying to become a nun at Nonnberg Abbey in Salzburg in 1938. Her youthful enthusiasm and lack of discipline cause some concern. Mother Abbess sends Maria to the villa of retired naval officer Captain Georg von Trapp to be governess to his seven children—Liesl, Friedrich, Louisa, Kurt, Brigitta, Marta and Gretl. The Captain has been raising his children using strict military discipline following the death of his wife. They have scared away several governesses by playing tricks. Although the children misbehave at first, Maria responds with kindness and patience, and soon the children come to trust and respect her.
While the Captain is away in Vienna, Maria makes play clothes for the children out of drapes that are to be changed. She takes them around Salzburg and the mountains while teaching them how to sing. When the Captain returns to the villa with Baroness Elsa Schraeder, a wealthy socialite, and their mutual friend Max Detweiler, they are greeted by Maria and the children returning from a boat ride on the lake which concludes when their boat overturns. Displeased by his children's clothes and activities and Maria's impassioned appeal that he get closer to his children, the Captain attempts to fire Maria. However, he hears singing coming from inside the house and is astonished to see his children singing for the Baroness. Filled with emotion, the Captain joins his children, singing for the first time in years. The Captain apologizes to Maria and asks her to stay.
Impressed by the children's singing, Max proposes that he enter them in the upcoming Salzburg Festival, but the Captain disapproves of letting his children sing in public. During a grand party at the villa, where guests in formal attire waltz in the ballroom, Maria and the children look on from the garden terrace. When the Captain notices Maria teaching Kurt the traditional Ländler folk dance, he steps in and partners Maria in a graceful performance, culminating in a close embrace. Confused about her feelings, Maria blushes and breaks away. Later, the Baroness, who noticed the Captain's attraction to Maria, hides her jealousy by indirectly convincing Maria that she must return to the abbey.
However, Mother Abbess learns that Maria has stayed in seclusion to avoid her feelings for the Captain, so she encourages her to return to the villa to look for her purpose in life. When Maria returns to the villa, she learns about the Captain's engagement to the Baroness and agrees to stay until they find a replacement governess. However, the Baroness learns that the Captain's feelings for Maria haven't changed, so she peacefully calls off the engagement and returns to Vienna while encouraging the Captain to express his feelings for Maria, who marries him.
While the couple is on their honeymoon, Max enters the children into the Salzburg Festival against their father's wishes. Having learned that Austria has been annexed by the Third Reich, the couple return to their home, where the Captain receives a telegram, ordering him to report to the German Naval base at Bremerhaven to accept a commission in the Kriegsmarine. Strongly opposed to the Nazis and their ideology, the Captain tells his family they must leave Austria immediately.
That night, the von Trapp family attempt to flee to Switzerland, but they are stopped by a group of Brownshirts, led by the Gauleiter Hans Zeller, waiting outside the villa. To cover his family's tracks, the Captain maintains they are headed to the Salzburg Festival to perform. Zeller insists on escorting them to the festival, after which his men will accompany the Captain to Bremerhaven.
Later that night at the festival, during their final number, the von Trapp family slips away and seeks shelter at the abbey, where Mother Abbess hides them in the cemetery crypt. Zeller and his men soon arrive and search the abbey, but the family is able to escape using the caretaker's car. When Zeller's men attempt to pursue, they discover their cars will not start, as two of the nuns have sabotaged their engines. The next morning, after driving to the Swiss border, the von Trapp family make their way on foot across the frontier into Switzerland to safety and freedom.
Release and reception[edit]
Marketing[edit]
Wise hired Mike Kaplan to direct the publicity campaign for the film.[86] After reading the script, Kaplan decided on the ad line "The Happiest Sound in All the World", which would appear on promotional material and artwork.[86] Kaplan also brought in outside agencies to work with the studio's advertising department to develop the promotional artwork, eventually selecting a painting by Howard Terpning of Andrews on an alpine meadow with her carpetbag and guitar case in hand with the children and Plummer in the background.[87][88][Note 4] In February 1964, Kaplan began placing ads in the trade papers Daily Variety, Weekly Variety, and The Hollywood Reporter to attract future exhibitor interest in the project.[86] The studio intended the film to have an initial roadshow theatrical release in select large cities in theaters that could accommodate the 70-mm screenings and six-track stereophonic sound.[89] The roadshow concept involved two showings a day with reserved seating and an intermission similar to Broadway musicals.[89] Kaplan identified forty key cities that would likely be included in the roadshow release and developed a promotional strategy targeting the major newspapers of those cities.[87] During the Salzburg production phase, 20th Century-Fox organized press junkets for American journalists to interview Wise and his team and the cast members.[87]
Legacy[edit]
The Sound of Music is set in Salzburg, yet it was largely ignored in Austria upon release. The film adaptation was a blockbuster worldwide, but it ran for only three days in Salzburg movie theaters, with locals showing "disdain" for a film that "wasn't authentic."[161] In 1966, American Express created the first Sound of Music guided tour in Salzburg.[162] Since 1972, Panorama Tours has been the leading Sound of Music bus tour company in the city, taking approximately 50,000 tourists a year to various film locations in Salzburg and the surrounding region.[162] The Salzburg tourism industry took advantage of the attention from foreign tourists, although residents of the city were apathetic about "everything that is dubious about tourism."[163] The guides on the bus tour "seem to have little idea of what really happened on the set."[164] Even the ticket agent for the Sound of Music Dinner Show tried to dissuade Austrians from attending a performance that was intended for American tourists, saying that it "does not have anything to do with the real Austria."[165] By 2007, The Sound of Music was drawing 300,000 visitors a year to Salzburg,[166] more than the city's self-conception as the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.[164][167] A German translation of the musical was performed on the national stage for the first time in 2005 at the Vienna Volksoper, receiving negative reviews from Austrian critics, who called it "boring" and referred to "Edelweiss" as "an insult to Austrian musical creation."[168] The musical finally premiered in Salzburg in 2011 at the Salzburger Landestheater,[169] but Maria was played in the Salzburg premiere by a Dutch actress who "grew up with the songs."[170] However, most performances in Vienna and Salzburg were sold out,[168][169] and the musical is now in both companies' repertoire.
A Sing-along Sound of Music revival screening was first shown at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in 1999,[171] leading to a successful run at the Prince Charles Cinema which was ongoing as of 2018.[81][172] During the screenings, audience members are often dressed as nuns and von Trapp children and are encouraged to sing along to lyrics superimposed on the screen.[172] In July 2000, Sing-along Sound of Music shows opened in Boston, Massachusetts and Austin, Texas.[172] Some audience members dressed up as cast members and interacted with the action shown on the screen.[172] The film began a successful run at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City in September 2000, with the opening attended by cast members Charmian Carr (Liesl), Daniel Truhitte (Rolfe), and Kym Karath (Gretl).[173] Sing-along Sound of Music screenings have since become an international phenomenon.[174]
In 2001, the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[104] The Academy Film Archive preserved The Sound of Music in 2003.[175]