437. The Sound of Music (1965)

Running Time: 174 minutes
Directed By: Robert Wise
Written By: Ernest Lehman, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein (from stage musical) and from books by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse
Main Cast: Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Richard Haydn, Eleanor Parker, Charmian Carr
Click here to view the trailer

WISE WEEK: THE CONCLUSION

I want to dedicate this review to my dear commenter, Ray. He has apparently been waiting, filled with dread, since June for me to post this review and now that it's posted, he'll be able to visit my blog without the fear that "The Sound of Music" is going to pop out at him. Here you go Ray - I hope seeing the poster for this film didn't ruin your day.

The film's primary character is Maria (Andrews), a wannabe nun, who can't seem to help herself but to belt out songs everywhere she goes. In fact, she's become such a problem around the monastery , that the nun's are forced to ask themselves, "How do you solve a problem like Maria?". Well the solution to the nun's problem is to send Maria to become the Governess to the very wealthy von Trapp family, headed up by Captain Georg von Trapp (Plummer). Georg has seven children, whom he had with his late wife and a Governess (or nanny, i guess would be the modern term) is needed to help keep the children in order. Georg demands discipline from his seven children (ranging in age from five to sixteen) and now from his Governess, but Maria isn't the type to distribute discipline. Instead, she makes friends with the children and teaches them to play, sing songs and basically BE children. Georg is hesitant about the recent, fun and fancy free behavior of his kids, but soon adapts to their new attitudes and even lightens up a bit himself. The clan get along pretty well together, until Maria feels herself falling in love with the Captain. When this occurs, she leaves a note and heads back to the monastery. But Georg won't let her go that easily, as he's developed a soft spot for her as well.

I, unlike Ray, wasn't completely repulsed by this picture. However, at the same time, I wasn't completely taken with it, like so many others apparently have been. For my tastes, the film was just WAY too wholesome. This was like an animated Disney movie, except it had real, human actors instead of cartoons. Julie Andrews was about enough to make you vomit, as she pranced around through the hills, singing her songs and being entirely too "goody-two-shoes". However, at the same time you also had Christopher Plummer in there and he was marvelous in this. Believe it or not, this was the first time I had ever seen "The Sound of Music" and I had absolutely no idea that Plummer was a part of the cast. You know what else I had no idea of? I had no idea that this was based on a real family. That little factoid kind of blew me away, when I read about it just moments before starting this review. The fact that you have a movie, based on a real family who were so close to the rise of the Nazi-regime and then to color it with such a rose-colored crayon is kind of odd.

As for the rest of my opinions, they're really kind of mixed. If "The Sound of Music" were a volume control, then the movie was turned up to it's maximum capacity during the musical numbers and turned nearly as low as it would go during every other part. The whole film just felt like a series of bridges to get from one musical number to the next and on top of that, there was really no point in all the singing. The musical numbers felt like they were just there for the sake of being there and there was really no flow between the plot and the singing. Sure, some of the songs are quite catchy ("Do-Re-Mi" and "Edelweiss" being my two favorite performances), but it just all felt very pointless. The plot was held together with shoe strings and super glue and really, if you were to cut out all the musical numbers, this film wouldn't really amount to much, kind of like "West Side Story". Also, let's talk about the length! Was three hours really necessary?? An easy was to chop off about thirty minutes or so, would have been to have the credits roll when Maria walked down the aisle to marry Georg. Of course, you don't get to the whole Georg bailing on the Third Reich stuff, but it was easily dismissible . However, in doing that you'd be chopping off one of my favorite parts of the film - When Georg tries to sing "Edelweiss" at the festival and gets choked up, only to be helped along by the rest of his family.

I'd say with a shorter length, a little less singing and a little more development in the plot department, you'd have a home run with "The Sound of Music", but as it is, it has it's fair share of problems and I have a bit of a hard time believing that it was the best picture of 1965. Plummer was great, some of the musical numbers were very well-done and catchy (how about the "Sixteen Going On Seventeen" number, in the middle of a thunderstorm and very well choreographed) and the picture really looked magnificent, aesthetically. However, I think the bad things I mentioned outweigh those few good things and we're left with a mediocre picture, at best.

RATING: 6/10 Anything higher than that would be me just being generous. As for Robert Wise, I can't say I'm too upset to see his dedication week come to an end.

MOVIES WATCHED: 366
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 635

COMING SOON:
The Saragossa Manuscript (1965 - Wojciech Has)
Closely Watched Trains (1966 - Jiri Menzel)
The House is Black (1962 - Forough Farrokhzad)

December 14, 2011 12:03am