Nuns and Nazis

Rating: 8/10 (18 December 2010)

The story of "The Sound of Music" is a simple one; a postulant in an Austrian nunnery in the 1930s becomes the governess to the children of a widowed aristocratic naval captain and ends up falling in love with him. The two marry, but are forced to flee Austria when the Nazis invade in 1938. It is, very loosely, based on the story of the real Von Trapp family, although it takes many liberties with historical fact. In reality, Georg and Maria von Trapp fell in love in the twenties, not the thirties, were married in 1927 and had two children of their own by 1938. Maria was actually heavily pregnant at the time of her wedding, something tactfully omitted from the film. The family actually left Austria for America before, not after, the Anschluss. The film also differs somewhat, both in its plot line and its music, from the original Rodgers and Hammerstein stage musical; when I first saw it in the theatre I was surprised to hear unfamiliar songs which do not feature in the film. One song, "Something Good", which was specially written for the film is now normally sung in stage productions, even though it was not included in the original.
This was the Big Film of 1965 and the winner of five Academy Awards including Best Picture. It was a great box-office success, and is sometimes credited with saving 20th Century Fox from bankruptcy after their huge losses on "Cleopatra". Nevertheless, it has a rather curious reputation today. It has not (unlike some films which were regarded as Big Films in their day) sunk into obscurity, but neither is it universally regarded as a beloved classic. There are of course some, especially among the older generation, who do think of it in that way, but for many it has taken on the status of a slightly naff guilty pleasure, something enjoyable if taken with a large pinch of irony. There is one cinema in London which hosts regular "Sound of Music" singalongs, with the audience encouraged to join in the songs and to dress up as nuns or Nazis. (I understand that on these occasions it is usual for the men to dress as Nazis and the women as nuns, although the opposite arrangement is by no means unknown).
Certainly, this was a film I hated in my youth. I was first taken to see it as a child- it was the first film I ever saw in the cinema apart from a few Disney cartoons- and I didn't really understand what was going on. In my teenage years in the seventies and eighties it seemed to be on television ever Christmas, Easter and Bank Holiday, and I seemed to have to sit though every screening. (It was one of my mother's favourite films). In common with a lot of contemporaries I came to think of it as corny, sentimental and terminally uncool- a view shared by quite a few critics. Pauline Kael was allegedly dismissed from her job with McCall's magazine after writing a scathing review of it, and even its director Robert Wise originally described the story as "too saccharine". (He changed his mind after the director originally hired, William Wyler, dropped out). When in the mid-nineties the BBC included it in a season of "The 100 Greatest Films of All Time" one critic sneered that it did not even count as one of The 100 Greatest Musicals Set in Austria.
Despite (or perhaps because of) that sneer I decided to watch that screening, and realised that the film was much better than I had previously given it credit for, an impression strengthened when I recently saw it again for the first time in about fifteen years. Of course, it does have its faults. Some of the songs- "My Favourite Things" in particular- really are too sentimental for words, and the film's schematic morality is a bit too black-and-white to be artistically satisfying. In the white corner you have nuns, cute children, true love and the power of music. In the black corner you have the Nazis. Not much room for a grey area there.
Yet the film also has its virtues. The photography, of the magnificent Alpine scenery and of the architecture of Salzburg, is particularly fine. Richard Rodgers wrote some of his best music for the original stage-show, including songs like "Edelweiss", "Climb Ev'ry Mountain", and the title song, and the performers, especially Julie Andrews, do it full justice here. Andrews makes a likable heroine, combining musical ability with tenderness, practicality and religious faith. Christopher Plummer's Captain, however, is perhaps a bit too strict and authoritarian in the early scenes for his later transition into romantic hero to be altogether convincing, and he is too young for the part, appearing not only to have become a father while still in his teens but also to have served in the Austrian navy as a ten-year-old. I wouldn't rate the film quite as highly as Wise's other famous musical, "West Side Story", but then that is in my opinion, one of the greatest musicals ever. Despite the disdain in which it is held in some quarters, and the rather patronising post-modern irony with which it is regarded in others, "The Sound of Music" is a well-crafted, if now rather old-fashioned, piece of family entertainment. 8/10