If you dislike this movie ... get some therapy. I beg you.

Rating: Null/10 (21 January 1999)

I first saw this movie at the Queen's Cinerama in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. I was 8 or 9. I fell in love with a)Julie Andrews b) Angela Cartwright c) Cinerama d) Rogers & Hammerstein and e) Chris Plummer "Ham"ming it up in great style. So many things to love. Particularly the orchestrations. How I wish the classic soundtrack included healthy measures of the incidental music, for example from Do-Re-Mi. That wonderful scherzando "toy piano"-sound version of Favorite Things as the family teem out of the Von Trapp estate's gates. Such a shame there were never enough good projects for Julie Andrews. I remember when she used to appear on shows after TSOM and sort of tried to shrug it off like a ghost, and yet it has turned out to be the defining performance of her career, and rightfully so. She has such a deft touch with humor, in fact that is one of the aspects of TSOM people overlook, in many areas it is done with great lightness-of-touch. As noted by others: Richard Haydn's "Heil Hitler" and countless others. And the scene in the Abbey graveyard with the torches is made truly eerie, especially on wide screen as the torch beams play and the shadows deepen and the Trapps huddle. In my opinion it is these little "homey" touches (the runners-up at the Music Festival) of humor which make the whole so infectious.
And the script is superb. "You have to look for your life. You have to lead the life you were born to lead." plain and powerful. To "Your face is all red" in my favorite scene in the whole movie: The Landler sequence. When Julie and the Captain suddenly spark high voltage. And then the wonderful line "I can't remember the rest" seems so true to life. It's the best.