The Songs Are Endlessly Appealing

Rating: 10/10 (29 April 2020)

When the film came out in 1965, six years after the original opened on Broadway, countless classes from schools across the country made this their senior trip or class outing for the year. So it was with my class at Armada High School in Michigan. We had to see it on the big screen, and when Julie Andrews twirled into view singing the title song it changed our lives. I don't think anybody could have predicted that more than 50 years later we'd still be humming tunes for this marvelous score by Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II. From the opening song to the improbable escape from the Nazis with the assistance of the nuns from the abbey, we are enthralled, viewing after viewing, and I can say with certainty that it has everything to do with the songs. "My Favorite Things," for example, has withstood numerous interpretations, including saxophonist John Coltrane's classic jazz rendition. Yes, the children are cute, Christopher Plummer is handsome, and Julie Andrews enchanting, but it is the songs that make this show: "Climb Every Mountain," "The Lonely Goatherd," "Sixteen Going on Seventeen," "Something Good," "Do Re Mi," "So Long, Farewell," and "Eidelweiss" are all memorable and make you want to hear them sung again and again. See if you can spot dubber extraordinaire Marni Nixon as one of the singing nuns. No need, of course, for any dubbing where Julie Andrews was concerned. ---from Musicals on the Silver Screen, American Library Association, 2013