Great Songs but Just a Little Sappy

Rating: 8/10 (9 March 2006)

This was probably "the" first blockbuster of my movie viewing period. I remember at the Academy Theater in downtown Minneapolis, it was the only movie that showed for over a year. People would come back to the small town I lived in and rave about. Because I was a kid with little money and no chance to tool around the big city, I didn't get to see it until it finished its initial run and made it out into the hinterlands. It was breathtaking on wide screen. That opening scene is really impressive. Everybody knows every song. Julie Andrews has always defined perkiness and energy and she carries it off magnificently. There is something missing somewhere. Despite all the great songs, the threat that was Naziism never quite comes through. They are there and they are the worst of the worst, but we never quite feel their power. Even the scene at the Abbey is a little hokey. Watching "Cabaret" which is certainly a totally different take, you see what these monsters could be. It is a musical with a little more depth, though not as mainstream. Still, how can you pass on the wonderful songs, the awesome production numbers, the visions of Austria, parading before us. It's a really good movie. I never quite got to the "great" part.