The worst movie musical of all time!

Rating: 10/10 (5 April 2015)

I am an unabashed fan of the movie musical. I have all the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rodgers films; Three Penny Opera; Cabaret; anything by Rodgers & Hammerstein, Jerome Kern & Hammerstein. And yet this is by far the worst movie musical of all time.
We all like a happy ending, and this gives a happy ending to "The rape of Europe" by the Nazi maw. For six million, there was no happy ending; for each of those six million evil triumphed.
Never mind that there is nothing but the slimmest connection to the real incidents of the von Trapp family escape from Europe--in reality stroll across the border into Italy.
The Nazi maw ends up being a minuscule backdrop to the von Trapp saga; it is not really integral to the story line as it is in 'Cabaret.' So the songs are really love songs between Maria and the children and Maria and the Captain. And love songs, as insults, to the audience.
For all the adulation Rodgers & Hammerstein receive, there is something troubling about their saccharine songs oftentimes hiding a dark and portentous event. 'Carousal' about a new father being irresponsible and getting himself killed. And this musical pours on the saccharine and in that singularity, they produce a musical that trivializes the Nazi maw.
It's very catchy tunes seemingly mocking the audience in a fifth column kind of way--to sabotage our understanding, our grasp, of the horrors of the Nazi maw. Horrors hinted at by 1938 and realized as the war progressed. When we see the movie, we are more than educated in the implications of Nazism and what it did to Europe; none come to this movie uniformed; and yet the movie seems to mock the audience's knowledge with their songs.
And yet, I gave the move a ten, and would want others to see it--for precisely what it is. A love story, with soul stirring music, in defiance of the horrors of the Nazi maw.