The best ever musical about an Austrian folk singing nun

Rating: 8/10 (13 May 2003)

A spirited nun leaves her convent and becomes a governess in pre-war Austria. Here she teaches the six children about love, life and music against the growing threat of Nazism.
Your fingers hesitate on the keyboard before making comment on a film that is more a phenomena than a stretch of celluloid. This wasn't just a smash hit in the normal western markets - it also went huge everywhere and has stayed huge. The whole Indian film industry is descended from the template set down here.
While this was a well regarded stage musical, this wasn't seen as a natural box office smash (a musical based on the life of a nun!) and was probably thrown to Robert Wise (more an action - than a music - man) because he was known for being able to operate well on a budget (all those B pics!)
It was just as well, production was hellish: They had forgotten (didn't know?) how moody the European weather could be (even in Summer) and the genuine Austrian period folk songs didn't shine (new ones were quickly written); and beyond that many of the children had no real film acting experience.
The success of the film is nothing but a bag of paradoxes, the must striking being that is was old fashioned even when it was released. Beat based pop music was dominating the sales charts and the sixties were beginning to swing. Hem lines were going up hair lines were going down and James Bond had already introduced casual sex and violence to the screen.
This may have been made in 1965 - but it could easily have been made 20 years earlier and is the (off-screen) product of people that probably were coming to the end of their best creative period. Oscar and Hammerstein had already penned most of their famous musicals and must have been amazed that they struck their largest gold reserve so late in the day.
As Noel Coward once observed, the one thing that critics overlook is that the public are looking for simple minded entertainment, not messages or meaning. And this is both simple minded and entertaining (if you can live with heavy schmaltz). There are certainly no messages, unless you need to be told that love and music are good and Nazi take-overs are bad!
The songs don't so much act as light relief, but provide the film with a life support machine. As drama the whole thing can't get out of second gear - even the Nazi threat doesn't raise the drama level beyond village theatre. I also guess we are supposed to know what these people really represent from other sources?
Julie Andrews performance is massively underrated. Here is someone that has to sing, dance and act with children (sometimes all at the same time!) and yet makes it look easy, natural and spontaneous. When has, say, Robert De Niro ever done anything as technically difficult as this?
In many ways SOM is bullet proof (can you imagine Mel Brooks/Jerry Zucker doing a spoof?) family entertainment. A plot everyone can follow, charming children, excellent score, pretty scenery, perfect lead and a happy ending - if not for the rest of war torn Europe!
As a footnote. Twentieth Century Fox lost all the profits they made on this film on musical follow ups that included Hello Dolly, Star and Dr Dolittle - which makes clear that the whole thing was, indeed, just a giant happy accident and musicals were not what the audience secretly wanted all along.