(This comes from the 1965 Project, a project by Texas writer Robert Nagle to investigate the cultural riches to emerge from that year).
You might already know that the 1965 Sound of Music movie (and play) were based on the life of the real life Van Trapp family. But did you know that before the Sound of Music even reached Broadway, West Germany had already produced two German-language movies about the Von Trapps? The movie titles are Die Trapp-Familie (1956) and Die Trapp-Familie in Amerika (1958) and you can watch the full movies with English subtitles on YouTube. I have watched both movies, and they are excellent and delightful.1
- Here is the YouTube link for the full 1956The Trapp Family movie(96 minutes, with English subtitles).
- Here is the YouTube link for the full 1958 The Trapp Family in Amerika movie (99 minutes with English subtitles).
(Both movies are watchable and enjoyable. I prefer the 1958 sequel, which is more music-oriented and fun).
Sure, they are not as magically brilliant as the Sound of Music film–– but certainly worth a watch if you are a Sound of Music fan. Both German movies reveal different aspects of the Van Trapp Family and provide commentary about how Germany and United States viewed one another in the 1950s. The 1956 movie and the 1965 Sound of Music relate the Von Trapp story in completely different ways, but it’s clear that the 1965 version borrowed some visuals from the original 1956 movie.
Both the Sound of Music and the two German prequels embellished or rewrote biographical details from the actual Von Trapp family (although the German movies were slightly more accurate). Although the 1956 and 1958 movies were commercial projects directed by a veteran German director and included well known German actors like Ruth Leuwerik (W) and Hans Holt, their budgets were substantially smaller than the $8 million budget for the 1965 film.
Unlike Sound of Music, the 1956 movie is barely a musical. Yes, it has several scenes with music, and they are beautiful and tastefully done. But the songs in the 1956 movie aren’t original — one song is “Silent Night” and the other is Hallelulah by Domenico Scarlatti. In contrast, the 1958 movie has a lot more singing (impromptu and onstage). Although some of the musical numbers in the 1958 film come from the classical or liturgical repertoire (Palestrina, Bach, etc.), the family sings all kinds of folk songs — and even an American folk song (“O Susanna” or Stephen Foster’s “Old Black Joe”).
Unlike the elaborate choreography given for the songs in Sound of Music, the songs in the 1958 movie have no choreography or even movement. Instead the songs are performed at certain dramatic moments.
The movie reveals the paradoxical nature of immigrants and the cultural heritage they bring. Immigrants fall back on their own culture even if people in the new land might regard it as peculiar. This uniqueness of the immigrant’s perspective can be both a blessing and a curse in a society where you are a minority. It is hard for anyone in the arts to make a living, but it’s doubly hard when you don’t know the right people or understand the secrets of success or depend on persuading Americans to enjoy a style of music they are not used to.
This is a rags-to-riches tale and if there’s any consolation from it, it’s that it was based on the success story of a real life family — with 10 kids! Unlike the Sound of Music — which is perpetually upbeat and fun and didn’t really worry about economics — the Trapp Family in America movie presents the hurdles and perils of trying to raise a family through music in a place you only recently came to know. The family eventually succeeds through a combination of skill and talent and luck, but it’s clear at several points in the movie that the performing family could have just as easily failed.
Unlike the Sound of Music, the role of Maria in both German films is not as central to the story. In the Sound of Music, all the songs center around Maria; either she is singing a solo, or people are singing about her, or she is leading a chorus or she is joining another singer or providing the spark for a performance. Both the Maria character and Julie Andrews (who plays her in the Sound of Music) are musically extraordinary, but in the German movie Maria’s musical interests are just one component of Maria’s personality. True, Maria plays the harpsichord, but the kids play the violin, recorder, cello and drums. Later in the movie, a priest, Dr. Wasner, leads the children and teaches them to play Scarlatti, Bach and even Palestrina.
In the 1956Von Trapp Family movie, the house is already populated with all kinds of servants. And the governess is more of a babysitter who likes to play with the kids more than educate them. Maria doesn’t actually teach them anything. If anything, she wants to challenge the Baron’s methods of dealing with her children (and presumably to keep them at home rather than send them off to a boarding school).
The struggle in the 1956 movie is the same (Maria’s love for the children vs. her fear that the Captain is falling in love with her). Yet the story introduces all sorts of sober adult realities. Strikingly, the Captain’s banker friend loses a lot of money and inadvertently persuades the Captain to move his investments from England to Austrian banks for patriotic reasons (this actually happened). Then, when his friend’s bank fails and the banker friend commits suicide, the Captain loses all his savings and can no longer support his large family. At Maria’s encouragement, they decide to convert the estate to a hotel and earn money from guests. This works for a while, but after the Anschluss and the arrival of the Nazis, there is pressure on the Captain to publicly show his support. He and the family escape by claiming they are going on tour to America.
The movie ends with them stuck at the immigration office in NYC. Despite being offered an American tour by a music manager, Maria messes up on the immigration interview by saying somewhat disingenuously that she’d like to stay in USA forever. Because of these difficulties, the manager cancels the tour, but the movie still ends on a happy note. I don’t think I’m giving away any spoilers to say that their music talent ultimately saves them.
The movie was so successful in West Germany that they made a sequel about their adventures in USA. This movie was fun and yet grim in its own way. Sure, they had gotten past immigration, but it was unclear whether they could make a living with their concerts and find a way to live in the USA for good. Two things are clear. The movie is no longer about the married couple but about the children. Because the second film has more musical performances, it’s more satisfying than the first film even though half the picture is whether they can earn enough to put food on the table. Led by Dr. Wasner, the kids learn to play Bach and Palestrina, pieces unlikely to stir the hearts of Americans in rural areas.
Commenters have said that the second film is not as interesting or entertaining as the first. I totally disagree. It is basically a long road movie with lots of musical breaks, odd encounters with strangers and comedy provided by linguistic confusion. Despite the fact that the movie takes place entirely in the USA, English is barely spoken; and when it is used, it calls attention to the fact that the family and actors are fish out of water. Some of the scenes take place in a cramped New York City apartment while the father tries to figure out what to do to earn money.
From the start it’s uncertain whether the family can make a living by doing concerts– and whether their music and appearances are out of step with American tastes. Because they are unknown in USA, their manager tells them that they need to raise a few thousand dollars for publicity photos. Instead of refusing, the family goes off in search of a wealthy benefactor. (How they manage to find one is funny and even a little cynical — no spoilers!) The family’s singing is really extraordinary, and yet they are not exactly a roaring success. One can imagine how American audiences might have trouble appreciating the peculiar style of their singing — combining folk and children’s song with classical and liturgical music. Maybe American audiences (and that includes audiences for this movie) couldn’t appreciate this musical style, but I’m guessing that it was well-suited for German audiences of the 1950s.
Both movies are lovely and full of fun. The actress who plays Maria (Ruth Leuwerik) was every bit as feisty and charming and tender as Julie Andrews…. and a good singer too (even though it’s Dr. Wasner the priest who led the choir in the movies — and in real life). They shot the 1958 movie in USA and there are lots of outdoor scenes of New York City and country roads. The Van Trapp family may have their giant-sized musical talents and self-confidence, but in the movie they travel around the country in a little van driven by a sympathetic German-speaking chauffeur. War-weary Austriansmight have found overwhelming the wealth and expansiveness of Americans, and the little van of naive Von Trapps traveling around the country reflects that sense that American is too big a place for them to succeed. Yet eventually they find a place in Vermont they could call home. Near the end there are two wonderful moments — the first, when Maria says that they should go home (and realizes that it was the first time she actually had a home in USA to go to). Also, in the very final moments at the end of a performance, there is a close up on Maria’s face where she smiles and says “Auf wiedersehn. ” Unlike the Sound of Music (which offers drama and adventure and fun), the two German movies offer to viewers a hopeful message that even in the vast expanse of America, an Austrian immigrant family can stay connected to their homeland and its culture.
Visual Similarities
Knowing about the 1956 and 1958 increased my appreciation for the 1965 movie and Rogers and Hammerstein’s great music.
I won’t say that Sound of Music ripped off the 1956 movie, but they reused some of the 1956 movie’s memorable scenes. We see a tardy Maria running through the cloisters to make a meeting and her sympathetic lecture by the Mother Superior (without the musical accompaniment). We see the Baron using a whistle to summon his children — who come marching down the stairs. (As daughter Agathe von Trappe (W) wrote in her memoir, using the whistle was a practical necessity when living in such a big house. Her father would blow a different note depending on which child he wanted to come). As in the Sound of Music, the Maria character in the 1956 movie sings a song to the children in her bedroom to distribute the children from the thunderstorm:
We see Maria having distinctive clothes made for all the children and we see the angry father overhearing his children singing a song under Maria’s direction.
There is also a scene where the children perform a little play (Not puppets with music, but a fairy tale behind a big sheet). There is a scene where a woman (in this case a princess) confronts Maria about her feelings for the Baron. In the 1965 movie, Maria leaves in a rush while the children feel abandoned. The 1956 movie handles it in a totally different way — not as dramatic, but just as satisfying. There’s a formal wedding scene at the church attended by all the nuns, and there’s also a Salzburg music competition which they win. In the 1956 movie, one of the boys entered the family in the competition without telling their parents, and the family ends up performing (to the dismay of the Baron).
It’s unfair to compare the two German movies with the 1965 Sound of Music (which had songs written specifically for it and was carefully choreographed). In the German movies, the singing voices for the Von Trapp children were sung by the Rudolf Lamy Kinderchor and the Regensburg Cathedral Sparrows, a famous children’s choir. Rudolph Lamy directed all the music, and the Franz Grothe (W) musical score had distinctly American motifs and had parts which could have conceivably come from George Gershwin.
All three movies had a musical sensibility and high quality singers (which were pre-recorded separately). What made the Sound of Music so rousing is the orchestral accompaniment for the songs and the lush interludes between scenes (which often include motifs from previously sung songs). Just watch and listen to the immortal Do-Re-Mi scene (below). It’s a glorious and exciting number — look at them singing while riding bicycles! look at them singing while racing through the walkway and marching around the Mirabellgarten fountain!
In contrast, there is absolutely no invisible orchestra accompanying the songs in the German movies. If instruments are played, they appear onscreen (with the children playing the recorder or Maria playing the guitar). The only exception comes at the very end of the 1958 movie — after the family has finished their song, a slow subtle melody plays , Maria looks at the camera and says, “Auf Wiedersehen.”
Agathe von Trapp’s Memoir
Agathe von Trapp (1913-2010), the oldest daughter of the Von Trapp family published a 2003 memoir (Memories Before and After the Sound of Music: An Autobiography) about growing up in the Von Trapp family. The memoir is revealing in many ways — not merely because of the differences between the movie versions and the family’s actual life story.
The differences between the movies and real life were pretty dramatic. First, Agathe details the early years of her parents’ marriage and what her mother Agathe Whitehead was like. Her biological mother came from a wealthy family and had seven children with Georg von Trapp. But she died at 31 of scarlet fever when it affected all her children in 1922. While the father served heroically for the Austro–Hungarian Navy during WW1, the mother took the young children to live with her mother (Grammy) and closely supervised her children’s education. In fact, because schools were only in the cities, the mother had to rely on various nannies and governesses to aid in her children’s education. By the time Maria came around, the Von Trapp children had already were accustomed to having governesses and nannies.
Despite the family’s wealth, they experienced hard times at several points. Immediately after WW1, Austria was devastated. Food and commodities were hard to find and expensive, and people in towns traveled on weekends to relatives on farms to get vegetables, meat and fruit. Unemployment was rampant, and ex-soldiers often begged from door to door. Later in the early 1930s, the Baron lost all his savings during the bank failures, and so the family dismissed most of the servants and converted parts of the house into a hotel.
The real Maria Von Trapp (whose real name was Gustl Kutchera) had entered the Nonnberg Abbey in 1924 (when she was 21) and in 1926, she was asked to teach 11 year old Maria of the Von Trapp family (who had heart murmurs from scarlet fever and could not make the 45 minute walk to and from school). The oldest daughter described the first meeting:
Gustl–Maria Augusta Kutschera was her full name–wore a dark blue summer dress with an unusual neckline, and a leather hat. In one hand, she held a briefcase, and in the other hand, a guitar. We greeted her politely, without great enthusiasm, because she would only be the teacher of our sister Maria.
Eventually she helped raise the rest of the children and got to know the family very well. The Baron asked her to marry him. Maria was torn because she loved his children but still wanted to be a nun. After talking it over with her Mother Superior, she agreed to marry him and have three additional children with him.
On one occasion Maria invited a youth group to sing folk songs at the hotel, and the family enjoyed their music so much that they obtained some song booklets and learned the songs. A priest who stayed at the hotel did a few masses there and asked the Von Trapp family to sing Gregorian chant and other sacred music. Eventually Father Wasner, a younger priest with a deep understanding of music, taught them about music from previous centuries and located songs old and new for the family to sing. Some of the kids played the recorder, and someone learned how to play the viola da gamba.
After a noted opera singer (Lotte Lehmann) encouraged them to sing in a yodeling competition in Salzburg, the family entered and won first price. That led to being invited to sing half an hour on a radio program which Austria’s chancellor regularly listened to. They were invited to sing at a formal reception and also at various concerts in Vienna and became very well known. That resulted in bookings in Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway in 1937. One concert promoter offered them a 15 concert tour of America between 1938-1939.
Ironically, the Von Trapp family had Italian citizenship; they were citizens of the Austrian city of Trieste, and after WW1, everyone lost their Austrian citizenship. The Baron had looked into the possibility of repatriating to Austria, but doing so for the entire family was very expensive, and the family could not afford it (that was right after the Baron had lost all his savings). After the 1938 Anschluss, they heard reports of people being removed from their homes and Jewish people being deported or imprisoned. Anyone who had Jewish ancestry was potentially at risk. After their butler warned them that the Italian border would soon be closed, they quickly decided to leave so they could go on tour performing in America and other countries.
The rest of the memoir describes what it was like to tour on America by bus along with nice hand-drawn illustrations by Agathe herself about her adventures on tour. She describes their amusement at encountering various aspects of America: mailboxes along the road, giant cacti, Burma Shave road signs, a giant milk bottle and “Jesus Saves” billboards. Their first concert featured Telemann, Handel, Mozart and Praetorious. But when Maria became pregnant during the tour, the concert promoter ended the tour prematurely, leaving them without money or a place to stay while she had the baby.(Fortunately, a professor was able to arrange housing for three months in Philadelphia.) Two months later, in March, 1939, their U.S. visas had expired, so they left for a European concert tour in Denmark, Holland and eventually to Italy (where they relaxed for a while). Then, off to Sweden where they learned about Hitler’s blitzkrieg into Poland. That caused several concerts to be canceled, and after one last concert in Norway, they returned to U.S.A.
They continued performing and finding friends and fans who could obtain short-term housing in between concert tours. Eventually a U.S. promoter arranged for another tour and persuaded them to adopt a program of “lighter, happier music” for their concerts. Led by Father Wasner, they found more folk songs and did arrangements of American folk songs like “Home on the Range” and “Oh, Susanna.” Agathe von Trapp’s 2003 memoir describes their adventures on the road and their international travels, the games they played, the sites they visited. Two Von Trapp sons served as U.S. soldiers during WW2. In 1946, the Van Trapps received an appeal from the American Occupation Army in Salzbug, which asked for help for Austrian families devastated by the war. Maria Von Trapp started asking for donations at the end of every concert, and they received an outpouring of American generosity (which eventually was delivered to Austrian families by Catholic charities). Through that campaign, the family heard from many individuals about the hardships that Austrians had to endure after the war. Three years later in 1950, the family visited Salzburg and noticed all the changes. They were greeted by friends and the archbishop and stayed for a few days in their former house (which Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler had taken over and made his private residence after they had left). The Von Trapps arranged for the house to be sold to a missionary group and toured around Europe (and even performed for the pope).
The memoir’s last chapter summarizes Agathe mixed feelings about the play and movie. First, she is indignant that the mother sold the rights to their life story for a mere $9000 when the play and movie made millions. (To mitigate that, the American producers of the play ensured that the family received a small percentage of the play’s royalties). Second, she and other family members lamented the way the story distorted their family’s actual story. No, Agathe never had a boyfriend who turned out to be a Nazi. No, they did not escape dramatically after the music festival. (In fact, they just planned a tour which required traveling to Italy with the intent of never coming back). More importantly, she objected to some of the characterizations:
When I saw the musical for the first time, I cried. Others in my family were equally upset. The man on the stage in the naval uniform was not Papa. The play and later the movie, as beautiful as they were, misrepresented our life at home with our father. He was not some naval officer with a distant look and a boatswain’s whistle in his mouth, ready to order us children coldly about. In reality he was a dedicated father saw to our well-being in every way. Among other things, he took us on picnics and camping trips, arranged schooling and music lessons, taught us some of the musical instruments, and made music with us. In fact while The Sound of Music shows our second mother teaching us the basics of music, thanks to our father we already had a repertoire by the time Gustl (Maria) arrived in our home.
Over time though, Agathe’s anger about the movie dissipated. She concludes the chapter:
Millions of dollars did not flow into the pockets of the Trapp family from The Sound of Music, but we have benefitted greatly in other ways. As time went on, something happened that reconciled me with my “enemy,” the play. The shift in my feelings actually came from those who saw The Sound of Music, loved it, and connected it with our name and family. Little by little, I met people on many occasions who recognized me by my last name and connected me with the musical. Their faces lit up, and I felt a wave of friendliness coming toward me.
…
After meeting so many people over the years who told me how they had derived such great enjoyment and inspiration from the musical and the movie, I finally came to terms with theSound of Music. I thought, Who am I, then to criticize this movie? After a long inner struggle, I finally learned to separate the memories of my life from the screenplay. I began to see that while all the details may not be correct, the creators of The Sound of Music were true to the spirit of our family’s story. That freed me from my resentment and made it possible for me to enjoy the play, the movie, and the music as others have. I have even learned to sing and play “Edelweiss”!
Appreciating the Movie as a Fan
Here are some things that struck me when I recently watched The Sound of Music:
That Wacky Ending. The movie ends with one nun confessing to another that “I have sinned” to another nun while holding some distributor caps removed to disable the cars of the Nazis. Let us appreciate how absurd and abrupt this ending is — and possibly out of character for nuns. But also funny too, quickly seguing to a musical interlude with the family trekking through the Alps (and presumably to safety). Leaving aside the poetic liberties taken here, it ties up plot loose ends without having to explain too much. It brought the story back to the nuns and the mountains. This ending somehow worked because it reprised the movie’s opening with the abbey and the mountains.
Song Repetitions. Almost all the songs are repeated several times in different situations –sometimes as part of the musical score and sometimes as a kind of sentimental leitmotif. The movie opens with Julie Andrews’ singing “The Sound of Music” in grand fashion, but later it appears in the background which the Captain hears — not realizing his own children are the ones singing it. (The song appears again in Act 2 — in an even sadder version as the kids are mourning Maria’s departure.)
Julie Andrews sings “My Favorite Things” with the children during the thunderstorm. Later, after Maria left the family, the bored children try to capture the joyful magic of the song by singing it again. Instead, it sounds almost sorrowful, making it all the more poignant when the returning Maria brings her voice to the children’s singing and renewing their enthusiasm and joy.
The delightful “Maria” song later is replayed triumphantly during the wedding ceremony. Both Edelweiss and the Goodbye Song were sung again during the music festival. Do-Re-Mi is kind of repeated — or rather it comes in two parts, presumably during different times. Finally, the inspirational song “Climb Every Mountain” first sung by the Mother Abbess later is played by the orchestra as the family treks through the mountains at the end.
Lyrics to the “Maria” Song. This song by the nuns has always been my favorite. Leave aside that the nuns have individual personalities or include the extraordinary singer Marni Nixon2, the lyrics are presented in conversational style, like a friendly and entertaining argument. Those Hammerstein lyrics are just marvelous:
Sister Margaretta: How do you find a word that means Maria?
Sister Berthe: A flibbertigibbet!
Sister Sophia: A will-o’-the-wisp!
Sister Margaretta: A clown!…
Many a thing you know you’d like to tell her
Many a thing she ought to understand
But how do you make her stay
And listen to all you say?
How do you keep a wave upon the sand?
Minor Moments. Most people remember the overall story of the movie, but the movie has so many charming minor moments (even if it’s only a gesture or visual gag or a facial expression). Here’s a nice compilation.
Keeping Sentimentality in Check: The Challenge
I admire the tightness of the script and dialogue and how certain plot elements (the love triangle, the Nazis, the religious angles, the father’s distance from his kids) never dominate the overall story.
After screenwriter Ernest Lehman first recognized the cinematic possibilities of the Broadway play, he saw that the main challenge of adapting it to film would be keeping the lid on the sentimentality as much as possible. Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer both felt the same way. Plummer thought that the characters in the play were very “cardboard” and the film needed to present the character’s emotional complexities with sophistication. The adult actors mostly gave restrained performances while the children expressed glee and sadness directly. This is true even in the songs. When the Mother Abbess starts her “Climb Every Mountain” song, her back is completely to the audience and she is often singing in the shadows while the Maria character looks on. When the father joins his children for the first time in singing the Sound of Music song, the father keeps his composure but the children are practically in tears.
Both the Captain and the Baroness character experience a wide range of emotions throughout the movie. The Captain shows his anger at several key moments, not through yelling but curtness. Christopher Plummer underplays so many scenes, especially when he apologizes to Maria and asks her to stay. After Maria returns from the abbey and explains to the Captain that she won’t be staying, you see the depth of his quiet disappointment.
All the secondary characters give masterful performances — Richard Haydn as concert promoter Max Detweiler is a laugh riot–but the next time you watch the movie, pay special attention to Eleanor Parker (W, Obit) who plays the baroness. As the foil to the Maria character, it is a challenging role to play, and she plays it beautifully. 3
In so many scenes, the viewer sees Eleanor’s gaze, and how she notices the blossoming connection between Maria and the Captain (even before they seem to). The montages which show the various gazes and who is looking at whom make it clear that Eleanor is perceiving everything and feels powerless to stop it. In a key scene, where the Baroness helps Maria to change clothes at the party, she tells Maria, “Come on, now. We are all women. Let us not pretend we don’t know when a man notices us.” When the baroness tells Maria that she seems to be in love with the Captain and that he seems to be falling in love with her too, Maria becomes flustered and decides to leave. The baroness smiles coolly and enigmatically, aware that she could perhaps speak up and prevent Maria from acting so rashly. And yet, the baroness says nothing and just lets Maria — her main romantic competition–leave in a rush. It is a sad, poignant scene. Of course it is bad for Maria to leave, but the baroness is not trying to ruin anyone’s fate; she is merely pointing out what she perceives to be the reality and letting Maria decide what to do next. (The script is absolutely marvelous here).
Later, upon Maria’s return, as the Baroness realizes that her new role as stepmother doesn’t come naturally to her and that the Captain is undeniably still in love with Maria, she invents a ruse to maintain her dignity while leaving the Captain free to pursue the person he truly loves. The baroness can pretend for only so long that her feelings for the Captain are being reciprocated. If Maria had never come around, would they still have broken up? Probably, but who knows.
Later, after Maria and the Captain return from their honeymoon, Liesl asks “What do you do when you think you love someone — I mean, when you stop loving someone–I mean, when he stops loving you?” Maria replies, “You cry a little and wait for the sun to come out. It always does.” They reprise the song “16 going on 17,” but this time it is Maria herself who sings to her daughter: “A bell is no bell till you ring it, a song is no song till you sing it, and love in your heart wasn’t put there to stay. Love isn’t love till you give it away.”4
The Making of the Movie
Laurence Maslon has written the definitive guide to the movie titled Sound of Music Companion (Fireside: 2007). It’s a large coffee table book full of photographs, so definitely buy this instead of the ebook version. The great news is that the Rogers and Hammerstein website features several generous excerpts from the book, including the machinations to get the Von Trapp’s life story made into a Broadway play and how the director adapted the stage play to film. Here’s some lovely rarely seen photos from the movie set.
After Maria Von Trapp disbanded the Trapp Family Singers in 1955, she, Father Wasner and three of her children did missionary work in New Guinea in the South Pacific. After actress Mary Martin (W) and her manager husband Richard Halliday saw a screening of the two German films, they sent letters to the missions trying to secure the rights to turn their life story into a play. For a while Maria Von Trapp ignored these solicitations, but Halliday tracked them down in San Francisco and invited them to see Martin perform onstage. Maria Von Trapp confessed to them that she had already sold the movie rights to the German movie producers for a paltry $9000. Eventually after several trips to Germany, the drama company secured the rights and commissioned Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse to write the script and Rogers and Hammerstein to provide original songs. To the credit of the Broadway production company, the Von Trapp family received a small percent of the earnings.
Reflections about the Movie by Cast Members
Because of its world popularity, the movie has been released and re-released and re-re-released at every major anniversary. Each new release features additional footage and documentaries. Some of these have already appeared on YouTube. The Blu Ray comes with two audio commentaries — one by Robert Wise — and the other by Julie Andrews, other cast members, crew and Von Trapp family members.
The Sound of Music: From Fact to Phenomenon is a 1994 Documentary about the Movie (accompanying the 1994 DVD) contains 80 minutes of interviews with everybody, including some Von Trapps, the director, actors, choreographers, associate producer and other people. Wow! (on YouTube)
In 2005 Oprah Winfrey arranged a grand reunion of all the stars from the movie. The full show 50 minute show is currently on DailyMotion. (There are also clips but not the full show on YouTube). It’s terrific.
Perhaps the most amusing and insightful was a 2005 conversation between Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer (on YouTube).My Favorite Things: Julie Andrews Remembers (59 minutes, 2005) is another documentary for the 2005 release. (on YouTube) For the 50th anniversary in 2015 she does another documentary, Julie Andrews returns to Salzburg (on YouTube)
Here’s a 60 year anniversary cast reunion (on YouTube)
It’s sort of cheesy and throwaway, but I loved this 13 minute promotional video (“Salzburg Sight and Sound” — see below) about Salzburg — as told from the perspective of Charmian Carr — who played 16-going-on-17 Liesl. It was made in 1964 when the movie was being filmed and captures what Salzburg was like in 1964. (Not mentioned here but found elsewhere is the very amusing revelation that the 21 year old Charmain Carr spent many an evening drinking champagne and schnapps and wine with Christopher Plummer as he played songs on the hotel’s piano).
Parodies and Homages
In 1962, before even cast for the movie, Julie Andrews did a comic parody of the play with Carol Burnett called the Pratt Family Singers (YT). What makes it doubly hilarious is that Andrews had no idea she would be considered to play the lead role in the movie two years later.
The sitcom Will & Grace devoted an entire episode to a Sound of Music Sing Along, and here’s a fun clip (YT).
Comedienne/singer Riki Lindhome does a very irreverent and delightful musical takedown of Maria and the Captain from the perspective of the jilted Baroness Schraeder. (YT)
SNL has done lots of TSOM Parodies: New Governess (YT) (“La — The Start of ‘Queen Latifa’”), Rolf and Liesl (YT) (“I’m old enough, but it’s still kind of dicey…”)
My Odd Favorite Sings by Studio C (YouTube)
Ariana Grande does a contemporary take on Favorite Things (7 Rings, YT)
Notes
- It is curious that neither German movie is streamable on any of the major streaming services. You can find imported DVDs of the German movies, but they don’t seem to be compatible with US media players. Perhaps when 20th century Fox secured the rights to make the movie, it somehow restricted the distribution of them outside of German-speaking countries. ↩︎
- There is a video (YT) of Nixon singing a medley of the movie’s songs as a guide for the voice talent who would be dubbing the movie in different languages. ↩︎
Movie critic Michael Barrett recommends other masterful performances from Eleanor Parker, three of which earned her Oscar nominations. PRIDE OF THE MARINES, a beautiful film written & directed by Delmer Daves for John Garfield. It’s not what you’d assume from the title. CAGED is probably the first serious “women in prison” movie, and a good showcase for her. She usually was stuck playing “the wife” or “girlfriend”, as in her nothing-much role in DETECTIVE STORY. She gets to play a dual role in WOMAN IN WHITE and sink her teeth in madness in LIZZIE, from Shirley Jackson novel, not that it’s especially great. INTERRUPTED MELODY earned her another Oscar nomination (and has plenty of music, but not sung by her). HOME FROM THE HILL is a Vincent Minnelli neurotic melodrama based on a Texas novel by Texas author William Humphrey.
↩︎- Lyrics to Sixteen going on Seventeen (Reprise). (Source) By Oscar Hammerstein ↩︎
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