"The Sound of Music" (1965; reviewed for 1990 revival)

Laugh if you like, but very few films can hold a candle to "The Sound of Music" when it comes to enduring popularity. A mammoth success upon its original release (it was the top-grossing film of 1965, 1966 and 1967!), it has retained a huge cult following. Unfortunately, there's a whole generation that has seen this Best Picture winner only on TV, where, in most cases, a full half-hour is trimmed; it was even reported a few years back that one money-hungry station owner managed to squeeze this three-hour picture comfortably into a two-hour slot... by cutting all the musical numbers!

"The Sound of Music" has become a symbol of different things to different people. To some, it is the finest in wholesome "family entertainment," the kind of film "they don't make anymore." To others, it's the epitome of Hollywood sentimentality, an unbearable wallow in syrup and sanctimony. Most have at least a grudging respect for it; many others will pretend to think nothing of it, yet never miss a showing. At any rate, the picture certainly has won enough fans worldwide to deserve the 25th anniversary reissue that Twentieth-Century Fox is giving it, and the beautiful new prints currently in circulation offer the opportunity to see every minute of "Music" in sumptuous Cinemascope and Dolby Surround.

Since my only viewing of the picture in a "theatrical" setting was at a drive-in years ago, I was anxious to see what I'd been missing over the years. Quite a bit, it turns out. TV and video completely diminish the impact of this extravaganza, destroying director Robert Wise's brilliant utilization of the Cinemascope frame and obscuring the stunning location scenery. The famous opening, with the camera swooping through the clouds, over the mountains and across a meadow to find Maria (Julie Andrews) singing, is breathtaking on a big screen, as is a later shot that cruises from the wedding bells of Captain Von Trapp (Christopher Plummer) and Maria over Salzburg and into a square where Nazis are on parade.

A cinema setting also makes it easy to understand why this film, along with "Mary Poppins" (1964), established Julie Andrews as a major international movie star. Her radiance and energy fills the screen in scene after scene. She's absolutely magnetic, maintaining a spunk level that makes contemporary spitfires like Holly Hunter and Sally Field look like slackers. In the first half of the film (there is an intermission, remember), she is prim but vivacious, until she falls for Von Trapp. From then on out, Wise gives her lots of soft-focus close-ups that make her look like she's made of peach sherbet. of course her singing is sterling, but one tends to forget how absolutely perfect her diction is, thanks perhaps to all that Broadway training. It helps too that the Rodgers and Hammerstein score is not only magnificent, but ridiculously catchy as well. The songs will reverberate in your head for weeks afterward.

The only depressing aspect of seeing "The Sound of Music" these days comes from realizing how Andrews would spend the next 20 years of her career either struggling through megaflop musicals ("Star!", "Darling Lili") or trying to escape her sweet, virginal image (her chest-baring in 1981's "S.O.B." is a strong contender for Cinematic Low Point of the 1980s).

Andrews is certainly the centerpiece of the film, but there's much more to admire, particularly in Wise's direction. Notice how many of the musical numbers are shot in long takes, requiring the actors to sustain a high energy level. There's no MTV-style flash-editing to cover up mistakes. Wise must also have been at least partially responsible for the movie's pacing, which is near-breathless from start to finish but never feels rushed. That's another quality that suffers on TV, where commercial intrusions break up the flow. If you've never been impressed by "The Sound of Music," give it a chance by seeing it where it was meant to be seen. If you've always loved it, this revival is heaven-sent.