Release Year: 1965

Genre: Biography, Family, Musical

Director: Robert Wise

Writer: Ernest Lehman, Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse (stage musical book)

Stars: Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens,
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens,
Brown paper pack—

Stop. Just stop.

You had us at "raindrops on roses."

Before binge-watching was even a thing, before we were old enough to know much about nuns or nannies or Nazis, we couldn't stop watching The Sound of Music. We learned do-re-mi forward and backward. We climbed ev'ry mountain. We couldn't wait to be sixteen going on seventeen. We even learned to yodel.

For generations of American children, The Sound of Music was one of our favorite things.

Let's Start at the Very Beginning

Based on a true story and adapted from the long-running Broadway musical of the same name, The Sound of Music jumped off the screen and into America's hearts in 1965. A young girl named Maria (Julie Andrews, fresh off her Oscar-winning performance as Mary Poppins) is studying to be a nun at an abbey in Salzburg on the eve of the Nazi takeover of Austria. Maria's a little too exuberant for the lifestyle; she'd rather be frolicking in the hills, singing and blissing out.

The understanding and compassionate head of the abbey sees that Maria's about to make a seriously bad career choice and decides to send her out into the world to become the governess for the seven children of a widowed sea captain, Georg Von Trapp. Despite some initial hiccups in getting settled within the family, the kids—and their father—end up falling in love with her. We don't want to spoil anything, but suffice it to say… Maria never becomes a nun.

Haters Gonna Hate

For a movie that made its way into the hearts, souls, and ears of every American, it wasn't so beloved by critics. Bosley Crowther of the New York Times wrote that the film was "in peril of collapsing under its weight of romantic nonsense and sentiment," with terrible performances from everyone except Julie Andrews (source). He predicted that the film would totally ruin the musical movie genre.

We're gonna go ahead and say most people would disagree.

Next up? Iconic film critic Pauline Kael. Writing in McCall's magazine, she described the film as "the sugar-coated lie that people seem to want to eat. […] We have been turned into emotional and aesthetic imbeciles when we hear ourselves humming the sickly, goody-goody songs" (source). She predicted the film would be the "single most repressive influence on artistic freedom in movies" for years to come (source).

It continued, with other critics called the film something for the "five-to-seven set and all their mommies" and "Not only too sweet for words but almost too sweet for music" (source).

You get the picture.

Not all critics were haters, though, and anyway, the public and the Academy didn't seem to mind. The film was a box-office smash. In five weeks, it pulled in enough dough-re-mi to knock Gone with the Wind out of its long-held position of highest-grossing film of all time. It was in theaters for four-and-a-half years. It's still one of the highest earning films ever, more than blockbusters like Titanic or Avatar. The film scooped up five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, as well as a Best Actress nom for Julie Andrews. (She won a Golden Globe for her performance as Maria.)

Its biggest success? Over half a century later, The Sound of Music—despite its unlikely story line and sticky-sweet sentiments—still has a powerful hold on our imagination and affections.

Like edelweiss, this film will bloom and grow forever. How corny is that?

P.S. Pauline Kael? She got fired.

Musical movies can seem a bit, well… weird. People bursting into song and dance in the middle of the action. And where's that music coming from, anyway?

Here's what's even more unlikely: Would people really be dancing through the streets of Salzburg or bursting into song if the Nazis were about to take over their country?

Probably not.

But strangely, the whole juxtaposition of Nazism with uber-cheerful, lovey-dovey songs… it works. The Sound of Music's ability to balance a sense of unbridled joy with its serious backdrop of war and fear is a pretty impressive feat. The film doesn't only work—it endures. For its 50th anniversary, 20th Century Fox announced a theatrical release of a restored version in 500 theaters, a 5-disc collector's set, four books, and a national tours of the stage production in the U.S and U.K. There was even a SOM-themed cruise and a huge celebration in Salzburg (source).

That's right: Decades and decades later, it's still the best-loved movie musical around.

But… why?

For starters, The Sound of Music is about a real musical family's real story, based on the memoirs of Maria von Trapp. And what a story it is—romance, gorgeous scenery, cute kids, Nazis, good guys vs. bad guys, and a thrilling escape. Not that the actual history wasn't amped up for dramatic effect, but knowing it's based in fact lets us suspend disbelief during the less-believable scenes (like, uh, prancing around Salzburg singing "Do-Re-Mi").

Director Robert Wise also thought that the the timing of the movie, and its traditional values of family, hope, and courage, helped drive its success.

Newspapers carried headlines of the war in Vietnam, a cultural revolution was beginning to spread throughout the country, and people needed old-fashioned ideals to hold on to. The public was ready, possibly even eager, for a film like this. […] Besides an outstanding score and an excellent cast, it had a heartwarming story, good humor, someone to love and someone to hate, and seven adorable children. (Source)

And, oh yeah, there's the music.

That was totally not a fair fight. The film had the advantage of being adapted from a Tony Award-winning Best Musical by the most famous composing duo of all time. There are melodies you just can't get out of your head and lyrics that get to you in spite of yourself:

• "the hills are alive with the sound of music / with songs they have sung for a thousand years"
• "a dream that will need all the love you can give / every day of your life for as long as you live"
• "tea, a drink with jam and bread"

Okay, maybe not that last one.

But why trust us? Let's just go straight to the source and let Julie Andrews sum up why this film works so well:

I guess when you put all those ingredients—beautiful scenery and beautiful music and children and nuns and all of that—together, the only thing that was missing was Lassie, I guess. (Source)

The leading lady knew movie magic when she saw it.