“You brought music back into the house. I had forgotten.”

‘The Sound of Music’, directed by Robert Wise in 1965, is an American musical drama starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. Andrews plays Maria, a novice nun in Austria. Maria is a free-spirited and, at times, disobedient, so her superiors decide she should spend time away from the convent in the real world. They send her to become a governess to the seven children of a retired naval officer called Captain Georg von Trapp, played by Plummer. von Trapp is a severe, repressed martinet, but Maria’s influence on the children and her esprit de corps finally win him over and he falls for her. But when Hitler comes to power, and von Trapp is resistant to the dictator’s ideas, the family are threatened. Beyond the undoubtedly catchy songs (although their cultural pervasiveness have made them familiar to the point of banal), the real star of this film is the location work. The movie begins and ends with a fetishistic series of aerial shots over the Alpine mountains, the opening notable for its sudden focus on Maria as she dances on a pasture. Plummer is excellent as the dour naval officer, although you get the feeling that the actor’s performance was partially due to his reluctance towards being in such a frivolous movie. ‘Cabaret’ said more about the rise of the Nazis and said it more concisely, and, arguably, had better tunes, but Wise’s movie is about spectacle and romance instead of the ironic detachment of Bob Fosse’s approach.

Would I recommend it? I appear to be the only person in the country who hadn’t seen it so a recommendation seems pointless. I’d suggest watching it in a double bill with ‘Cabaret’ though.