Capsule Review: The Sound of Music (1965)

An enchanting - though front-loaded - musical filled with timeless music and beautiful photography, The Sound of Music has entered our collective pop culture so completely that - perhaps without even realizing it - you likely know a great deal of the music going in. Songs like "Do-Re-Mi", "My Favorite Things" and the title song anchor a tremendous collection of music by Rodgers and Hammerstein, though even tolerant audiences may start to grow weary as they repeat themselves towards the end of the 174 minute run time. An adaptation of the stage musical (which was in turn adapted from the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers), the film concerns the free spirited nun Maria (Julie Andrews) who is assigned as a governess to the precocious von Trapp children and their strict father Georg in 1930s Austria. While generally dealing with the eventual acceptance of Maria by the family (and the children's musical success), the last section concerns family fleeing the country after the annexation of Austria by the Third Reich. This adds a bit of life to the proceedings, though even at its worst the film holds a charm that is extremely difficult to resist.