The Sound of Music is a 1965 American musical drama film produced and directed by Robert Wise from a screenplay written by Ernest Lehman. It is based on the 1959 stage musical composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Lindsay and Crouse, itself based on the 1949 memoir The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria von Trapp. The film stars Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, with Richard Haydn, Peggy Wood, Charmian Carr, and Eleanor Parker. Set in Salzburg, Austria, it is a fictional retelling of Maria von Trapp's experiences as governess to seven children, her eventual marriage with their father Captain Georg von Trapp, and their escape during the Anschluss in 1938.
Filming took place from March to September 1964 in Los Angeles and Salzburg. The Sound of Music was released by 20th Century-Fox in the United States on March 2, 1965, at first as a limited roadshow theatrical release. It initially received mixed reviews from film critics. However, the film was a major commercial success, becoming the number-one box office film after four weeks, and the highest-grossing film of 1965. By November 1966, The Sound of Music had become the highest-grossing film in history, surpassing Gone with the Wind, and it held that distinction for five years. The film was popular throughout the world, breaking previous box-office records in 29 countries. The Sound of Music had an initial theatrical release that lasted four and a half years, and two successful re-releases. It sold 283 million admissions worldwide and earned a total worldwide gross of $286million.
The Sound of Music received five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. The film also received Golden Globe Awards for Best Motion Picture and Best Actress, the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement, and the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written American Musical. Since its original release, the film is widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. In 1998, the American Film Institute (AFI) listed The Sound of Music as the 55th greatest American film of all time, and the fourth-greatest film musical. In 2001, the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot
In 1938 in Salzburg, at the end of the Federal State of Austria regime, Maria is a free-spirited young Austrian woman studying to become a nun at Nonnberg Abbey. However, her youthful enthusiasm and lack of discipline cause some concern. Mother Abbess sends Maria to the villa of retired naval officer Captain Georg von Trapp to be the new governess to his seven children: Liesl, Friedrich, Louisa, Kurt, Brigitta, Marta, and Gretl. The Captain has been raising his children using strict military discipline following their mother's death, however they have scared away several governesses by playing tricks. Although the children misbehave at first, Maria responds with kindness and patience, and soon the children come to trust and respect her.
While the Captain is away in Vienna, Maria makes play clothes for the children out of drapes that are to be changed. She takes them around Salzburg and the mountains while teaching them how to sing. When the Captain returns to the villa with Baroness Elsa Schraeder, a wealthy socialite, and their mutual friend Max Detweiler, they are greeted by Maria and the children returning from a boat ride on the lake, which ends abruptly when their boat overturns. Displeased by his children's clothes and activities along with Maria's impassioned appeal that he get closer to his children, the Captain attempts to fire Maria. However, he hears singing from inside the house and is astonished to see his children singing for the Baroness. Filled with emotion, the Captain joins his children, singing for the first time in years. The Captain apologizes to Maria and asks her to stay.
Impressed by the children's singing, Max proposes that he enter them in the upcoming Salzburg Festival, but the Captain disapproves of letting his children sing in public. During a grand party at the villa, where guests in formal attire waltz in the ballroom, Maria and the children look on from the garden terrace. When the Captain notices Maria teaching Kurt the traditional Ländler folk dance, he steps in and partners Maria in a graceful performance, culminating in a close embrace. Confused about her feelings, Maria blushes and breaks away. Later, the Baroness, who noticed the Captain's attraction to Maria, hides her jealousy by indirectly convincing Maria that she must return to the abbey.
Mother Abbess learns that Maria has stayed in seclusion to avoid her growing romantic feelings for the Captain, so she encourages her to return to the villa to look for her purpose in life. When Maria returns to the villa, she learns about the Captain's engagement to the Baroness and agrees to stay until they find a replacement governess. However, the Baroness learns that the Captain's feelings for Maria have not changed, so she peacefully calls off the engagement and returns to Vienna while encouraging the Captain to express his feelings for Maria. After which, the two get married.
While the couple is on their honeymoon, Max enters the children into the Salzburg Festival against their father's wishes. Having learned that Austria has been annexed by the Third Reich, the couple return to their home, where the Captain receives a telegram, ordering him to report to the German Naval base at Bremerhaven to accept a commission in the Kriegsmarine. Strongly opposed to the Nazis and their ideology, the Captain tells his family they must leave Austria immediately.
That night, the Trapp family attempt to flee to Switzerland, but they are stopped by a group of Brownshirts, led by the Gauleiter Hans Zeller, waiting outside the villa. To cover his family's tracks, the Captain maintains they are headed to the Salzburg Festival to perform. Zeller insists on escorting them to the festival, after which his men will accompany the Captain to Bremerhaven.
Later that night at the festival, after their final number, the Trapp family slips away while Max stalls for them. The family seeks shelter at the abbey, where Mother Abbess hides them in the cemetery crypt. Zeller and his men soon arrive and search the abbey, but the family is able to escape using the caretaker's car. When Zeller's men attempt to pursue, they discover their cars will not start since two of the nuns have sabotaged their engines. The next morning—after driving to the Swiss border—the von Trapp family walks on foot across the frontier into Switzerland to safety and freedom.
Cast
The real Maria von Trapp has a brief uncredited cameo appearance in the film as a passer-by, alongside her daughter Rosmarie and the daughter of Werner von Trapp, during "I Have Confidence".
Background
The Sound of Music story is based on Maria von Trapp's memoir The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, published in 1949 to help promote her family's singing group following the death of her husband Georg in 1947. Hollywood producers expressed interest in purchasing the title only, but Maria refused, wanting her entire story to be told. In 1956, German producer Wolfgang Liebeneiner purchased the film rights for $9,000 (), hired George Hurdalek and Herbert Reinecker to write the screenplay, and Franz Grothe to supervise the soundtrack, which consisted of traditional Austrian folk songs. The Trapp Family was released in West Germany on October 9, 1956, and became a major success. Two years later, Liebeneiner directed a sequel, The Trapp Family in America, and the two pictures became the most successful films in West Germany during the post-war years. Their popularity extended throughout Europe and South America.
In 1956, Paramount Pictures purchased the United States film rights, intending to produce an English-language version with Audrey Hepburn as Maria. The studio eventually dropped its option, but one of its directors, Vincent J. Donehue, proposed the story as a stage musical for Mary Martin. Producers Richard Halliday and Leland Heyward secured the rights and hired playwrights Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, who had won the Pulitzer Prize for State of the Union. They approached Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II to compose one song for the musical, but the composers felt the two styles—traditional Austrian folk songs and their composition—would not work together. They offered to write a completely new score for the entire production if the producers were willing to wait while they completed work on Flower Drum Song. The producers quickly responded that they would wait as long as necessary. The Sound of Music stage musical opened on November 16, 1959, at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in New York City and ran on Broadway for 1,443 performances, winning six Tony Awards, including Best Musical. In June 1960, Twentieth Century-Fox purchased the film adaptation rights to the stage musical for $1.25 million against ten percent of the gross.
Production Screenplay and pre-production
In December 1962, 20th Century-Fox president Richard D. Zanuck hired Ernest Lehman to write the screenplay for the film adaptation of the stage musical. Lehman reviewed the original script for the stage musical, rearranged the sequence of songs, and began transforming a work designed for the stage into a film that could use the camera to emphasize action and mood and open the story up to the beautiful locations of Salzburg and the Austrian Alps. The "Do-Re-Mi" sequence in the play, for example, was originally a stagnant number; Lehman transformed it into a lively montage showing some of the beautiful sites of Salzburg, as well as showing Maria and the children growing closer over time. Lehman also eliminated two songs, "How Can Love Survive?" and "No Way to Stop It", sung by the characters of Elsa and Max. In January 1963, he saw the Fox English-dubbed version of the two German films. Not especially impressed, he decided to use the stage musical and Maria's memoir for most of his source material. While Lehman was developing the screenplay, he and Zanuck began looking for a director. Their first choice was Robert Wise, with whom Lehman had worked on the film adaptation of West Side Story, but Wise was busy preparing work for another film, The Sand Pebbles. Other directors were approached and turned down the offer, including Stanley Donen, Vincent J. Donehue, George Roy Hill, and Gene Kelly.
In January 1963, Lehman invited one of his favorite directors, William Wyler, to travel to New York City with him to see the Broadway musical. After seeing the show, Wyler said he hated it, but after two weeks of Lehman's persuasion, Wyler reluctantly agreed to direct and produce the film. After hiring musical supervisor Roger Edens, Wyler, Lehman, and Edens traveled to Salzburg to scout filming locations. In two weeks they managed to see approximately seventy-five locations—an experience that helped Lehman conceptualize several important sequences. During that trip, Lehman began to have reservations about Wyler's commitment to the project and communicated this to Zanuck, who instructed the writer to finalize the first draft of the screenplay as quickly as possible. Lehman completed the first draft on September 10, 1963, and sent it to Wyler, who had no suggestions or changes to add. At that time, Lehman also secretly gave a copy of the script to the agent of Robert Wise, whom Lehman still wanted as the director. Later that month, Wyler's agent approached Zanuck asking that production on the film be delayed so Wyler could direct The Collector. Zanuck told him to tell Wyler to make the other film, and that they would move ahead on schedule with another director, ending Wyler's participation.