The Sound of Music (1965)
Directed by Robert Wise
In the years before World War II, a tomboyish postulant at an Austrian abbey is hired as a governess in the home of a widowed naval captain with seven children and brings a new love of life and music into the home.
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10 films that influenced The Sound of Music
What critics say influenced The Sound of Music
With its bestial love intrigue, the Goatherd set-piece recalls State Fair, never a good thing, while yodeling--especially children yodeling, it's well documented--is covered under the Geneva Convention.
The Sound of Music was based on a 1959 Broadway production by composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, whose stagework had already been adapted by Hollywood numerous times, including Oklahoma!
Though Fred Zinnemann lamented late into his life the decision to direct Oklahoma!, the real compromise in this arena would appear to be Val Lewton-tutored Robert Wise following his astonishingly edgy musical adaptation of West Side Story (1961) with the legendarily squishy The Sound of Music a mere four years later.
When it was released in 1965, it was a smash success, a true cinematic phenomenon that people paid to see again and again; it played almost continuously in theaters until 1969, ultimately placing just behind Gone With the Wind (1939) and Star Wars (1977) in terms of lifetime ticket sales.
The Restoration details how the film—not unlike The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind—was scanned at 8K and mastered at 4K. Included are "Restoring a Classic: Bloom and Grow Forever" (5:44, HD) and "Restoring a Classic: A Glorious Sound" (5:32, HD).
It was the film of 1965: dominating the box office everywhere but Europe (where its depiction of Nazis in the context of a thorough re-writing of actual history kept it out of theaters), winning the Best Picture Oscar and four others, and prior to the end of its release, coming close to setting a record for the most tickets sold for a single movie (it came in second to Gone with the Wind ), and saving 20th Century Fox from near-collapse following the disaster of Cleopatra .
That it is sentimental can hardly be disputed, and the songs are undoubtedly a bit sweet and gooey, but whatever, it works as cinema: much, much better than the stiff and soulless like of My Fair Lady , and considerably better than any of the other films based on Rodgers & Hammerstein's earlier (and mostly superior) shows, ranging from the grimly average ( Carousel ) to the grotesquely unacceptable ( South Pacific ) - I understand that there are those who admire the 1956 movie of The King and I , and good for them.
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Lehman had already written a romance where a girl of low station falls in love with a man higher up on the social ladder ("Sabrina," 1954), and he had two musicals under his belt: "The King and I" (1956) and "West Side Story" (1961).
With the help of Ernest Lehman (the pen behind such classic film stories as The King and I, the aforementioned West Side Story, Hello, Dolly!, Sabrina, North by Northwest and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), Wise crafts a joyous celebration of life.
Wilder couldn't help fiddling with the script and brought in Lehman ("The King and I," "North By Northwest," "West Side Story," "The Sound of Music") to help touch it up.
That it is sentimental can hardly be disputed, and the songs are undoubtedly a bit sweet and gooey, but whatever, it works as cinema: much, much better than the stiff and soulless like of My Fair Lady , and considerably better than any of the other films based on Rodgers & Hammerstein's earlier (and mostly superior) shows, ranging from the grimly average ( Carousel ) to the grotesquely unacceptable ( South Pacific ) - I understand that there are those who admire the 1956 movie of The King and I , and good for them.
Lehman had already written a romance where a girl of low station falls in love with a man higher up on the social ladder ("Sabrina," 1954), and he had two musicals under his belt: "The King and I" (1956) and "West Side Story" (1961).
From fact to film, the story had to be laid down in a book by Maria von Trapp , then adapted as the 1956 German film "Die Trapp Familie", which inspired famed composers Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II to create a Broadway musical out if, which was then the base for the movie, which was written by Ernest Lehman and directed by Robert Wise, who'd previously worked together on "West Side Story".
The next year Ms. Andrews was making "Mary Poppins," and when director Robert Wise ("The Day the Earth Stood Still," "West Side Story") and screenwriter Ernest Lehman ("The King and I," "West Side Story") saw her in the rushes, they knew they had their lead actress for "The Sound of Music."
The screenplay was written by Ernest Lehman, who already had experience adapting musicals with The King and I (1956) and West Side Story (1961), the latter of which had also been directed by Robert Wise.
In keeping with the scene-setting opening of his film adaptation of West Side Story, Wise kicks off The Sound of Music with stunning natural scenery via the most famous helicopter shot in movies.
Robert Wise, who with Jerome Robbins, created the film version of West Side Story has created an indelible classic.
The studio that made it, 20th Century Fox, was in dire straits at the time of its release, having just gambled and lost tens of millions of dollars on the indulgent epic Cleopatra (1963).
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The Restoration details how the film—not unlike The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind—was scanned at 8K and mastered at 4K. Included are "Restoring a Classic: Bloom and Grow Forever" (5:44, HD) and "Restoring a Classic: A Glorious Sound" (5:32, HD).
That it is sentimental can hardly be disputed, and the songs are undoubtedly a bit sweet and gooey, but whatever, it works as cinema: much, much better than the stiff and soulless like of My Fair Lady , and considerably better than any of the other films based on Rodgers & Hammerstein's earlier (and mostly superior) shows, ranging from the grimly average ( Carousel ) to the grotesquely unacceptable ( South Pacific ) - I understand that there are those who admire the 1956 movie of The King and I , and good for them.
With the help of Ernest Lehman (the pen behind such classic film stories as The King and I, the aforementioned West Side Story, Hello, Dolly!, Sabrina, North by Northwest and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), Wise crafts a joyous celebration of life.
The screenplay was written by Ernest Lehman, who already had experience adapting musicals with The King and I (1956) and West Side Story (1961), the latter of which had also been directed by Robert Wise.
The next year Ms. Andrews was making "Mary Poppins," and when director Robert Wise ("The Day the Earth Stood Still," "West Side Story") and screenwriter Ernest Lehman ("The King and I," "West Side Story") saw her in the rushes, they knew they had their lead actress for "The Sound of Music."
Lehman had already written a romance where a girl of low station falls in love with a man higher up on the social ladder ("Sabrina," 1954), and he had two musicals under his belt: "The King and I" (1956) and "West Side Story" (1961).