# Is the Sound of Music supposed to be a good movie? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 20, 2020, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sound-of-music-supposed-to-be-a-good-movie/846710 "2020-01-20T17:50:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sound-of-music-supposed-to-be-a-good-movie/846710/21 "2020-01-21T00:14:24Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > When 20th Century Fox set out to make TSOM, they put it in the mediocre pile, not expecting much from it. But by golly it’s box office was $286 million in 1965, the number on movie of that year. > > So yeah, I’d say it was a good movie. It also saved 20th Century Fox from bankruptcy caused by the financial hit it took from **Cleopatra** (at least for a few years until\*\* Dr. Doolittle \*\*and **Star!** put them back on the brink again). ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sound-of-music-supposed-to-be-a-good-movie/846710/22 "2020-01-21T00:20:29Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Apparently that actually does follow real life - Maria von Trapp is on record as saying she wasn’t in love with Georg von Trapp Woah! I didn’t realize _The Sound of Music_ was based on a real story. They probably put it at the beginning of the movie, too… ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sound-of-music-supposed-to-be-a-good-movie/846710/23 "2020-01-21T01:48:18Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > Woah! I didn’t realize _The Sound of Music_ was based on a real story. Come up to Stowe VT and ski at the Trapp Family Lodge. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sound-of-music-supposed-to-be-a-good-movie/846710/24 "2020-01-21T02:11:51Z")
The movie is still insanely popular. They show it in theaters and bill it as a big singalong and it’ll generally sell out. It’s like a wholesome Rocky Horror (without throwing stuff). I don’t care for the genre so I’ve never seen any of it other than clips here or there. Thankfully my then wife was kind enough not to drag me along when she went. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sound-of-music-supposed-to-be-a-good-movie/846710/25 "2020-01-21T02:49:50Z")
Austrians have to put up with having Edelweiss played at diplomatic events by people who are convinced that it is a traditional song and/or the national anthem ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sound-of-music-supposed-to-be-a-good-movie/846710/26 "2020-01-21T05:21:15Z")
I’ve always thought of The Sound of Music as a children’s movie. Not really my cup of tea, even as a kid. Christopher Plummer famously called it “The Sound of Mucus”. ---
**Author:** ![mack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mack)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sound-of-music-supposed-to-be-a-good-movie/846710/27 "2020-01-21T05:35:00Z")
I enjoy watching it from time to time and still get a thrill at the beginning with the horns and the sweep into the meadow with Julie Andrews twirling around. > [@garygnu](#): > > It’s a 60s style movie musical, not a character drama. Plus the spectacular alpine scenery and locations in Salzburg. Top notch. Apparently the locals were still sensitive to anything Nazi so the production had some trouble flying the swastika. Fun fact: Hohenwerfen Castle in the background in the [Do-Re-Mi scene](https://images.app.goo.gl/7MYpad9HgQGdTW6M7) was used for the ‘Schloss Adler’ in **Where Eagles Dare**. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sound-of-music-supposed-to-be-a-good-movie/846710/28 "2020-01-21T07:04:00Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > I’ve always thought of The Sound of Music as a children’s movie. Not really my cup of tea, even as a kid. > > Christopher Plummer famously called it “The Sound of Mucus”. Yes, you can clearly see that he thought the whole thing was beneath him. Which did nothing for me except him losing any meager respect I had ever had for him as an actor. If you are going to do a movie only for the money, the decent thing to do is to make it look like you want to be there and that you care about the outcome. All he did was look bored. I seem to be the only one here who is old enough to have seen it in the theater when it was first released. I was in high school. It got a lot of stick from our adolescent intellectuals (“I’m so tired of movies about happy nuns!” was one comment, because The Singing Nun was out around the same time), but everyone else seemed to love it. It was a Very Big Deal. Julie Andrews did have a lot to do with it, I guess, plus the long Broadway run of the play. For most folks, though, I think its influence faded as the ugly realities of the later 60’s came to the fore. Within a few years it was dismissed generally as fluffy and inconsequential. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sound-of-music-supposed-to-be-a-good-movie/846710/29 "2020-01-21T07:54:55Z")
Nobody went to see that movie, the theater was too crowded! I admit the songs are catchy but as presented, it’s not a particularly interesting story. It’s one of those “I’d really like to see a good documentary about these events” kind of deals. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sound-of-music-supposed-to-be-a-good-movie/846710/30 "2020-01-21T08:26:08Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > I seem to be the only one here who is old enough to have seen it in the theater when it was first released. I was in fifth grade when it came out, but didn’t get around to seeing it until ten years later, and then it was purely for the novelty effect. I had little interest in doing so, since such movies are not just my cup of tea. (I preferred films like _ **Von Ryan’s Express** _.) IIRC, it was aired on TV for the first time around Christmas 1976. I watched a few minutes to see how it compared to the cut I saw in Georgia and then switched it off. I couldn’t get the \*\*\*MAD \*\*\*satire out of my mind. I remember talking about movies in class one day when I was in sixth grade. Our teacher (a WWII vet who’d served on the ground in Germany) thought it was a good, clean, family movie. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sound-of-music-supposed-to-be-a-good-movie/846710/31 "2020-01-21T09:50:12Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > Christopher Plummer famously called it “The Sound of Mucus”. Damn, I thought I made that up. > [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > I seem to be the only one here who is old enough to have seen it in the theater when it was first released. No, you’re not. I saw it too. My Gay Men’s Chorus did our own concert version of TSoM, very different from the movie. In one number, about a dozen of us shuffled onstage with walkers, singing “We are sixty, going on seventy.” ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sound-of-music-supposed-to-be-a-good-movie/846710/32 "2020-01-21T10:30:22Z")
You know who else hated this movie? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sound-of-music-supposed-to-be-a-good-movie/846710/33 "2020-01-21T11:09:56Z")
I think part of the appeal of the movie is because it _isn’t_ heavy and dramatic. It’s fluffy and sweet and there’s a certain audience for that because not everyone wants to watch super hero movies or deep intricate plots about relationships that practically require you to take notes or dystopian worlds or … well, anything dark. The 1960’s had a lot of bad stuff going on, I think part of the initial appeal was escaping contemporary reality. Rather like the lavish musicals of the 1930’s - the world was going to hell, let’s watch something that’s superficial fun to get away from all the grimdark. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sound-of-music-supposed-to-be-a-good-movie/846710/34 "2020-01-21T11:39:06Z")
It is a popular high school musical. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sound-of-music-supposed-to-be-a-good-movie/846710/35 "2020-01-21T12:39:06Z")
Popular enough movie for Ariana Grande to base a hit pop song on one of its songs! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sound-of-music-supposed-to-be-a-good-movie/846710/36 "2020-01-21T13:06:22Z")
Just about all the points I would have made are already made in the above posts. I’ll just add: 1.) Julie Andrews was already a top-rated and highly regarded musical star, who had performed the part of Eliza Doolittle in the Broadway version of _My Fair Lady_. She had also been Guinevere in \* Camelot\* on Broadway. So to say she got the part because of “Mary Poppins” is, at best, misleading. She would’ve been a (the?) prime candidate regardless of that role. (In the mad satire cited above, in the last panel she sings “When we top Fair Lady, vengeance will be mine!” – Andrews, who sang her own songs, was famously passed over, despite having played the role on Broadway, in favor of Audrey Hepburn, who had to be dubbed by Marni Nixon. Nixon not only dubbed the singing of the Mother Superior in the film Sound of Music, she also finally got to appear and sing herself as one of the nuns. Maria von trap showed up in the convent, too.) 2.) The film was directed by Robert Wise, who also Directed the musical _West Side story_. (not to mention the science fiction films _The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Andromeda Strain_, and _Star Trek, the Motion Picture_. Not to mention a lot of other flicks.) 3.) When you consider that Christopher Plummer CHOSE top appear as The Emperor of the Universe in the low-budget cheesy SF film _Starcrash: The Adventures of Stella Star_, not to mention plenty of other questionable projects, it really does say something about his belief that _The Sound of Music_ was beneath him. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sound-of-music-supposed-to-be-a-good-movie/846710/37 "2020-01-21T13:26:45Z")
First movie I remember seeing as a kid. Saw it in a brand new theater the first day it opened. I remember liking it. Have not seen it since then. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sound-of-music-supposed-to-be-a-good-movie/846710/38 "2020-01-21T13:34:15Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > 3.) When you consider that Christopher Plummer CHOSE top appear as The Emperor of the Universe in the low-budget cheesy SF film _Starcrash: The Adventures of Stella Star_, not to mention plenty of other questionable projects, it really does say something about his belief that _The Sound of Music_ was beneath him. Plummer also signed a contract to play Dr. Doolittle when Rex Harrison was causing problems for the producers (when Harrison and the producers worked things out, Plummer was paid to not play the role - Dr. Doolittle was a very expensive movie) ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sound-of-music-supposed-to-be-a-good-movie/846710/39 "2020-01-21T14:16:41Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Austrians have to put up with having Edelweiss played at diplomatic events by people who are convinced that it is a traditional song and/or the national anthem It _is_ the best song in the show… ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sound-of-music-supposed-to-be-a-good-movie/846710/40 "2020-01-21T14:43:39Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > It _is_ the best song in the show… …and the very last Rodgers and Hammerstein song. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sound-of-music-supposed-to-be-a-good-movie/846710.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sound-of-music-supposed-to-be-a-good-movie/846710.md?page=3)