A lot of the criticism in this thread focuses on the thin plot that holds the songs together. But that’s pretty much the case with every musical. Take Singin’ in the Rain, considered by many to be the greatest movie musical ever (AFI ranked it #5 on their all-time list of films, period.) There’s less reason for Don Lockwood and Kathy Seldon to fall in love than even Maria and the Captain. The rest of the plot is “Hey Gang, let’s put on a show” only slightly more sophisticated than the Andy Hardy movies a decade earlier.
Or 1776 and its key plot point that the Declaration of Independence would never have been finished if Thomas Jefferson hadn’t had sex with his wife.
Then there’s West Side Story. Who cares if the story was lifted from Shakespeare? You still have a boy and a girl falling in love at first sight, not to mention street gangs dancing through the tenements of Manhattan.
Later musicals? There’s Phantom of The Opera, which features a brilliant but disfigured composer/singer who emerges from his underground lair only to sabotage operas and kidnap sopranos. I will accept comparisons with The Abominable Dr. Phibes.
And let’s not even go down the road of Disney musicals, okay?
Here is an article from The AV Club about The Sound of Music. (It’s part of a series on the highest-grossing movie of each year since 1960.) In part, it goes into just how big the movie was and is. For example, the production budget was $8 million, which was a lot for the time. But then in 1976, ABC paid $15 million for the rights to air the movie on television once.
Actually, he earned his commission on his own merits. His father was born August Ritter Trapp. He was elevated to the nobility due to his naval exploits.
I once called a phone number for Denmark tourism and they did the same for the song “Wonderful Copenhagen” from the 1952 movie/musical “Hans Christian Anderson”. Incidentally right after the movie came out Denmark had a surge of tourism.