The Sound of Music by Julia Antopol Hirsch

Apparently Plummer and Andrews became lifelong friends after the movie but he despised the sappiness of the movie (he called it “the sound of mucus”). Many other famous Hollywood actors were considered for secondary roles as well, including Mia Farrow. Along with Christopher Plummer other lead Hollywood actors included Bing Crosby, Yul Brynner, Sean Connery, and Richard Burton. Wise also had trouble casting the role of Captan von Trapp.

Robert Wise visited Disney to view footage of the unreleased film Mary Poppins and immediately he knew he needed to sign Andrews to the part. The initial intent was for Audrey Hepburn to play the lead but thankfully we are the fortunate beneficiaries of Julie Andrews and her incredible vocals (back-up considerations for lead roles included Grace Kelly and Shirley Jones). The Sound of Music effectively saved 20th Century Fox after its near financial flop with Cleopatra in 1963. It won five Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best director (Wise’s second win after 1961’s West Side Story). While initial reviews were mixed, it quickly became a massive success as The Sound of Music unseated Gone With The Wind in 1966 as the highest grossing film up to that point. In fact this was the last Rodgers and Hammerstein musical as Hammerstein died of stomach cancer in 1960 (the last song he wrote was “Edelweiss”). The story is based on the 1949 memoir by Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, which was then turned into a stage production by Rodgers and Hammerstein in 1959 (Richard Rodgers composed the music and Oscar Hammerstein II created the lyrics). Sentimental, gripping, sunny, hopeful, visually stunning, and rife with catchy, beautiful music The Sound of Music is a wonderful picture. It is an undeniable, towering film one of my favorites of all time. While I am generally not a devotee of musicals, The Sound of Music is the Hollywood cinematic musical masterpiece par excellence.

The Sound of Music by Julia Antopol Hirsch