The Sound of Music was an enormous commercial success, not only winning hte best picture Oscar but becoming the highest grossing film of all time for a number of years.
The film has an interesting pedigree. Maria von Trapp (the person played by Julie Andrews in the film) wrote the story which was originally turned into a pair of films in West Germany (The Trapp Family and The Trapp Family in America) which were the most successful films in West German history. The story became a very successful stage musical before being filmed.
This song was added almost as an afterthought to the musical. It was written to sound like an old Austrian folk song but was entirely new. It was the last song that Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote together before Hammerstein died from stomach cancer. It fooled people all over the world: one Austrian gentleman once told Rodgers that he loved the song in the film but of course had learned the lyrics in the original German.
This scene reminds me of the "battle of the anthems" scene in Casablanca, although much more understated. The audience singing along was a great big middle finger to the Nazis.
One final bit of trivia about this song: The Queen Of The World plays this on her ukulele. She's really good.
2 comments:
Not sure they make movies like that anymore -- ones that evoke an emotional response instead of blowing things up or shooting people.
The only time I ever heard that one was on the theme intro to “The Man In The High Castle”. I enjoyed that series despite the woke overtone… I think they sang it in German?
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