Sound of Music, The

OSCAR WINNER - 1965
• Best Picture
• Best Director - Robert Wise
• Best Film Editing
• Best Score Adaptation - Irwin Kostal
• Best Sound

GOLDEN GLOBE WINNER - 1965
• Best Picture - Musical / Comedy
• Best Actress (Musical / Comedy) - Julie Andrews

DIRECTORS GUILD OF AMERICA WINNER - 1965
• Outstanding Directorial Achievement (Feature Film) - Robert Wise

WRITERS GUILD OF AMERICA WINNER - 1965
• Best American Musical Screenplay - Ernest Lehman

AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE:
• 100 Years... 100 Movies (1998): #55
• 100 Years... 100 Passions (2002): #27
• 100 Years... 100 Songs (2004):
”The Sound of Music” - #10
”My Favorite Things” - #64
”Do-Re-Mi” - #88
• 100 Years... 100 Cheers (2006): #41
• 100 Years... 100 Movies - 10th Anniversary Edition (2007): #40

NATIONAL FILM REGISTRY: 2001

SONG INDEX:

• Prelude and The Sound of Music
• Main Title
• Dixit Dominus (Morning Hymn and Alleluia)
• Maria
• I Have Confidence
• Sixteen Going on Seventeen
• My Favorite Things
• Salzburg Montage
• Do-Re-Mi
• The Sound of Music (reprise)
• The Lonely Goatherd
• Edelweiss
• Grand Waltz
• Leandler
• So Long, Farewell
• Processional Waltz
• Goodbye, Maria/How Can Love Survive Waltz
• Edelweiss Waltz (Act I Finale)
• Entr’acte
• Climb Ev’ry Mountain
• My Favorite Things (reprise)
• Something Good
• Processional and Maria
• Sixteen Going on Seventeen (reprise)
• Do-Re-Mi (reprise)
• Edelweiss (reprise)
• So Long, Farewell (reprise)
• Climb Ev’ry Mountain (reprise)
• Finale (End Credits)

TRIVIA:

• Charmian Carr who plays Liesl and was 21 at the time, wrote in her autobiography that she was attracted to the 35-year-old Christopher Plummer, who played her father. Plummer admitted that the feeling was mutual, but insists that it didn’t go beyond mere flirtation from either side.

• Julie Andrews sang ”Supercalifragilisricexpialidocious” to the children in the cast to entertain them between shooting sessions. Since MARY POPPINS hadn’t yet been released, they just thought she’d made up the song for them.

• Christopher Plummer intensely disliked working on the film. He’s been known to refer to it as ”The Sound of Mucus” or ”S&M” and likened working with Julie Andrews to ”being hit over the head with a big Valentine’s Day card, every day.” Nonetheless, he and Andrews have remained close friends ever since.

• When Maria is running through the driveway to the Von Trapp house in ”I Have Confidence”, she trips. This was an accident; however, director Robert Wise liked this so much that he kept it in the final film. He felt it added to the nervousness of the song and of the character.

• Very little background information on the real-life Captain von Trapp was known or available to Christopher Plummer, so the actor took to the Salzburg mountains with an interpreter. There, they met with Georg’s nephew and asked him what the real man had been like. The nephew told them that he was the most boring man he’d ever met.

• Christopher Plummer admits on the DVD audio commentary that he was drunk during the shooting of the music festival sequence.

• Christopher Plummer admitted that he ate and drank heavily during filming to drown out his unhappiness with making the picture, and found plenty of opportunities to do both in Austria. His costumes eventually had to be refitted for his extra weight.

• Julie Andrews had to learn how to play the guitar especially for the film.

• ”Sixteen Going on Seventeen” was shot in the gazebo, the last scene to be shot before the production wrapped. On the first take, Charmian Carr (Liesl) slipped while leaping across a bench and fell through a pane of glass. Although she was not badly injured, her ankle was hurt and the scene was later shot with her leg wrapped and makeup covering the bandages.

• Although Christopher Plummer’s own vocals were in fact recorded, it was subsequently decided that he should be dubbed. Vocalist Bill Lee was given this assignment.

• Julie Andrews nearly turned down the role of Maria von Trapp, fearing the character was too similar to her role in MARY POPPINS.

• Adjusted for inflation, THE SOUND OF MUSIC is the third highest-grossing film of all time, behind GONE WITH THE WIND at #1 and STAR WARS at #2.

• The song ”Edelweiss” was written for the musical but is little known in Austria. The song was the last that Oscar Hammerstein II wrote before his passing in August 1960.

• When the film was first released on home video, it stayed on the charts for over 250 weeks, almost five years. As of 2017, it is still the best-selling movie musical in the home video market.

• Debbie Turner (Marta) had several loose baby teeth during filming. When they fell out, they were replaced with false teeth.

• In the original stage version, the Captain and the Baroness separate due to ideological differences: the Baroness refuses to stand up against the Nazis, and the Captain refuses to compromise with them.

• In real life, Georg Von Trapp was not stern. The Von Trapp children were upset and disturbed by the portrayal of their father in the film. Maria von Trapp requested that director Robert Wes soften the character of her husband, but Wise refused, insisting it was essential to the plot.

• THE SOUND OF MUSIC is credited as the film that saved Twentieth Century Fox, after the debacle of CLEOPATRA.

• All of the Von Trapp children grew a lot during filming, so heel lifts and various camera tricks were used to keep their heights steady.

• Nicholas Hammond (Friedrich) has brown hair, and had to undergo several painful hair bleachings before and during filming to make his hair blond.

• Though the film is virtually unknown in Austria, due to the international popularity you can visit the places where the filming took place with a special tour. Furthermore, in many hotels in Salzburg, the movie is played non-stop on TV for the tourists.

• The first musical number in the film, ”The Sound of Music”, was the final sequence shot in Europe before the cast and crew returned to Los Angeles. It was filmed in late June and early July of 1964. Despite the warm and sunny appearance, Julie Andrews notes that she was freezing running up that mountain over and over again. Director Robert Wise has said that he had to climb one of the trees nearby to be able to overview the helicopter shoot without getting in the picture.

• Christopher Plummer learned to play the guitar for his part, but the guitar (like his singing) was dubbed.

• Robert Wise didn’t get along with the real Maria von Trapp when she came on the set, calling her bossy, even going as far as assuming the right to direct a scene.

• Julie Andrews was always Robert Wise’s first choice to play Maria even though no one had really seen how she worked onscreen. MARY POPPINS had not beeen released at that point and actually was not released until after shooting had been completed on THE SOUND OF MUSIC.

• Mary Martin was the wife of Richard Halliday, producer of the original Broadway show. Martin, who originated the role of Maria on Broadway, would eventually see nearly $8,000,000 from the film receipts. In contrast, Julie Andrews earned just $225,000 for her performance.

• Duane Chase’s (Kurt) high note in ”So Long, Farewell” was actually sung by Darleen Carr (younger sister of Charmian Carr), as that note was beyond Chase’s range.

• In 2015, THE SOUND OF MUSIC celebrated its 50th Anniversary. At the 2015 Academy Awards, pop singer Lady Gaga sang a medley of the film’s songs, namely ”The Sound of Music,” ”Edelweiss,” ”My Favorite Things,” and ”Climb Every Mountain.” Julie Andrews then came out on stage and embraced Lady Gaga. It is believed that Lady Gaga did not know Andrews was at the Awards that evening.

• Grace Kelly was considered for the part of the Baroness. However, she had retired from acting when she married Prince Rainier of Monaco and was not open to offers to return to her former profession.

• Maria’s wedding train in the film was 14 feet long.

• THE SOUND OF MUSIC had its television debut on February 29, 1976 on ABC-TV. NBC bought the TV rights in December 1978. However, it wasn’t until March 1995 that NBC (who owned the broadcast rights to the film at the time) aired the film in its entirety. ABC has subsequently acquired the film’s broadcast rights.

• The film’s status as the most popular movie musical was surpassed thirteen years later in 1978 by GREASE in actual box office receipts. However, THE SOUND OF MUSIC is still the most popular movie musical when adjusted for inflation.

• This film marks the first time famous voice double Marni Nixon is seen on film in the role of Sister Sophia. Nixon is known for the vocal doubling for Deborah Kerr in THE KING AND I, Natalie Wood in WEST SIDE STORY and most famously (or infamously) for Audrey Hepburn in MY FAIR LADY.

• Richard Rodgers composed two new songs especially for the film version of THE SOUND OF MUSIC: ”I Have Confidence” and ”Something Good”.

• THE SOUND OF MUSIC opened on Broadway at the the Lunt-Fontaine Theatre on November 16, 1959 with the music composed by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse. The cast was led by Mary Martin as Maria, Theodore Bikel as Captain von Trapp, Patricia Neway as the Reverend Mother and Kurt Kaszner as Max. The production received 9 1960 Tony Award nods and won 5 including Best Musical, Best Actress in a Musical (Martin) and Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Neway). The production ran for 1,443 performances before closing on June 15, 1963. It was not revived again on Broadway until 1998.

• In November 1966, THE SOUND OF MUSIC became the first motion picture to break the record set by GONE WITH THE WIND as the biggest box office success of all time.

• In honor of its 50th anniversary, THE SOUND OF MUSIC was reissued for a limited, 2-day engagement in the Century Cinemas theater chain nationwide through Turner Classic Movies’ Big Screen Classics series on April 19 and 2015.

1965

G

8074733678906

Best Picture

Movie

2018-02-07 18:23:13

2.35:1

175

United States

2010-11-02

1080p

2.35:1

4

~$20.99

2025-10-09

2018-02-07 18:23:13