The
Sound of Music turns 50 years old this year,
hard to believe that so much time has passed since this classic movie
premiered. An article was recently released in Vanity Fair regarding the 50th
Anniversary and the decades-long relationship between Julie Andrews who played
Maria and Christopher Plummer who played Captain Von Trapp.
The article is more of an
interview between the
two friends who have managed to maintain such a strong
relationship over the years. When they starred in the musical Julie Andrews was
30 and Christopher Plummer was 36, now they are 79 and 85 respectfully but
still act as young as they remain in the minds of their fans. While they have
both been married, they have still managed to stay friends, make time to see each other over
the years and be there during each of their new triumphs. Reading the article
about how "when Plummer and
Andrews spoke, they leaned close to each other, their heads almost
touching" just warms my heart and reminds me of how much I loved watching
them in The Sound of Music. 
It was surprising to read that
the movie got such bad reviews when it was originally released in 1965. One
film critic described it as
“mechanically engineered” to transform the audience into “emotional and
aesthetic imbeciles when we hear ourselves humming the sickly, goody-goody
songs. My entire life I thought of this film as a classic, a piece of art and a
great historical fiction film. Thankfully in more recent years
the musical film has grown in popularity having plays in Salzburg to
London’s West End to the Hollywood Bowl.
I have always had a love for Germany and Austria, where The Sound of Music takes place and where I lived for a little less than a year when I was younger. I can remember falling asleep to the soundtrack when I was little, singing along to the songs when I would watch the movie and even learning how to plat some of the songs on the piano back when I knew how to play. I even pretended to be Maria dancing in grass hills of Austria, even though I was at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC.
What a great and insightful blog! It is particularly interesting to me for one reason. I love a good movie. However, my husband and I have completely different tastes in movies. So we don't watch many. Then, when we had a child, we couldn't get 2 hours of peace to ever watch a movie. Now, we have that luxury again...but none of the movies he describes sound interesting to me. I don't think they are bad movies, but he cannot describe them in a way that sound interesting to me. You do! So I am hoping to get some inspiration to once again enjoy a nice relaxing movie with my husband (and maybe child too, if he can sit still for more than 15 minutes!).
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