The hills are still alive, never mind the critics

A restored version of ‘The Sound of Music’ will be released to celebrate the flawed but endearing classic, writes Rashmi Vasudeva

It is perhaps not common knowledge that the universally adored ‘The Sound of Music’, which is celebrating the 60th anniversary of its release this year, had to climb several mountains before achieving cult status.

For long, it has been a permanent fixture in many movie-goers’ list of ‘favourite things’. For some, like my father, it is one of the few ‘English pictures’ they have seen more than once on the big screen, and remember to this day with great fondness. I have seen it too, at least four times, daydreamed silly about it and knew (still do) all the songs by heart. I loved it till I did not.

Its much-adored lead actor Christopher Plummer hated it. He detested some of the songs and thought the movie was “gooey” and gave it nasty nicknames, including ‘The Sound of Mucus’. When it was first released on March 2, 1965, many critics were fervent in their dislike. The venerable New York Times termed it a load of “romantic nonsense” while others dismissed it as sentimental and sugar-coated. 

They were not completely off the mark. It was only much later, with a sharp nudge from Arundhati Roy in ‘The God of Small Things’ that I took off my rose-tinted glasses and saw the movie with new eyes. Yes, its romance is stilted, the plotline soapy, and some of the dialogues treacly. Also, the motherless children’s misgivings have been dealt with flakily. The Nazi intrusion into the von Trapps’ idyllic world is treated more as a plot twist than anything truly grave. Moreover, critics have had issues with the movie’s lyrics (Edelweiss, especially). Some even called them a subtle nod to antisemitism and Aryan supremacy.

But there was no stopping the movie’s rise. It not only shattered box office records, but also won a bagful of Academy awards, ensuring its leads — Plummer and Julie Andrews — would be forever etched in our collective mushy brains as Captain and Maria gazing deep into each other’s eyes and softly crooning ‘I must have done something good’ in perfect sync. The dizzying opening credits with its sweeping view of the snow-crusted Alps and the greener-than-green meadows with Maria’s full-throated ‘The hills are alive’ is uplifting cinema at its best — it calls you to throw your arms about in glorious abandon and sing out loud too, with or without confidence, and dunk yourself unabashedly in Maria’s effervescence.

Come to think of it, with all its flaws and warts, the movie is cherished and will continue to be, 60 or 120, because it appeals to our most primal desires. Just as Mother Abbess advises Maria, it also tells us viewers in no uncertain terms that if you follow the rainbow, you will reach your dream. And makes you believe. Its hills still echo resoundingly that there is love waiting to be found, honour to strive for, and that thing with feathers — hope — is standing by, just beyond the blue.

DID YOU KNOW?

•  The real life Maria von Trapp (on whose book the movie is based) makes a blink-and-you-miss appearance during the ‘I have confidence’ song.

•  Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly were also considered and rejected for the roles of Captain and Maria.

• Julie Andrews and the children sang their songs while the rest of the cast had playback singers dubbing for them.

• After their escape to America, the real von Trapps opened a lodge while their original home in Austria, Villa Trapp, has now been converted into a hotel that doubles up as a museum narrating the family’s history. 

• Curiously, the movie was a worldwide hit except in Austria where it ran only for three weeks in 1965. It is believed the Austrians did not appreciate the Hollywoodisation of the story.