THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965)

After winning Oscars for producing & directing WEST SIDE STORY in 1961, Robert Wise doubled up with two more here.  And it’s often been noted that these two very different B’way musical transfers open in much the same manner, steadily moving in from the heavens down to the action; the urban slums of WSS; the Alps in SoM.  Less noted is that one of these two acclaimed films has dated badly, the other barely touched by the years.  Just not the ones you’d expect.  These days STORY makes a pretty tough watch, painfully miscast where it counts (especially in its two leads), unacceptably dubbed* and awkwardly color stylized.  As lyric theater goes, STORY may be the project with all the critical caché, but MUSIC the one that works on the screen.  (Steven Spielberg’s recent redo not seen here.)  Exceptionally well-crafted by Wise and cleverly revamped from its theatrical roots by scripter Ernest Lehman, who also did STORY, he makes wizardly smart plot alterations, song swaps and outright deletions.*  The modest amount of vocal-dubbing (really only two numbers) is perfectly accomplished, with Julie Andrews (spectacularly right here) still launching hundreds of future sopranos on the top note that caps ‘Do-Re-Mi.’  (Surprising that a seemingly corny song like ‘My Favorite Things’ is a favorite in jazz circles.)  The basic story, rich widower with seven tykes falls for his temp nanny; leaves his society fiancée; nanny leaves the convent; then the whole family leaves Austria when the Nazis come in.  There’s even a reasonable amount of truth behind this.  Christopher Plummer, as the widower, may not have meant to come across in quite so sour a fashion, but his miscalculation helps keep the film from sinking in schmaltz.  (Some of the dialogue for the kids is a bit much even for the late 1930s let alone the mid-‘60s.)  And do we really need those professional puppets?  (That mansion must have Mary Poppins’ carpetbag stowed in the basement.)  Phenomenally well shot (and lit!) largely on location by Ted McCord, pulled out of retirement for the job.  With stunningly staged and edited set pieces on every other corner, it's a semester’s-worth of film-school lessons in pro craftsmanship.  Even for someone without the sweet tooth to fall for the story whole, this is an unexpectedly guilt-free pleasure, particularly for Boomers who haven’t seen it since they were teens.

DOUBLE-BILL: Off-the-chart grosses brewed an orgy of failed Hollywood copycatting as one overblown musical after another tanked, nearly bringing down studios and all but offing the genre for decades.  Carol Reed’s OLIVER!/’68 a rare exception, the one musical of this period to beat MUSIC in sheer craftmanship.  (And as with SoM, a recent restoration proves revelatory.)

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *George Chakiris alone does his own singing, but there’s not much of it.  Really the only thing that holds up in WSS/’61 are the three or four dance-oriented numbers largely handled by choreographer/co-director Jerome Robbins before he was canned for too much  ‘perfectionism.'

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  * Typical of Lehman’s major, invisible script improvements, on B’way the ‘Lonely Goatherd’ sung with the kids in Maria’s room is replaced by ‘My Favorite Things’ which had been a duet for Maria & Mother Superior.