The Sound of Music
Academy Award × 5·AFI #40·National Film Registry
Rent/Purchase
In the years before World War II, a tomboyish postulant at an Austrian abbey is hired as a governess in the home of a widowed naval captain with seven children and brings a new love of life and music into the home.
What critics thought
The Sound of Music landed in 1965 to genuinely split reviews: East Coast intellectual critics savaged its sentiment and corniness while popular and trade press embraced it warmly, and that divide has never fully resolved. What critics consistently noted, on both sides, was the film's unabashed emotionalism — the argument was always whether that quality ennobles or debases it. Decades of massive audience affection sit in real tension with a middling critical consensus that still reflects those original disagreements.
“the sugar-coated lie people seem to want to eat”
Pauline Kael·McCall's
“three hours of visual and vocal brilliance”
Philip K. Scheuer·Los Angeles Times
“a warmly-pulsating, captivating drama set to the most imaginative use of the lilting R-H tunes, magnificently mounted and with a brilliant cast”
Variety
Genres
Biography, Drama, Family
Cast & Crew
DirectorRobert Wise
StarringJulie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Eleanor Parker, Charmian Carr, Nicholas Hammond
ComposerIrwin Kostal, Richard Rodgers
The Sound of Music
Academy Award × 5·AFI #40·National Film Registry
In the years before World War II, a tomboyish postulant at an Austrian abbey is hired as a governess in the home of a widowed naval captain with seven children and brings a new love of life and music into the home.
What critics thought
The Sound of Music landed in 1965 to genuinely split reviews: East Coast intellectual critics savaged its sentiment and corniness while popular and trade press embraced it warmly, and that divide has never fully resolved. What critics consistently noted, on both sides, was the film's unabashed emotionalism — the argument was always whether that quality ennobles or debases it. Decades of massive audience affection sit in real tension with a middling critical consensus that still reflects those original disagreements.
“the sugar-coated lie people seem to want to eat”
Pauline Kael·McCall's
“three hours of visual and vocal brilliance”
Philip K. Scheuer·Los Angeles Times
“a warmly-pulsating, captivating drama set to the most imaginative use of the lilting R-H tunes, magnificently mounted and with a brilliant cast”
Variety
Genres
Biography, Drama, Family
Cast & Crew
DirectorRobert Wise
StarringJulie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Eleanor Parker, Charmian Carr, Nicholas Hammond
ComposerIrwin Kostal, Richard Rodgers
Rent/Purchase