The Sound of Music
Over half-a-century separated my initial 70mm screening and last night’s small-screen look-see. Pauline Kael nastily dubbed it The Sound of Money, and her disgust is not hard to appreciate or understand. It was released less than ten years after Metro’s Golden Age of Hollywood musicals had ceased its roar, and with thoughts of those Technicolor dazzlers still dancing through the moviegoing brain, The Sound of Music couldn’t help but feel like a lead-footed bore. By today’s standards, A Star is Born, Bohemian Rhapsody and Vox Lux make Robert Wise’s blockbuster musical look like Singin’ in the Rain. The stuff with the kids was better than remembered, but a guest arriving shortly after the intermission had ended would have found me cheering for the Nazis. And I don’t care how much Christopher Plummer loved his children; how could he pass on sexy fraulein Eleanor Parker in favor of the almost-nun, Julie Andrews? — Scott Marks