The Sound of Music

"The Sound of Music," what can I say about this great contribution to cinema? Well for starters the movie was a box-office success, grossing over $286,000,000, and it practically saved 20th Century Fox from bankruptcy due to low revenues from "Cleopatra." It also went on to win Best Picture in 1965 and 4 other Oscars along with 5 other nominations.

The story of "The Sound of Music" is about a odd ball nun who becomes a governess for 7 mischievous children of the Von Trapp home. Georg Von Trapp the father is a widower and very strict, he has certain rules in the house such as no singing or goofing off basically anything that reminds him of his wife. However Maria, the nun does not adhere to Georg's commands and goes out of her way to make the children happy again. She tries hard and eventually brings back music and happiness to the family again. She soon falls in love with Georg and complications arise that tests their love and the love of the family as a whole.

The characters are great in the movie, they bring a sense of reality into the movie. For instance the children misbehave to get the attention of their father. And the father tries very hard to be there for his children, even though there are some short comings, and tries to also teach them great moral lessons about doing what is right over doing the popular thing. Maria is free spirited and deals with the complications of doing what her brain tells her over her heart.

The characters a re good and at times very believable, but the acting by the children is pretty weak. The adults give decent to great performances, like Julie Andrews, but the kids lack. They aren't always believable. They seem to be fake. However each child does shine once in a while, but overall they performance leaves much to be desired.

The songs in this movie are great, written and composed by Rodger and Hammerstein and Irwin Krostal. They have a fun melodic flow. Songs start of slow with soft vocal performances and quickly become dramatic and enchanting. Meanings of the most of the songs are mostly in front of you. They are meaningful songs, but the moral is usually thrown at you with little room for the imagination. However songs like "The Sound of Music" accompanied by a powerful scenery transcends the movie to a whole other level.

Moral themes much like most of the songs are up in your face. The movie overall is the importance of family and staying together. The Von Trapp family have so many complications such as the loss of a mother and the way the families lives are changed. Another message in the movie that is handled pretty well is that family is all you can really count on. Leisl has a friend in the movie who she thinks she can trust to the very end, ends up betraying her trust. She is left with only the love of her family.

Overall I think "The Sound of Music" is a fantastic film, it tells a timeless story of the value of family and their unconditional love. The songs are great and very iconic. The movies 3hr running time goes by a breeze. Acting from the children are decent, but at times fake and the morals are kind of thrown to you. However the acting or the shallowness of the message, I give "The Sound of Music" 5/5. The story is compelling and it still manages to tell a powerful story about family.

"The Sound of Music" will conclude this journey we've had reviewing musicals. I know I didn't get to a lot of them, but probably will later down the line with my reviews. I had a fun time doing this and it gave me an amazing opportunity to check out some of these great musicals in cinema. Starting tomorrow I will begin doing reviews of movies I've seen over the summer. Some will be brand new movies I've discovered for the first time, others will be my favorite classics, and most of which will be this years releases.