The Sound of Music (1965)

With Fraulein Helga, it was a snake

Rewatched "The Sound of Music." That feeling when you are Jason Rhode, and you decide to review a movie literally everyone has seen. That feeling when your eldest stepdaughter is stalking the telegram boy who turns out to be a Nazi. That feeling when you’re a Thirties dictator whose plans for German unification have to deal with a nun and a singing squad of curtain-wearing kids.

That feeling when your entire film is about the convent solving the problem of Maria, and that solution kneecaps the navy. That feeling when you are the gazebo and people only use you for scandalous R-rated flings. That feeling when your kinks are whistles and pinecones.

That feeling when *somehow* you put on the Olympics of puppet shows with multiple octaves just because Chris Plummer and Baroness von Hitchcock Blonde have a free fifteen minutes before Viennese cocktail hour. That feeling when you throw a party for your society friends and they have to listen to your children sing about craving booze and everyone just laughs it off. That feeling when your church plays the song during your wedding that’s about you being the most annoying person ever--a flibbertigibbet, a clown--and you just have to smile and endure it. Just bear it, or the Baroness will win.

That feeling when you are the most beloved movie in human history and the entire premise is "Ma'am, were you this much trouble at the abbey?" That feeling when the nuns are like, "You and your favorite things are too much, even for God." That feeling when your attempt to return to your sisters is callously DESTROYED by Mother Superior needing to flex her singing genius on you.

That feeling when the Germans catch you, and the sane, practical plan to save your lives is going on the Salzberg version of The Voice. That feeling when all that stands between the power of love triumphant and the Third Reich is your fabulous family band. That feeling when you are Fräulein Schweiger or the Toby Reiser Quintet and you have worked so hard to slay; this was *your* moment to shine in the Austrian Super Bowl of singing, and then you get BTFO by this weird Von Trapp act that wasn’t even supposed to be here today, and who ungratefully left before the awards ceremony closed.

That feeling when the thousand year Reich is defeated by two nuns with cursory automotive knowledge. That feeling when, despite the title, you watch for three hours and you’re still wondering what the exact sound of music is.

In 500 years, nearly all of the films you‘ve watched will be forgotten, known only to specialists and historians. The only exceptions will be Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Star Wars, The Wizard of Oz. And this movie.