60 years “The Sound of Music”: a cult film worldwide – but almost unknown in this country

Not least with the trailer for the second season of the successful Netflix series “Wednesday”, in which the film hit “My Favorite Things” is used alienated, a cinema jubilee moves into the light: 60 years ago “The Sound of Music” came out with Julie Andrews in the leading role.

If Salzburg is now in focus again in summer because of the festival, there is even more reason to look at this Hollywood film playing in Austria (to see, for example, at Disney+). In German, the almost three-hour emigrant epic “The Sound of Music” bears the bulky title “My songs, my dreams”.

One of the most successful Hollywood music films ever

In Germany (in the Federal Republic), the touching work of director Robert Wise (“West Side Story” until the blood freezes “) came to the cinema on Christmas 1965. To date, “The Sound of Music” is one of the most successful films. A cult film. In this country, the music film is comparatively unknown.

In North America, but also Japan and Latin America, the family film shaped the image of Austria and Germany more than many other things from which one accepts this in the two Central European countries. It is based on the memoirs of the Austrian Maria Augusta Trapp (1905-1987)-like the German trapp family home films from the 50s.

Anyone who calls “The Hills Are Alive” in the USA (the mountains are alive) gets in many rounds “… with the Sound of Music!” (with the sound of the music).

And many of them have Julie Andrews in mind how she whirls over mountain meadows and wants to hug the world. Incidentally, this famous scene was not filmed in Austria, but in Bavaria – in Marktschellenberg in the Berchtesgadener Land.

That’s what the film is about

Salzburg On the eve of the so -called connection in 1938, i.e. the integration of Austria to National Socialist Germany: Novice Maria (Julie Andrews) becomes a governor of the seven children of a widowed naval officer while further considering being nun. She brings nature and singing close to the children, infiltrates the father’s strictness.

The children between the ages of 16 and 5 love them, in the end their father. Captain of Trapp (Christopher Plummer) is instructed to accept an officer position at the German Navy, but opposes the Nazis. He and Maria decide to flee from Austria with the children.

The feature film is based on the musical “The Sound of Music” by Richard Rodgers (Songs) and Oscar Hammerstein (texts), which was premiered in 1959, which cleared five prizes at the Tony Awards in 1960.

The play was the last musical of Rodgers and Hammerstein (which also created “Carousel” with the world hit “You’ll never walk alone”). Hammerstein died nine months after the premiere of stomach cancer.

The musical is based on the memoirs of Maria Augusta Trapp from 1949 (“The Story of the Trapp Family Singers”/ in German: “The Trapp family – From the monastery to the world success”). The singer and writer, born in Vienna as Maria Augusta Kutschera, died with 82 in Morrisville (Vermont). The Trapp family had once fled to the USA and became famous there.

However, the real family Trapp struggled with itself as a musical film fabric. The youngest son Johannes once told the BBC: “It was the Hollywood version of a Broadway version of a German film version of a book that my mother once wrote.”

A lot of catchy tunes in the musical

Many songs of the musical have become evergreens, including “do-re-mi”, “Climb Ev’ry Mountain”, the “Edelweiss” used as a home and a kind of resistance song as well as the title song “The Sound of Music”.

The most catchy song is the slow waltz “My Favorite Things”, in which Maria sings to the children with a thunderstorm “favorite thing”, which always thinks it is worthwhile: raindrops on roses, cream -colored ponies, crispy apple strudel or snowflakes that stick on eyelids, and schnitzel with noodles (schnitzel with noodles – who eats that – actually?).

So the film cut off at the Oscars

At the 1966 Oscars, “The Sound of Music” won five prizes (best film, director, cut, adapted film music and sound) in ten nominations – and compared to the most important competitor “Doctor Schiwago”. Julie Andrews, however, defeated the British actress Julie Christie (“Darling”) in the “best leading actress” category. Andrews had already won an Oscar for her “Mary Poppins” title.

The film is important for Salzburg tourism

On the website “Salzburg.info”, visitors are confronted with the big highlights of the city of Salzburg – and these are: The “Salzburg Festival”, the “UNESCO World Heritage Site”, “Wolfgang A. Mozart”, “Advent & Silent Night” – and “The Sound of Music”.

You can also order the brochure “Following in the Footsteps of the Sound of Music” from TSG (Tourismus Salzburg GmbH) and take place. In Salzburg there are also organized tours for fans and 2026 is even said to open their own museum at Hellbrunn Castle.

An urban legend in Salzburg says that the 60-year-old Hollywood film in the city of Locke, born 269 years ago, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the most famous son in the city. But that is probably not quite true.

“The passion for” The Sound of Music “is particularly popular with guests from the English-speaking area,” says the tourism marketing organization Austria advertising. “The film is very little known among guests from Germany – here is the main focus here is on classical music, culture and the Christmas market.”