Stars: Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer
Rated: G
Released: 1965
What I “know”: A pure and wholesome nanny raises a ton of kids while their rich dad tries to outrun the Nazis or something. I think the Nazis are involved. And it’s a musical. And I’m dreading it. And I opened up the sleeve saying “Please only be an hour and a half” only to see “2 hrs, 54 mins” staring back at me. I despise whoever added this to my list, though I suppose I should see it.
What I know after reading the Netflix sleeve: “In Rodgers and Hammerstein’s greatest collaboration, a feisty postulant named Maria (Julie Andrews) is sent to care for the unruly, motherless Von Trapp children. She soon tames them — and finds herself falling for their stern father (Christopher Plummer). Oscar-winning director Robert Wise used stunning Austrian locations to transform the popular stage musical into a cinema class in which the hills truly seemed to come alive.”
OK, ,maybe there aren’t Nazis? I don’t know. But what the hell is a postulant? I guess it’s the more formal way to say “nanny,” but whatever. Here goes.
TRAILER!
I saw the first 10 seconds while I was embedding that, and Julie Andrews’s hair makes me sad.
1:05: If two hours of this movie is just panning across mountains, I swear …
3:21: Great. The movie opens with a song. And not even a good one. The hills don’t have music. They have bugs and rocks. P.S. I don’t like nature. I like air conditioning and TVs.
10:16: Oh great, she’s a nun? And she’s the black sheep of the nunnery?
13:07: I’m glad they found a bunch of classically trained singers for this, I guess, but they should have checked to see if they could act. They can’t.
19:59: “Seven children. What’s so fearsome about that?” Honey, pull up a chair. I can make a doozy of a list. Then again, one child frightens the everloving junk out of me … so take that as you will.
23:57: “Wait here, please.” *new nanny goes around opening doors in the great hall to just kind of snoop around on the richies*
27:14: Holy crap, that whistle is annoying. He doesn’t have kids, he has well-trained dogs. And that’s only six kids. Why are they so Stepfordy?
27:35: Oh, there’s Kid Seven. She’s reading. I guess she’s forgiven from the military drill.
32:19: OK, you know what? Once they stopped singing and the kids were brats and she was lost, I was going to give it a shot. Then there was a frog. I have three fears in life: Frogs, bridges, and thunderstorms. Ugh.
37:59: This whole telegram business is making me nauseous. I get it’s rated G, and it’s from 1965, but holy cow. “Dear Rolf, stop. Don’t stop. Your Liesl.” Now, considering she didn’t do another “stop,” She’s actually saying “don’t.” “Dear Rolf, don’t. Your Liesl.” Much better. OH MY GOODNESS, HIS SINGING VOICE. MAKE HIM STOP.
48:22: And of course, now there’s a thunderstorm. Tell me on their long trip to avoid the Nazis that they also nearly die on a bridge. Please, give me the trifecta.
51:25: There are so many things about “My Favorite Things” that make me want to murder. Who wants brown paper-wrapped packages tied in strings? If you have snowflakes that stay on your nose, you might be dead. You shouldn’t be below freezing temperature. Why are girls in blue sashes make you happy? Who wants crispy strudel?
56:02: As someone who never even babysat, I don’t want to second guess a nanny (though I guess she’s new to it) but having a 5-year-old skipping on the edge of a cliff with a river below doesn’t seem like the best decision.
1:02:11: Aww, how cute. The cultish kids who have never sung have perfect pitch and they immediately pick up harmonizing. How lucky!
1:12:26: I will never understand how Fraulein (I’m not looking for the umlauts in here, sorry) Maria would ever fall for stick-in-the-ass Captain Von Trapp.
1:18:55: They just have a full-size puppet theater? And they’re all trained in marionette? How do they find the time between military drills??
1:21:56: So, I took my dogs out before this number and had “Do, Re, Mi” stuck in my head. I swear to all that is good in this world, if this stupid yodeling song haunts my thoughts and dreams, I will seek vengeance.
1:31:20: So grumpy old Meandad suddenly leaves his date and his party and goes out to the terrace, then cuts in on his son getting his arms broken by the nanny trying to do a spin move. Of course he does.
1:32:41: “What a lovely couple you make,” his girlfriend passive-aggressively says. Why can’t the girlfriend ever be likeable and he just likes the other person more? Why must they write them as cold, frigid bitches?
1:33:31: OH NO IT’S THE AUF WIEDERSEHEN SONG. (Two years of high school German meant I could spell that without having to look it up. Also, “Was kostet den Taschenrechner” means “how much is the calculator.” FYI.)
1:36:01: If I was at a party at some dude’s house and we all had to come out and watch his kids audition for “Austria’s Got Talent” or whatever, I’d be pissed. I mean, sure, they can sing. But that right there is an A-No.-1 party killer.
1:36:16: OMG THEY ANSWERED THE LITTLE BRATS.
1:37:58: “You flatter me, Captain.” “Oh, how clumsy of me. I meant to accuse you.” BURN.
1:39:40: “It’s not your fault he finds you beautiful. He’ll get over it. Oh, here, want me to help you pack? You ain’t got to go home, but you can’t stay here.”
1:40:05: “Please don’t tell the Captain that the woman tasked with raising his children has disappeared in the night and left them without a caretaker. I’d hate for him to be somehow prepared for that news.”
1:40:16: Ugh, Maria’s too nice. She should have gotten catty and rolled down to that party fully dolled up and beat that Baroness at her own game.
1:44:48: Only a two-minute intermission? I was hoping that would eat up 15 minutes of the remaining 70. Though I am enjoying the first scene back of the seven hellions bullying their potential stepmother.
1:49:48: This “greeting of the new mother” thing is more like a funeral procession.
1:55:07: The reverend mother (I don’t know if that’s supposed to be capped or not, sorry) is playing matchmaker? I didn’t think that was how things worked.
1:56:27: I’ve never heard “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” and I hate it already. So operatic. Why?
2:03:43: Well, well, well. Maria’s wearing the dress in which the Baroness said the Captain couldn’t keep his eyes off her. And so it begins … the nun becomes the homewrecker!
2:04:12: And the Captain comes out on the balcony. “Juliet, oh Juliet, wherefore art thou a nanny and not a baroness?” And the devil comes out, dressed in red. Not one for subtlety, are they?
2:05:00: “You have no idea the trouble I’m having trying to find you a wedding present. … Oh, I know, I’m enough …” Holy schnikeys, lady, try a little harder? Did she just go from getting him a fountain pen to a villa in the south of France?
2:05:45: “It’s no use.” Well, that’s about the harshest breakup line they could get away with in a G-rated movie, but that had to cut her. “Try all you want to, I’m in love with the virginal practice nun with the boy’s haircut who can sing like an angel.”
2:07:07: I give the Baroness credit for not lashing out and being a psycho, and I give him credit for not denying her charges that he’s going to get with the nanny.
2:10:29: I like that they had to kiss in a shadow since it’s G-rated.
2:11:44: WHY WOULD SHE START SINGING THERE? He’s nuzzling your face, weirdo. Go make out with him. I’m 99 percent sure I’d love this movie if it didn’t have 427 songs in it. Instead I’m just annoyed by the plot breaks for incessant singing. Does she still get paid as a nanny? Or is she just stuck with these kids forever with no remuneration?
2:15:12: NO. I want to see the children’s reactions. Don’t give me this slow fade into her in a horrible wedding dress with half a bush wrapped around her head.
2:16:23: Oh, I get it. The fence is the symbolism of her leaving her old life behind. Again, subtlety not the strong suit here.
2:17:04: It’s every girl’s dream to walk down the aisle with a soundtrack of people singing about you being a problem played over top.
2:19:03: NAZIS. I knew it. Man, I’m glad “Schindler’s List” is further down my queue. I’m about Nazied out right now.
2:22:36: Of course Rolf is a Nazi.
2:26:23: OK, so not only is this movie like 2/3 music, but they repeat a bunch of the songs over and over? Please, stop. So far it’s “The Sound of Music,” “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria,” and “16 Going on 17,” at least.
2:29:06: Man, they picked a really awkward time to go on their honeymoon. Now they have like four hours to pack up nine people and all their belongings and get out of Dodg … er, Austria.
2:30:58: Who was steering the car around the turn? And OH NO, NAZIS.
2:39:47: So wait, the game plan is to turn the crowd in this one building against the Third Reich for wanting to separate a man from his family? And they think that’s going to make a difference? I swear, if this is what fixes everything, I’m done.
2:40:27: Oh god, now it’s “Auf Wiedersehen” again? Ugh. Maybe this is the plan, to send them off into the dark so they can escape. Makes the Nazis look stupid (duh) but at least it’s more believable than them saying, “Oh no, people don’t like our decision! Forget the whole thing!”
2:41:47: But … they’re all sitting in the front row. In the front row, you can see outside the spotlight. They’d be able to see them all sprinting for the wings. Especially with the way the stupid kids kept looking back at the parents.
2:44:02: So there was even a Nazi guard down where all the acts were hanging out and they still got out? Man, that’s a dumb mistake.
2:49:42: Awww good guy Nazi Rolf.
2:50:01: Oops. Spoke too soon.
2:51:52: That thing’s a clown car if it fit eight people in it.
2:52:38: Man, those nuns sure know a lot about cars to be able to pull [insert important parts here because I am not a nun and do not know much about cars] out of the Nazis’ cars.
2:53:18: That’s a really high mountain for a bunch of kids in knee socks and loafers to have climbed.
I MADE IT! I MADE IT THROUGH. And I was right … I would have liked that movie a lot more were it not a musical. I just … don’t like musicals (“Grease” excepted). I’m more open to “Singin’ in the Rain” than this one. Also, the whole Nazi plot was just kind of sprung. I know it’s based on a real story (but I’ve also read things about all the stuff they got wrong, like how the Nazis came in 11 years after they got married or something) but more than just a throwaway line at a party, they should have dealt more with the Nazis in the movie rather than just launch them in at the end.
Next up: “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes!”
