Speaking Volumes | ‘The hills are alive ...’ Movie classic ‘The Sound of Music’ turns 55
This year marks the 55th anniversary of “The Sound of Music” film which was first released in March 1965, directed and produced by Robert Wise, and starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. The film was an adaptation of the stage musical originally composed by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The film is about a young woman named Maria who leaves an Austrian convent to become the governess for the seven mischievous children of a widowed naval officer.
“The Sound of Music” is based on the story of the real Trapp family. Though events did not occur the way they did in the musical or the film, the Trapp Family were a real family from Austria, Captain Georg von Trapp being a retired naval officer who was widowed in 1924 with seven children to raise. Maria did leave an abbey in Salzburg to work as a governess for Captain Trapp and, after the first year, the children wanted her to stay and suggested he marry her. He wasn’t sure if she liked him but when the children asked her, she said she did, and they were married in 1927. They traveled to the United States where they became known as the Trapp Family Singers and, in 1941, they purchased a large farm in Vermont that is run today as the Trapp Family Lodge, after it was rebuilt in 1980 when the original lodge burned down.
Maria von Trapp wrote a memoir titled “The Story of the Trapp Family Singers” that was published in 1949, two years after Georg’s death. The screenplay for the musical was based on Maria’s memoirs and appeared on Broadway in 1959, where it ran successfully for three years. She was also very active in writing the screenplay for two German films that were based on her family called “The Trapp Family”, produced in 1956, and “The Trapp Family in America”, produced in 1958. Although she was heavily involved, Maria did not make very much profit from these films and later did not earn any profits from the success of “The Sound of Music”.
Celebrate the anniversary of this popular film by visiting your local library to check out the DVD and make it your next movie night!
Enjoy a sing-along on your next road trip by checking out the soundtrack to the film or “The Sound of Music: Original Broadway Cast Recording”, both available on CD.
Learn more about the Trapp Family from “Memories Before and After the Sound of Music: An Autobiography” by Agathe Trapp, the eldest daughter or check out Maria von Trapp’s memoir “The Story of the Trapp Family Singers” that lead to the production of the films and musical.
Delve deeper into the making of the film with the ebooks “Sound of Music” by Julia Antopol Hirsch and “Sound of Music FAQ” by Barry Monush available on Hoopla.
Explore some of the Trapp Family’s music with the album “An Evening of Folk Songs with the Trapp Family Singers”, also available through Hoopla.
Speaking Volumes is written by staff members with the Manatee County Public Library System. Sylva Osbourne is a librarian at the Central Library in Bradenton.