Like Marmite and Tony Blair’s memoirs, The Sound Of Music is something that polarises opinion.
You’re either with irascible critic Pauline Kael, who lambasted it as a “sugar-coated lie”, or it’s a sing-along classic filled with picture-postcard locations and heartlifting showtunes sung by adorable matching Tyrolean urchins. Both true, to a degree.
The chemistry is palpably electric between the wonderfully clipped Christopher Plummer, as stern patriarch Georg von Trapp, and Julie Andrews’ Maria, the busybody governess.
Famed for its chocolate-tin photography, it is rendered here so pristine, that viewing may require welding goggles. Even director Robert Wise’s über-professionalism can’t avoid self-indulgence as the film heads for the three-hour mark.
Many extras are repeated from the 40th Anniverary Edition – but everything ever said about The Sound Of Music has been hoovered up, from 1974 footage of the real Maria von Trapp teaching Julie Andrews to yodel, to a vast 1985 documentary on composers Rodgers & Hammerstein.
New add-ons include the interactive Backlot Tour, and the epic Your Favourite Things mode of trivia pop-ups, PiP commentary and interactive quizzes almost as overwhelmingly rich as the film.
