I watched this movie some years ago, and it's still hard to get some of the songs out of my head. "The World is a Circle" and "The Things I Will Not Miss" are two of the strongest of the musical numbers supplied by Bacharach/David, and both have choruses that will stick with you like flypaper. Unfortunately both these and the other songs are victims of very poor choreography, as pointed out by many of the other people here who have commented on the movie. Especially the Sally Kellerman song by the pond, towards the end of the movie, will make you cringe and wish she would just slip on a rock and fall in instead of moving her hips about like that. One of the all time masters of choreography, Hermes Pan (Pal Joey, My Fair Lady, Top Hat), seems to be at a total loss as what to do with the music he has been provided. It must have been way too hip and pop music-like for him at the time to fully understand and appreciate it, as this was quite late in his career and he was an old chap at the time. Most of his best movie musical efforts were made during the 30s up to the 50s. Bear in mind that most of the actors also have no or little previous musical experience (Liv Ullmann was even dubbed in the movie), and one can understand why the numbers just fall flat. Just to see the Bergman queen of angst do a Julie Andrews impression, as a happy Von Trapp dancing (or at least swing her arms) around the mountainside, is reason enough alone to check out this movie (in fact, Ullmann refuses to talk about this movie when doing interviews nowadays).
That said, this movie ain't half bad. It starts of as a promising drama about people on the run from a war ridden China, who crash land in a picturesque, mountainside utopia where time stands still. In fact, before you hear a single song almost a third of the movie has already been played out. After that the producers tried to stuff in as much music as possible, to justify the label 'musical'. A real cult classic that helped sink the musical genre. Still, there's something about it that holds your interest to the very end. For a serious interpretation of the story, watch the older Capra version instead, but if like a bit of creamy fluff on your pudding, this may very well be your dish. 'Everything depends on where your are in this circle without a beginning... lalalala'
That said, this movie ain't half bad. It starts of as a promising drama about people on the run from a war ridden China, who crash land in a picturesque, mountainside utopia where time stands still. In fact, before you hear a single song almost a third of the movie has already been played out. After that the producers tried to stuff in as much music as possible, to justify the label 'musical'. A real cult classic that helped sink the musical genre. Still, there's something about it that holds your interest to the very end. For a serious interpretation of the story, watch the older Capra version instead, but if like a bit of creamy fluff on your pudding, this may very well be your dish. 'Everything depends on where your are in this circle without a beginning... lalalala'