Reviews

Most fans give this 10/10 on the basis of nostalgia alone, without any careful analysis of the film's merits and demerits. It is neither a faithful reproduction of the spectacular original musical, like 1964's "My Fair Lady" was, nor does it transcend the stage musical for it replaces 3 amazing songs by Rodgers & Hammerstein with 2 inferior songs by Rodgers (and Saul Chaplin), totally diminishing the pivotal supporting characters Baroness Elsa Schraeder and Max in the process (it is these characters who provide a realistic middle-ground between the piety and optimism of Maria, the nuns and the kids on the one hand, and the atrocity of the Nazis on the other hand).

It is a testament to Eleanor Parker's star power alone that she could make such an impact in a musical without singing or even lip-synching a single note, and that she was able to rise above the fact that the screenwriter weakened the complex, nuanced, multifaceted stage version of the Baroness, reducing Elsa to a third rate soap opera villainess. Had the Baroness been played by someone like Joan Collins, the result would have been totally trashy, due to the dumbed-down screenplay.

And now for the leads! I saw Plummer live in Los Angeles when he did his one man show about a decade ago - brilliant raconteur, but Julie Andrews was an even better raconteuse when SHE did a Q&A in L. A (about 5 years ago). Plummer's performance as Von Trapp is one of the finest performances in film history - I think he and Eleanor Parker are what make the film so priceless in the last analysis. Maybe like Julie said, his cynicism actually HELPED him because his overly enthusiastic screen performance as Hamlet - around the same time - was *INSUFFERABLY HAMMY*. I could not believe that Plummer who was so subtle and real and prefect as Captain von Trapp would play Hamlet like a SCHOOLBOY BUFFOON.

Julie Andrews is definitely the more mature professional of the two, and of course she had the voice of a century, but I much prefer Mary Martin's more soulful and contemplative version of "The Sound of Music" title song - and although Andrews' acting was brilliant in the first two thirds of the film, I feel like she REALLY SUFFERS in the last third of the narrative......Robert Wise seemed to have suddenly stopped directing her and focused all his attention on Plummer at that point, it seems (which is a flaw in the film version overall; Maria is suddenly completely sidelined after marrying the Captain, even though she had driven the narrative up until then).

Overall, I have much more regard for Andrews as an artist, but I don't think THE SOUND OF MUSIC was her finest showcase as a singer-actress overall. It was 75% there at most. I think her finest film/performance overall was "STAR!" which was made a few years later, even though it didn't do well at all in the box office - probably because the character was so radically different from Mary Poppins and Maria von Trapp - but I do think Plummer in "The Sound of Music" gave one of the best Leading Man turns in film history.

Robert Wise and the production team clearly wanted to present the film as a "modern European fairytale", relying on wonderful and evocative cinematography to compensate for a problematic script and lopsided characterizations!

Many cinema enthusiasts who are visually driven above all tend to overlook all kinds of flaws as long as a film LOOKS GOOD - and of course Robert Wise is no David Lean even on that front, although I think Wise did a much better job visually speaking with "Helen of Troy" nearly a decade ago. This film can't seem to decide whether it wants to be a documentary style travelogue of Salzburg, or a typical 1960s soap opera, or a paint-by-numbers song list.

The reason I'm giving it 7 stars out of 10 is because the talent involved is ultimately strong enough to make the final result genuinely memorable. This is a musical that works better on stage for me, where the focus can be squarely on the psychology and interior lives of the characters, without the director feeling compelled to broaden the visual scope at every turn (which often happens at the expense of the characters in this adaptation!!). Maria von Trapp is supposed to be a soulful heroine, which really comes through in every good stage production, but here it sometimes just comes across as "good old Julie Andrews" simply singing and doing her thing, submerged by the mountains and the director's desire to go toe to toe with David Lean.

The character of Brigitta is also woefully butchered, diminished and stunted here, which totally dilutes the impact of the children on the narrative - whereas in the stage version, Brigitta first calls out Maria on some lapses of logic during her DO-RE-MI singing lesson (a lapse of logic which is completely ignored in this film), while later on during the party sequence, it is BRIGITTA who originally pointed out the fact that Maria is falling in love with the Captain.

The ending of the narrative is also ruined here by a pivotal character turning out to be a TRAITOR rather than a HERO as in the stage version - thereby making it easier for another character to "move on" from the traitor, rather than have to sacrifice the more heroic version of the same character (which would have made the ending much more bittersweet and touching, versus a stereotypical GOOD VERSUS EVIL ending as provided here).

I could go on and on, but I do think the film is ULTIMATELY OVERRATED. Robert Wise knows how to appeal to the lowest common denominator, but he is always hit-or-miss when it comes to appealing to more discerning and sophisticated people.

I have to preface the review by saying that I have been a very big Garbo fan ever since I saw her in ANNA KARENINA in which she gives one of the finest and most gripping performances ever captured onscreen. In certain films like GRAND HOTEL she veers too much towards an artificial and contrived style of acting, when she plays certain types of characters like the ballerina there (overdoing and overstating the "prima donna" aspect), but still overall I have always included her in my Top 10 list of Classic Hollywood Actresses.

In this film however - the very first she made in America - she is QUITE DISAPPOINTING on the whole, and no her "beauty" alone cannot save her AT ALL here despite what some apparently think. Her facial expressions are sometimes really bizarre, and as the story progresses, she keeps "breaking out" into the SAME quasi-disdainful, quasi-sardonic kind of LAUGH (during her scenes with one particular central character) which becomes SO REPETITIVE AND INSINCERE as to seem both *AMATEURISH* and *BORING*. Surely either she or the director Monta Bell could have come up with different ways to convey her psychological reactions in all those scenes. It might have worked if this was a farcical kind of comedy PERHAPS, but it is NOT that kind of film.

It is also painfully obvious that she is not really singing AT ALL, especially towards the very beginning, but merely moving her lips with ZERO engagement of her body (which is a vital plot point here considering the fact that her character has operatic aspirations). This was a silent film, so she could have just sung something for real, without worrying about what it would "sound" like. Even Audrey Hepburn looks like she's really singing in MY FAIR LADY, and had clearly observed Marni Nixon closely for some physical verisimilitude.

In fact, for much of the film, Garbo looks like she is JUST FAKING IT. There are of course a few scenes where we see glimpses of what would become a terrific actress IN THE YEARS TO COME, but overall she is shockingly GREEN AND RAW and kind of wrong here. Her hand movements look almost laughable in a few scenes that are supposed to be emotionally climactic, completely undercutting the pathos or poignancy meant to be conveyed in those moments. And in the scenes where she keeps laughing that fake He-Man and Skeletor type of laugh from the old Filmation animations, her character comes across as VERY UNLIKEABLE and UNSYMPATHETIC - to the point where the character that we are SUPPOSED to be against emerges in a much more sympathetic and genuinely human light.

I know Garbo was not exactly a very "human" kind of star/actress, but what we see here is not a Sphinx but rather someone who seems almost MISCAST! I swear that Joan Crawford could have done a vastly better job here, or even Norma Shearer for that matter......Constance Bennett, or most other stars-in-the-making that MGM had. Once again, Garbo's mere "look" CANNOT salvage an epic story like this. I wanted so much to fall in love with her from the time she first appeared onscreen as a peasant girl praying in the garden, but she kept making it ever more difficult. I don't want to give away any spoilers, but by the end of it all, I thought she DESERVED her emotional fate (because of the way she played the role) although that's arguably not what the audience is supposed to feel.

By stark contrast, in ANNA KARENINA almost a decade later, she MADE my heart go out to her even though she was playing a selfish adultereress who walked out on her son. I guess she really really needed TIME and a more genius type of director to bring out the kind of performances that would make her an enduring legend.

All this being said, the REST of the cast is PRACTICALLY PITCH PERFECT!!!!! Everyone else is 1000% committed to their characters, and brings out all the psychological and emotional dimensions of their roles to such a degree that Garbo looks like they cast her ONLY for the way she "looked" and not for any acting capabilities she had at the time. The actress who plays Dona Bernarda acts with a superlative degree of NATURALISM for instance, which makes you feel like you're watching something made decades into the future!!!!! That's just one example. The entire supporting cast WORKS WONDERS to make the story come to life and make you believe the illusion that this is really a Spanish village and not just an MGM production!!

The special effects and the torrent sequence are also *ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT*. I imagine it must have struck the 1926 audience as the TITANIC OF ITS TIME.

Hats off to MGM who did not always do this kind of film.......it really does hold up even a century later EVEN THOUGH the leading lady here shockingly turned out to be the WEAK LINK. I don't blindly "worship" any star, however much I may like and admire them overall, and so I will repeat that Garbo is A DISAPPOINTMENT here as an actress. Doesn't matter what she looked like. I don't watch films to see models on display after all!

But it's a MUST SEE film for all classic film buffs. I had to deduct 4 stars for Garbo's performance but it's a REALLY SOLID film in and of itself.......if it was made today it would doubtless be 2 hours or even 2 and a half hours long because of the story's SHEER SCOPE, but for a silent film, it leaves you wanting more which is actually a good thing. Most silent films of the time spanned 60-70 minutes, and even though this is 90 minutes long, it really does leave you yearning for more story. :) It will make you think a lot about the decisions human beings make, and the way we navigate through the vicissitudes of life.

First of all, I did not grow up watching or even being familiar with Strawberry Shortcake, so this review is 100% objective. I watched this TV special for the very first time last night, at the age of 34, and was absolutely blown away by how marvellously it still holds up. There is nothing the least bit forced or strained about the innocence and cuteness and wholesomeness of the title character and her friends - it is all very genuinely and purely presented, which cannot be said for the crassly commercial Rainbow Brite franchise from the 80s (which was an attempt to ride on the coat-tails of Strawberry Shortcake). I was also very surprised at how exceedingly eerie and creepy the Peculiar Pie Man was - a far cry from many of the generic cartoon villains of that era, and also a villain who fits most organically into THE WORLD OF STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE while still instilling a legitimate sense of menace and dread in the hearts of children. I love how it's the supernatural forces of goodness that take on physically "monstrous" forms here to help the heroine and her ensemble, while the villain's monstrousness is essentially internal - children are reminded that looks can be deceiving, which is a lesson that resonates all the more in our current age of fake social media. The MISE-EN-SCENE is absolutely exquisite here, with an ambience that evokes the traditional nursery rhyme landscape that children are (or at least used to be) familiar with, while ingeniously incorporating American Greetings' own innovations. There is a very authentic, home-grown sensibility to this franchise, in its original form, which again stands in stark contrast with the blatantly manufactured nature of Rainbrow Brite.

I am shocked at how there are no other positive reviews here - I would have expected a more loyal fanbase for Strawberry Shortcake, but I suppose the world has unfortunately grown so horribly cynical that the majority of people cannot appreciate the innocence and charm and 'old world' values which are encapsulated and represented here. My heart genuinely went out for Strawberry Shortcake and her friends when the Peculiar Pie Man tricked them and victimized them, and the resolution of the terrible conflict was emotionally satisfying. Yes, this may be a whimsical world at the end of the day, but the characters themselves ring true - with palpable hearts and souls. It does not feel like merchandise being shoved down children's throat.