70 Fun Facts About The Sound of Music

Who produced and directed the 1965 film?

He was busy prepping The Sand Pebbles when first asked, and only came aboard in October 1963 after that film was postponed.

Who played Maria in the 1965 film?

She admitted she thought the stage show 'rather saccharine' before she was cast, and signed for the film before Mary Poppins was even released.

Which film did the movie overtake in November 1966 to become the highest-grossing ever?

The record it broke had stood for twenty-four years, and it kept the crown for five more before losing it in turn.

How many Academy Awards did the film win?

It shared the night's tally with Doctor Zhivago, which also went ten-for-five, and it took Best Picture without even a screenwriting nomination.

Which unreleased film did the director watch a few minutes of before deciding to sign his Maria?

Wise reportedly turned to Lehman and said, 'Let's go sign this girl before somebody else sees this film and grabs her!'

Who wrote the screenplay, moving 'Do-Re-Mi' out of the living room and into a tour of Salzburg?

He had already adapted West Side Story for Wise, and he found the Felsenreitschule on a scouting trip and wrote it in as the festival venue.

Whose voice is actually heard when the Captain sings in the film?

The actor recorded the songs himself, and his original vocals finally surfaced on the 2023 Super Deluxe soundtrack.

What nickname did the film's Captain later use for the movie he found so 'gooey'?

He skipped the 40th anniversary reunion but still recorded a commentary for the 2005 DVD, and said the only pleasant part was working with his co-star.

Which veteran director agreed to helm the film first, despite saying he hated the stage show?

He was eased out when his agent asked to delay production so he could shoot The Collector instead, and Fox simply moved on without him.

Which stage song did 'Something Good' replace in the film?

Rodgers admitted he and Hammerstein had already talked about swapping it out, but Hammerstein was too ill to write a replacement.

During which song does the real Maria von Trapp make her uncredited cameo?

She walks past an archway with her daughter Rosmarie and a granddaughter, at the line 'I must stop these doubts, all these worries'.

Which famous dubbing singer was cast on screen as Sister Sophia?

It was her first on-screen appearance after years of ghost-singing for stars, and Wise noted audiences could finally see the woman whose voice they knew.

Where were the film's wedding scenes shot?

It was the first Salzburg-area location shot, on April 23, 1964, right after the company flew in from Los Angeles.

Where is the gazebo from the film now located?

It was moved twice, and the interior scenes for the two gazebo songs were actually shot on a larger set at Fox in Hollywood.

How did the director get Salzburg's leaders to permit swastika banners in the streets?

The film's Nazi content stayed a sore point in the region, and it ran only three days in Salzburg cinemas.

The closing hike over the mountains was filmed near which German town?

The real family would never have walked to Switzerland, which is over two hundred miles from Salzburg; the shot is within sight of Hitler's Eagle's Nest.

Which future star was among the child actors auditioned but not chosen?

The Osmonds, Mia Farrow and Patty Duke were also seen during more than two hundred interviews across the US and England.

How old was the actress playing Liesl when 'Sixteen Going on Seventeen' was filmed?

She was a part-time model with no acting ambitions when a friend mailed her photo to the director's office.

Which cast member pulled Gretl's actress from the water when the rowboat capsized?

The rescuer, who played Louisa, was then vomited on by the five-year-old, who had swallowed a lot of lake.

Which was the last role cast for the film?

The actor married Liesl's understudy two years later, then joined the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War.

Whose singing voice was dubbed by Margery MacKay?

The Mother Abbess's actress felt the lyrics of her big number were 'pretentious' and could no longer reach its high notes.

How many minutes long was the theatrical release of the film?

NBC's annual broadcasts hacked about half an hour out of it to fit a three-hour slot; the BBC, with no adverts, ran it whole.

Which network paid $15 million for the film's first US television broadcast in 1976?

It drew a 49% audience share, one of the twenty highest-rated films ever shown on television at that point.

The BBC has identified the film as part of its programming for which scenario?

The corporation paid a then-record $4.1 million for the rights and first showed it on Christmas Day 1978.

What did a Fox branch manager in Munich cut from the film without authorization?

Everything after the wedding vanished, including the Anschluss; Wise and the studio restored the film and the manager was fired.

Which was the promotional tagline chosen for the film?

Publicist Mike Kaplan picked it after reading the script, and the poster art was a Howard Terpning painting of Maria on an alpine meadow.

Which pop song of 2019 interpolates the melody of 'My Favorite Things'?

The winter imagery of the original also made it a Christmas staple, despite the musical having nothing to do with the holidays.

Which jazz musician turned 'My Favorite Things' into a standard with a 14-minute 1960 recording?

It became a signature piece in his concerts and appears in the Real Book, the jazz musician's fake-book bible.

In 'Do-Re-Mi', which syllable is 'a drink with jam and bread'?

The children's bell-ringer sequence was worked out in rehearsal by arranger Trude Rittmann and choreographer Joe Layton, not by Rodgers.

Which traditional Austrian dance do Maria and the Captain share at the party?

The film's choreography followed the folk dance strictly, though the stage version's is only loosely based on it.

Which song was the last lyric Oscar Hammerstein II ever wrote?

It was added during the Boston tryout as a farewell to Austria for the Captain, and many people still assume it is a genuine folk song.

Which singer recorded the title song a week before the show opened, hoping to drum up attention?

Her single debuted at No. 99 on the Hot 100 on the very day the musical opened on Broadway.

Who created the role of Maria in the original 1959 Broadway production?

The show was conceived as a vehicle for her by director Vincent Donehue, and her husband Richard Halliday co-produced it.

Which folk-singing actor originated Captain von Trapp on Broadway?

Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote him a guitar number once they realised he was a folksinger, but he still hated playing the same part night after night.

With which show did the musical tie for the 1960 Tony Award for Best Musical?

The entire children's cast was nominated for Best Featured Actress as a single nominee, even though two of them were boys.

How many performances did the original Broadway run last?

The London production at the Palace Theatre outlasted it handily, running 2,385 performances from 1961.

Which future Oscar winner played Rolf as a Broadway replacement in 1961-62?

He married his co-star Lauri Peters, the original Liesl.

The Broadway musical was directly inspired by a 1956 film about the family made in which country?

That film and its sequel remain the authoritative version of the story in German-speaking Europe, which partly explains the Hollywood version's flop there.

What surname did the stage show give Maria instead of her real one, Kutschera?

The children's names and ages were changed too, partly because the real third child was also called Maria.

Which singer starred in the 1981 West End revival that the real Maria called 'the best' Maria ever?

She worried that at 49 she was too old for the part, then extended her six-month contract to thirteen months and set a British attendance record.

Who won the TV talent search that cast the 2006 London Palladium Maria?

The show was mounted only after negotiations with Scarlett Johansson for the role fell through.

What did the real Georg von Trapp command in the First World War?

He was Austria-Hungary's most successful commander in that arm, sinking eleven merchant ships and two warships.

Why was the real Maria originally sent from the abbey to the von Trapp household?

The pupil, Maria Franziska, later described her stepmother as moody and prone to rages, and her father as a doting parent, the reverse of the film.

In which year did the real Maria and Georg marry?

She wrote that she was angry at God and at her new husband on her wedding day, because she had wanted to be a nun.

How did the real family actually leave Austria in 1938?

They were entitled to Italian citizenship because Georg had been born in a Dalmatian city annexed by Italy after the First World War.

Georg von Trapp's birthplace, Zara, lies in which present-day country?

It was then a crown land of Austria-Hungary; his father died of typhoid when he was four.

What did the Nazis do with the family's abandoned Salzburg villa?

The house at Traunstrasse 34 in Aigen was comfortable but nowhere near as grand as the mansion in the film.

What wiped out most of the family's fortune in 1935?

Georg had moved his savings from London to a bank run by a friend, and when it failed the family took in boarders and started singing for money.

In which US state did the family settle and open their lodge?

They bought a 660-acre farm in 1942 and named it Cor Unum, Latin for One Heart.

What was the singing group called before their booking agent judged the name too 'churchy'?

Frederick Schang also Americanized their repertoire, which had leaned on madrigals and sacred music.

Where did Maria and three of her children go as missionaries after the singing group disbanded in 1957?

She returned in 1965 to run the family lodge, reluctantly handing it over to her youngest son Johannes.

What happened to the family lodge on December 20, 1980?

Forty-five people including the elderly Baroness fled in their nightclothes; a 73-room Austrian-style lodge replaced it in 1983.

What did the family lodge start producing in 2010?

Von Trapp Brewing now turns out about 60,000 US gallons a year of German- and Austrian-style lagers.

What did Georg use to baptize his first seven children?

He bought seven bottles of it as a naval cadet visiting the Holy Land, decades before any of the children were born.

How many children did Georg von Trapp have in total?

The last of the original seven, Maria Franziska, died in 2014 aged 99.

The Sing-a-long screenings that became a worldwide craze first appeared in 1999 at what London event?

It moved to the Prince Charles Cinema, where audiences in nun and von Trapp costumes were still turning up nearly twenty years later.

Who played Maria in NBC's live 2013 television production?

The film's original Maria personally endorsed the casting at the star's request; critics praised the singing and panned the acting.

Who played the head of Nonnberg Abbey in the 2013 NBC live broadcast?

Laura Benanti, the Elsa of that broadcast, had herself played Maria on Broadway in the 1998 revival.

Which actress did the real von Trapp family say they would have preferred as the 2013 live TV Maria?

Despite the mixed notices, 18.62 million viewers watched, NBC's biggest Thursday entertainment audience since the Frasier finale.

The film is one of a select few Western movies permitted in which country?

When Slovenian band Laibach became the first Western group to play there in 2015, they performed songs from it.

For how long did the film run in Salzburg's cinemas on its original release?

Locals sniffed that it 'wasn't authentic', yet by 2007 it was drawing 300,000 tourists a year, more than Mozart's birthplace.

Which studio bought the US rights in 1956 intending to star Audrey Hepburn as Maria?

The studio dropped its option, but one of its directors proposed the story as a Broadway vehicle instead.

At which New York venue did the film premiere on March 2, 1965?

New York's intellectual critics savaged it, with Pauline Kael calling it 'the sugar-coated lie people seem to want to eat'.

Which critic dismissed the 1965 film as 'the sugar-coated lie people seem to want to eat'?

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times was also unimpressed, calling it 'icky sticky'.

Which of these actors was considered for Captain von Trapp before Christopher Plummer accepted?

Bing Crosby, Yul Brynner and Richard Burton were also in the frame; Plummer turned the part down several times.

Julie Andrews signed with Fox for the film and one other picture for how much?

She signed only after being assured the director shared her concerns about excess sentimentality.

The 1965 soundtrack album has sold roughly how many copies worldwide?

In 2015 Billboard ranked it the second greatest album of all time.

The original stage musical opened on 16 November 1959 at which New York theatre?

Rodgers and Hammerstein had asked producers to wait until they finished Flower Drum Song; they agreed to wait as long as needed.

Cinematographer Ted McCord shot the film in which widescreen process?

Sound was recorded on 70 mm six-track; aerial shots used an MCS-70 camera.

Which 'name' actress was cast as Baroness Elsa Schraeder because the two leads were little known to film audiences?

Richard Haydn was chosen as Max Detweiler after Victor Borge, Noël Coward and Hal Holbrook were considered.