The Hills Are Always Alive with Julie Andrews/Maria Von Trapp!

Last night when my daughter finally fell asleep (almost 10!) I settled in with my knitting and the remote. I flipped past the game show that was being replayed in place of the Minnesota Vikings vs Philadelphia Eagles football game, past Extra Super Lockdown and the Real Houswives of Beverly Hills, and then I found it. On the screen stood a group of very fresh faced children and young teenagers standing on a patio looking glum.

“Remember what Fraulein Maria said to do when we’re sad….”

Oh, Liesl! 

They all start singing: “Raindrops on roses,” they began tentatively, “and whiskers on kittens….” Soon that voice joined in and there was Maria, I mean Maria Von Trapp, I mean Mary Poppins, I mean Julie Andrews looking young and fresh and sweet and all I could think was, “Oh, The Sound of Music! Oh, look at Julie Andrews, she just lost her husband…”

But before I could get too sad about Blake Edwards, there was Christopher Plummer without his stiff upper lip, without any upper lip at all, as a matter of fact, and then there emerged  the Baroness engaged to Von Trapp, looking more blond and womanly and slightly sinister than I even remembered.

I sighed again and wondered when I should show the Sound of Music to my kids. Of course when I was a child the only time to watch it was right after Christmas when it was always on, and to watch the whole thing I had to be old enough to stay up past 8, which at 6, I’m sure I wasn’t because my kids really aren’t, even if my daughter was up until nearly 10. Anyway, I don’t want to encourage that sort of late bedtime thing by letting her stay up to watch a movie on TV with commercials.  Because the Sound of Music is a marvelous movie, but having been completely spoiled by Netflix, which now can stream from computer to TV with a device called Roku, and Movies on Demand, watching a marvelous movie with commercials is almost unbearable. In fact, I decided not to watch the whole thing (“So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu….”) and instead to have a conversation with my husband partly because it’s nice to chat with my husband, but partly because of the commercials.

And yet, to be flipping through the channels with no goal in mind and to see the Sound of Music cast, the whole von Trapp family, Julie Andrews, Christopher Plumber, all of them, it’s like stumbling into a lovely neighborhood I remembered but hadn’t been to in such a long time — a year in fact.  Of course, with the Nazis and all, I’m just nostalgic about the movie version, but you know what I mean.

So my kids will watch The Sound of Music sometime in the next few years, but they won’t know the magic of only being able to watch it once all year.

Do you love the Sound of Music?

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