The Sound of Music (1965)

This is a great film, though it combines a bunch of genres, namely musical as it was classified as such. But it is also a romance and drama with underlying tones of war, without any battle scenes.
Maria (Julie Andrews, in the performance of her career) is sent to be a governess as she is just not fitting in at the convent.
We all know the story, she lets the children actually be children and with a mere song, the Captain Von Trapp (Christopher Plummer, who was young once) changes his whole attitude to how he raises them.
And eventually, after some persuading from Mother Superior (Peggy Wood), Maria returns and she marries the Captain only to have Austria taken over by the German Nazis so they must escape the country and do so by singing (almost literally), so the film has a happy ending for all.
The songs are great and while the film looks great, it was nevertheless a low-budget musical. None of the actors who portrayed the children would become big stars (probably unfortunately) and the biggest name the film had was Baroness Elsa (Eleanor Parker), and while the film lacks the big, fantastical musical numbers common in musicals, the songs are catchy and weaved well into the film, however, despite the realness of the subject and how the Nazis would punish everyone who didn't cater to their every whim, this film lacks the gritty realism of Robert Wise's other musical film, West Side Story, which was truly brilliant. The film is picturesque and devastating, and while it deals well with the tonal change, it is still a hard tonal change to take. Still, the songs are so well written, the scenery so great and Andrews so good, this film is impossible not to love. Grade: A-
Side Notes:
-One of the few funny scenes, as well as my dad's favorite scene (mine, too) is when the nuns remove parts from the cars of the Nazis allowing the Von Trapps to escape, and confessing that they have sinned.
-The song choice for Maria walking down the aisle is a rather poor one.
-Also of note, she walks down the aisle by herself, there is no one to give her away.
-It is a shame that Parker is best remembered for this role, when she had some fine performances in the 1950s, Caged, Detective Story and sang her way to another Oscar nominated in  Interrupted Melody.
-I think that Captain Von Trapp was a nationalist and pro-Austria, which is why he was so deeply offended when they merely bowed down and let Germany take over.
-The Von Trapp butler is a little worm, tattling on the family.