Give Me Oatmeal

You may find it hard to believe after reading this, but I really wanted to like 2023's Wonka. I went in loaded with good will, I was ready to be swept away by musical magic. But, man, oh, man. Hugh Grant was right. This movie blows.

I didn't think the trailers looked great but then I heard about how this was a surprisingly good movie and saw how word of mouth was giving it good box office numbers. Even one of my students here in Japan recommended it to me. Well, I saw it in a theatre with an entirely Japanese audience. No-one laughed. Not once.

The film opens with a few notes from "Pure Imagination". Along with original songs, it includes a couple from the 1971 movie, to which Wonka is a "spiritual prequel". I thought, okay, sure, why re-invent the wheel? I feel like Danny Elfman's Batman theme should always be Batman's theme and John Williams' Superman theme should always be Superman's theme, through good movies and bad. Why not Wonka too?

Sure the new songs can't pull their weight. We meet Wonka standing on a topmast as his ship pulls into the harbour of an unnamed fantasy city, singing weakly (because Timothee Chalamet's voice is really weak) about how he's going to make his way here. The song, like all the other new ones, feels like a vague, tuneless echo of a song from Sweeney Todd or Aladdin. We see him gradually lose his only twelve shillings and there should be a lot of tension, we should be worried about this idealistic kid, except he has a magic hat and suitcase that can basically do anything and he never seems worried.

Okay, I thought, maybe I'm just approaching this film the wrong way. Maybe there's something else I'm supposed to get invested in. I never found out what it was. I'm pretty sure the filmmakers didn't know. Every time there's a moment I think, "Oh, this is going to be a problem to overcome", it dissolves instantly. He's thrown down a chute, forced to work in a laundry room to pay his overpriced hotel bill and he's separated from his magic hat, which was left on the counter. Guess he's going to have to use his smarts to--no, wait, he has his hat again. No explanation. His magic suitcase comes and goes, too.

There's a lot of dialogue about terrible poverty and the cruel owners of other chocolate companies but it all feels so pointless. Instead of leaving the theatre delighted by the human spirit, the magic to be found in an earnest dream and the common pleasure of chocolate, I left feeling oppressed by the sense of a soulless mechanical mind, draining all sense of possibility and joy from the familiar pleasures of home and childhood. The costumes were nice, though.

Wonka is now in theatres everywhere.

X Sonnet #1804

A flash of teeth between the flames at dawn.
The passing spark of scales on lively waves.
The little tremb'ling dasher's swiftly gone.
WIth razor claws 'tis meat the dragon saves.
With bubbles popped, the week began in green.
A waiting green persists for days ahead.
Reductive kindness smacks of something mean.
So offer, then, the honest torch instead.
A vaunted choc'late harboured only air.
Extracted darkness leaves confections weak.
A beaten candle struggles up the stair.
The fourth's the last but two was truly peak.
A coat sufficed for candy starved and sad.
A tasteless meal is worse than really bad.

Back Under the Opera House

After more than a decade of delays, Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera finally hit the big screen in 2004. Directed by Joel Schumacher, it's generally considered a disappointment, which perhaps should not be surprising given the fact that Schumacher directed two of the worst Batman movies of all time. Yet it was on the strength of Lost Boys, a decent film, that Lloyd Webber originally hired Schumacher and, while certainly a flawed, inferior work, Schumacher's Phantom isn't all bad.

Gerard Butler in the role of Phantom is certainly miscast. He's charismatic and his muscular frame is attractive. I can even believe the Phantom would strive to keep himself in peak physical condition. However, Butler's singing voice lacks skill and sensitivity, which is, I think, the main reason that Raoul (Patrick Wilson) actually comes off as more appealing in the film.

Emmy Rossum can sing, though notably not as well as Sarah Brightman, but she lets her beauty do a lot of the work in her performance. I do appreciate her beauty but, having seen the role performed by actresses who were both beautiful and capable of emotional complexity, she is also somewhat of a disappointment.

Minnie Driver stands out as Carlotta because she's Minnie Driver and seems odd in the role. Maybe more perplexing is Ciaran Hinds in the role of one of the theatre managers--Hinds can't sing at all.

However, Miranda Richardson is fine in the role of Madame Giry and Jennifer Ellison is cute as Meg. I also liked the production design which keeps the wonderfully lewd opera house statuary.

If this musical is ever adapted again, I would urge a director to consider how much heavy lifting the music does and refrain from too many close-ups. Also, the Phantom ought to look worse than someone having an allergic reaction to a bee sting when his mask's removed.

The Phantom of the Opera (2004) is available on Netflix in Japan.

The Music of Another Night

Last night I watched the 25th Anniversary Royal Albert Hall production of The Phantom of the Opera, recorded in 2011. I watched part of it in 2012 and stopped because I thought Ramin Karimloo wasn't as good as Michael Crawford. I stuck it out this time and Karimloo grew on me. His Phantom seems a bit more unstable than Crawford, he seems more often on the verge of mental and emotional collapse, which I sometimes really liked. Though I still feel Crawford's singing was more complex. Sierra Boggess as Christine wisely holds nothing back in the graveyard scene and gives the character's psychological issues a great deal of weight. She helps prevent the character from feeling like a blank romance novel protagonist, like the girl in Twilight.

The suitor selection, Raoul and the Phantom, makes this a good fantasy for heterosexual women to enjoy. And I think the influences of postmodernist literature that recontextualises villains, like Grendel and Interview with the Vampire, lead it down a path to the Byronic hero and Milton's Satan. The writers must have been thinking of Milton when the Phantom finally refers to himself as an angel of Hell.

The costumes in the 25th anniversary edition are great. I particularly love Christine's costume during the Don Juan Triumphant scene (an obvious nod to Lord Byron).

It occurs to me that Frozen is the Phantom of the 2010s.

A friend from work let me borrow a DVD of the 25th anniversary production. There's currently a production going on here in Japan. It makes sense that the musical is popular here given the fact that it deals with a contrast between public and private life, between the glory of creating beautiful artifice and the bitterness of reality's limitations.

It's a lovely show in any country, though.

Twitter Sonnet #1666

A barrel bod rebuffed the spinning rag.
A waxy car ignites the candle heart.
With turtle tools we took the easy bag.
But now the mountain melts beneath the cart.
A song of trains rejected sense for thought.
Demurring lemurs love the best of times.
So cram the leafy spinach down the pot.
A normal rocket charts as Buster climbs.
The racing forties finished many days.
Again, the rodent climbed prediction's tree.
A shadow cast results in sleepy ways.
The queen demands a lighter, faster bee.
Disaster minds the stage for ghosts at night.
A grinning skull arose above the quiet fight.

When the Accordion Ruled

I was still laughing at jokes from 2022's Weird: The Al Yankovic Story this morning. As you probably guessed, it's 100% gags, not in any way an attempt at a real biopic. Which was the right decision.

There are some parallels to the life of the real "Weird Al" Yankovic, though. He really was mentored by Doctor Demento, played here by Rainn Wilson in a case of perfect casting. He was friends with Madonna, played by Evan Rachel Wood in the film, but whether they actually had a torrid affair filled with booze and marathon sex is a secret kept by the two of them to this day (my guess is, no, they didn't).

Daniel Radcliffe is great as Yankovic himself. He wisely chooses to play the role completely straight. He still has the quality of a remarkably guileless little boy that appealed to audiences in the Harry Potter movies. That sincerity pairs nicely with the absolute absurdity when he storms Pablo Escobar's compound with a machine gun to rescue Madonna.

There are many cameos throughout the film, the highest concentration of them appearing in a pool party scene in which various celebrity comedians (Conan O'Brian, Dmitri Martin, Paul F. Tompkins, Jack Black) play various '80s celebrities (Andy Warhol, Tiny Tim, Gallagher, Wolfman Jack).

Directed by Eric Appel, who co-wrote the screenplay with Yankovic, it's a funny movie. Not quite as strong as UHF but a pleasing parody of modern biopics.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is available on Roku--for free, which I didn't even know until last night or I'd have watched it a lot sooner.

Two Thieves and a Killer

At some point since the last time I tried to find one, a decent copy of 1975's Sholay was finally released. It's considered one of the greatest Bollywood movies of all time but for years I was only able to find pan-and-scan or only partially subtitled, low quality widescreen copies of the film. But now there's a big special edition, apparently based on a 3D release. It has new foley and a few cgi objects that fly at the screen but these things are relatively minimal and what we have is the purest copy of the film available for home viewing in decades. Possibly the first since the film was originally released. And it's a gas.

Two happy-go-lucky thieves, Veeru and Jai (Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan) are enlisted by a former police officer (Sanjeev Kumar) to wage war against a group of bandits led by the vile Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan). With the promise of decent pay, Veeru and Jai head off to the little town living in fear of Singh's gang.

They both get love interests in town. Jai is the serious one, so he catches the eye of a melancholy widow (Jaya Bhaduri) while Veeru, the funny one, is ensnared by the lively Basanti (Hema Malini), who is not a chatterbox at all.

All of the stars are perfectly cast and everyone has a lot of charisma.

Things become steadily more violent and the story takes some surprisingly grim turns. Basanti remains the standout character throughout, if you ask me, but Veeru and Jai are pretty good in the action sequences.

There are several nice songs but I think my favourite is this one in the bandit camp:

Harvest the Corn or Put On a Show

Farm work is important, sometimes desperate, hard work, and so is show business, as we see in 1950's Summer Stock. Gene Kelly and Judy Garland star in this musical, not one of the greatest musicals of all time but one with some very strong components.

I'm more of a Gene Kelly fan than a Judy Garland fan but I like how this movie starts with her character's point of view. She belongs to an old family, the Falburys who can trace their lineage back to the 17th century. An old man, Roy Collins, from another old family, the Wingaits, wants her to marry his timid son, Orville (Eddie Bracken). It's partly for this reason he gives her a tractor on credit when her farm is failing. Matters are complicated when her sister comes home with a theatre troupe looking to put on a show in their barn.

Gene Kelly plays the leader of the troupe. Just like Garland's character, he's in the middle of his last ditch effort to save his dreams.

The musical numbers don't quite flow smoothly with the story but some of them are great. Kelly dancing with a newspaper is a particular highlight, as is the final big number, "Get Happy". I like Garland early in the film but it was a mistake to have her perform part of her first number naked.

She was a great actress and singer but she was never sexy. She's no Kajol. However, I can't overstate how brilliant Garland's take on "Get Happy" is at the end of the film. Her legs do look terrific.

The costumes are nice. I also like this beautiful stove that makes exactly one appearance in the film.

Summer Stock is available on The Criterion Channel.

Rubble Rumble

I finally saw 2021's West Side Story last night. I think it's better than the 1961 film, primarily because Tony Kushner's screenplay cleared up many of the problems I had with the first adaptation. And, of course, Steven Spielberg's unrivalled instincts for telling a story with a camera are always a boon to a production. But this film has its own problems and, while I'd say it's not bad, it falls well short of the goal it sets for itself.

Poor Steven Spielberg seems like he's consistently failing to get himself back into the zeitgeist. His trouble is that, like a lot of the old guard in Hollywood, he spends too much time listening to younger people in Hollywood, the kinds of people who think specific bubbles of internet discourse represent the public appetites as a whole. If the U.S. public really were on the crusade Twitter makes it seem, West Side Story would be the perfect tale for our times. The story of racial tensions in lower class New York would be crucially relevant. But even the people who passionately push such dialogue aren't, I suspect, much interested in contemplating ideas in that arena as much as they are in using them as cudgels.

The misconception of public appetite diminishes the screenplay a bit, too, leading to awkward moments like dialogue early on between Tony (Anson Elgort) and Doc (Rita Moreno) in which the elderly Puerto Rican woman proclaims to him and the audience that he doesn't hate Puerto Ricans. We shouldn't need her to tell us that but those obsessed with the ever elusive phantom of internalised -isms would need that box checked.

Moreno gives a fine performance but changing Doc from an elderly Jewish man to an elderly Puerto Rican woman creates too many problems. It doesn't make sense that the Jets would use her shop as a base and it's part of the reason the attempted rape scene doesn't work.

Why would a frail old Puerto Rican woman be able to stop a gang of white guys from raping a Puerto Rican girl? The resolution of the scene in the 1961 film strained credibility, too, but the Jewish man would be more likely to be taken as a respected authority by the Jets, as much as they can respect authority. He also provided interesting perspective by comparing the Jets' problems with the ones he faced in Nazi Germany.

The whole tone of the attempted gang rape scene doesn't work, though, because I think Spielberg just didn't have the stomach for it. Anita (Ariana DeBose) too quickly and easily gets to a safe position of dignity and defiance than such a situation would allow her.

One of the improvements in the 2021 film is that the Jets have much clearer motivation. Spielberg establishes it right a way with a sweeping crane shot starting from rubble, passing over a demolition sign, and then establishing a whole neighbourhood being torn down. Anyone who thinks about the rampant gentrification in the U.S. to-day would see the relevance right away. The Jets, who shortly thereafter make their first appearance, are no longer in the bright clean colours of the 1961 film, but are dressed in dingy, greasy hand-me-downs.

You can see why they feel cut off from this world and desperate to form and defend their own community.

The romance between Tony and Maria (Rachel Zegler) works much better. Kushner irons out the nonsense in their dialogue about Maria wanting Tony to stop the rumble. She no longer demands it of him and sees his point when he says it's probably impossible. When suddenly he insists he's going to do it, they've believably worked themselves into an optimistic delusion.

I'm not a fan of Anson Elgort but Spielberg works a lot of magic with him. Spielberg clearly seems more interested in him than in Zegler. With pans and cutting, Spielberg adds to Elgort's muscularity to flattering effect when he climbs the fire escape or just leans provocatively against a wall. Spielberg seems similarly taken with Lieutenant Schrank (Corey Stoll) who might be my favourite character in the film.

Rachel Zegler never comes out of the shadow of Natalie Wood and I don't even think Natalie Wood was that great in the 1961 film. Zegler's Maria is still like a vague idea of a pretty girl. Again, the insightful poetry Shakespeare gave to the dialogue of Romeo and Juliet is sorely missed.

Ariana DeBose is sexy as Anita and her grief when she learns about Bernardo (David Alvarez) is gripping. She's not so effective in her other big scene, the attempted rape, but I actually blame Spielberg more for that.

The songs are still good. The dance choreography isn't bad.

West Side Story is available on Disney+.

Meaning Dissolves into Song

I have to admit, I've never been a fan of 1961's West Side Story. I love a lot of its components. I love several of the songs, particularly "Somewhere". I love the cast, especially Richard Beymer and Rita Moreno. I love Romeo and Juliet, the Shakespeare play on which the story's based. The trouble is, most of the three hour runtime is dominated by gang business and I never understood the gangs' motivations, something which is undercut even further by the fact that they dance half the time. I disagree with the film's interpretation of Romeo and Juliet, which I don't think is about the redemptive power of love but about the tragedy of two young people who get carried away with their feelings before they know any better. And, certainly, Shakespeare's dialogue is a lot better than Ernest Lehman's.

It's not like I don't "get" '50s American gangs. Show me The Wild One or The Outsiders and I'll be happy. Those movies make it very clear what motivates the young men, the alienation they feel from their society and their confusion manifesting in naturally aggressive instincts. We never even see any parents in West Side Story. The characters talk about them, about this or that their parents might not approve of, but we never see them to judge for ourselves just how valid these complaints are.

The Puerto Rican gang is a little more plausible than the Jets when the police detective clearly seems to be taking a side against them based on race. But it doesn't seem clear why they would fight the Jets instead of the cops, or target property owners or other people who could be seen as more directly connected with a system that shuts them out.

Tony (Beymer) and Maria (Natalie Wood) are actually a little annoying. Without Shakespeare's dialogue vividly putting you in that place of being madly in love, they just seem kind of dumb, and irritatingly so, especially when Maria insists that Tony stop the rumble. What did they really think would happen when he tried it?

The only character in the movie who really works for me is Anybodys (Susan Oakes). Her motivation is clear--she wants to be part of the gang. The obstacle between her and attaining her goal is also clear--she's a girl (biologically; she may be transgender). So when a member of the gang calls her "buddy boy" after she manages to help the Jets, there's a real sense of triumph as well as concern for her that so much of her self-worth is tied up in a doomed bunch of hoodlums.

Otherwise, I can enjoy the musical numbers and some of the sets, but mostly I spend a viewing of West Side Story waiting for it to finally end.

West Side Story (1961) is currently available on HBOMax.

Flat-Foots and Chorus Girls

What's more exciting than a big, glittery, 1930s revue? A revue with murder! 1934's Murder at the Vanities combines big production, fabulous stage numbers with the backstage menace of a serial killer. They truly are some fabulous numbers and the murder mystery is interesting but the best part of this movie is the rapport between Victor McLaglen's police lieutenant and the theatre press agent (and temporary director) played by Jack Oakie.

Murdock (McLaglen) was expecting Ellery (Oakie) to save seats for him and his girl at the new show but Ellery failed to deliver. "Just try and ask me for a favour!" says Murdock and, wouldn't know it? A dame, a private detective, no less, turns up dead in the rafters.

The drama here revolves around the the wardrobe woman (Jessie Ralph), who's secretly the mother of the show's star, Eric Lander (Carl Brisson), and also secretly a former European opera star of thirty years ago. An opera star who may already be guilty of one murder back in her home country.

No-one's sure the girl's been murdered yet so Ellery calls the police. And who shows up?

ELLERY: Ah, old Croc Head. So it's you.

MURDOCK: Yeah, me.

ELLERY: I sent to the police station and look what I get. I thought this was your night off.

MURDOCK: So it is. But I'll do anything to do an old pal a favour. Especially after all the trouble you went through for those tickets.

ELLERY: Oh, now, listen--

MURDOCK: Oh, you can't square yourself! What are we here for? Somebody disturbing your peace?

ELLERY: Not mine, somebody else's.

MURDOCK: Uh-huh.

ELLERY: Seems somebody around here's dropping sandbags on a leading lady's dome. Trying to cut her up with broken glass.

MURDOCK: Hey, boy. Go back to your bootleg. This legal stuff ain't agreeing with you.

ELLERY: Listen, Mallet Head, we got comedians in this show, they get paid to be funny.

MURDOCK: Hey, what do you want me to do? Make a pinch for, for . . .

Several scantily clad chorus girls walk by

ELLERY: Judas H. Priest, thirty thousand cops in New York, I gotta pick out a big. flat-footed Romeo like you. Why don't you take your lamps off those dames and do a little police work, huh?

MURDOCK: This is police work. Them babies look like they got clues or somethin'.

ELLERY: Oh, be serious, will you, Bill? Somebody around here's committing merry mayhem, maybe murder, why don't you kind of peep around a little, huh?

MURDOCK: Sure, I'll peek around. Now there's a baby over there that looks suspicious! And oughta be followed!

ELLERY: Don't get too close to her, she'll mistake you for King Kong!

King Kong came out the previous year so that's some timely humour.

The film's romantic leads, including Kitty Carlisle, are kind of dull but the musical numbers are great thanks to those same pre-Code chorus girls Murdock was making eyes at. The movie's maybe best known now for the song about marijuana. The movie came out a few years before marijuana was made illegal throughout the U.S. It's not a bad song but there's a much better performance from Duke Ellington later in the film. However, by far, the best number is a desert island set up where the sea is simulated by great big feather fans in the hands of chorus girls.

There's no clip on YouTube (and I don't have time to get one myself) and screenshots just don't cut it. So I highly recommend checking the movie out yourself. It's on The Criterion Channel on the pre-Code playlist.

Research is for Landlubbers

16th century naval warfare was hard enough. Imagine if 18th century Portuguese infantry were thrown in! Well, you don't have to because 2021's Marakkar: Lion of the Arabian Sea (മരക്കാർ അറബിക്കടലിന്റെ സിംഹം) presents just such a scenario. It's not a sci-fi film, it seems just to be very poorly researched, despite being the most expensive Malayalam movie ever made. The plot is ridiculous melodrama and the lead has no business weakly swinging a sword through an action sequence. But it's kind of a delight.

Reportedly based very loosely on the story of bandit-turned-admiral-turned-bandit-again, Kunjali Marakkar IV, it shows the man's hopeful youth, where he's played by Pranav Mohanlal, and the tragic events that forever embitter him to the Portuguese. When his country allies with Portugal, he becomes a Robin Hood figure, a folk hero who robs from the the empowered and somehow stands up for the little guy.

Now played by Mohanlal, who leisurely ambles through through the role henceforth, he's made an admiral when Portugal becomes the country's enemy. The ensuing naval battle has cgi on the level of a video game in which Portuguese ships vaguely resembling late 16th century galleons are manned by Napoleonic soldiers, most of whom are played by Indian actors speaking English.

It's still not as bad as later in the film when Kunjali is beset by Portuguese peasants wearing crisp white shirts and 20th century clip-on suspenders.

The best part of the film is a rather brief episode presenting the doomed romance between Kunjali's Chinese subordinate, Chinnali (Jay J. Jakkrit), and the daughter of a noble family, Aarcha (Keerthy Suresh). One of the better musical numbers is her duet with Chinnali with different string instruments.

The Indian characters have slightly more historically accurate costumes and, in any case, they're stunningly opulent as always for Bollywood.

Marakkar: Lion of the Arabian Sea is available on Amazon Prime.

How to Build a Shop

I was finally able to show Little Shop of Horrors to students yesterday. Seven students showed up for it. One girl enthusiastically liked it, two others thought it was too scary, and another girl said it was "interesting." I didn't get comments from the remaining two. We watched only an hour of the film--the after school screenings were scheduled for about an hour--and third year students (fifteen years old) are scheduled for a school trip next week and, since most of the students who showed up were third year students, I probably won't be showing the end. I'm kind of happy about that because I've decided I really don't like either of the film's endings.

So I think this is one of those rare instances where a test audience was right and the ending where Seymour and Audrey get eaten by the plant really doesn't work. The problem is that the story misunderstands itself. It thinks the audience is along for the ride for irony but they're really along for the ride because they care about Seymour and Audrey. That doesn't seem like it should be a big revelation. How couldn't it be clear from how Seymour is set up in "Skid Row (Downtown)" or how Audrey's sad dream is shared in "Somewhere That's Green"? Yet the story bets that you will be laughing at Audrey more than you'll be feeling sorry for her when she reprises "Somewhere That's Green" before she's eaten by the green monster.

Yet the happy ending also doesn't really work. Seymour electrocuting the plant and then he and Audrey walking off onto the set of Audrey's dream sequence feel insubstantial after the themes the film's set up about inescapable poverty and moral choices. The unhappy ending brings to conclusion the ongoing idea of the American dream being fundamentally wicked. Having a stroke of luck and making money must, inevitably, land you in Hell if you follow the path to the end of the line.

I can enjoy an unhappy ending, even an ending where characters I like meet untimely deaths. But not when it happens in order to serve a wobbly political ideology.

So I've been thinking this past week--what would be a good ending for Little Shop of Horrors? I think it would be one in which Seymour keeps the plant alive and manages to find more success with it without killing people. Maybe he's able to harvest a fruit from it that cures a disease or maybe he just starts feeding it cows and keeps it locked in a cage. The story's themes would be fulfilled by the acknowledging the fact that the power that comes with success can be dangerous but can be turned into something positive by the individual asserting control based on his principles. This possibility doesn't exist in the current film's underlying philosophy. There are innocent victims and there are corrupt tyrants, the film allows for no real third possibility and I think we all, instinctively, know this is a lie and we resent Audrey and Seymour being killed in service to this lie.

This is why Alan Menken and Howard Ashman were so much better off working for Disney. You could say that by taking money from the growing monster, they were living the ending they denied to audiences with Little Shop of Horrors.

The Hills are Still Alive

If you can watch 1965's The Sound of Music without wanting to visit Salzburg you might be made of stone. Or maybe you live in Salzburg. Anyway, it's hard to imagine a lovelier blend of great locations with great cinematography. The songs and performances certainly don't hurt, either.

I like to ask the kids at the junior high schools where I work what movies they've watched lately. Since network television is still dominant in Japan, often many of the kids have watched the same thing. One channel has a regular Friday night movie--imagine my surprise when last week it was The Sound of Music the kids were talking about.

Just let that sink in. The kids at the junior high were all abuzz about The Sound of Music. From 1965. Because most of them saw it on TV. I felt a little weak in the knees. Have I mentioned lately how much I love this country?

Streaming is gaining ground here and I think a lot of them saw it because it's also on Disney+ worldwide. That's how I watched it (I still don't own a TV). I don't remember the image being so crisp and beautiful--I must not have ever seen the 2010 restoration. My god, those mountains, those streets and buildings. The interiors, too, are amazing, many of them also filmed in Salzburg, including this absurdly ornate ballroom.

This was clearly built in a time when rich people had taste.

The scenes filmed in studio also benefited from Ted D. McCord's cinematography. I love the lush, saturated lighting in the gazebo scenes, mixed with nuanced shadows deftly enough to avoid it looking like a Star Trek set. It looks unreal, like a delirious dream.

And the songs, of course. I love the oddly anxious quality of "My Favourite Things". Even a fairly sappy song like "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" works because McCord and director Robert Wise decided to drench the Mother Abbess in darkness.

Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer are both fantastic though I find myself liking the Baroness played by Eleanor Parker more than Maria. Maybe if Maria were played by someone younger than Andrews I could feel benevolent to her petulance but as it is the suffering of the Baroness along with the complexity of her grace and understanding make her seem a fitter mate for Captain Von Trapp. But I can't knock Andrews' singing voice.

The Sound of Music is available on Disney+.