Why 'The Sound of Music' sings on and on

Any creative or performing artist, if honest, will tell you there's no trickier task than making people happy. This is why, 50 years after its release, the movie The Sound of Music remains a singular achievement in American pop culture.

It's worth remembering that the most successful film adaptation of a Broadway musical arrived in 1965, when this country was on the brink of cultural revolution; and it brought joy to millions with a tale set in a foreign land, in a much darker era. While less politically pointed than the original stage version, the movie retained most of Rodgers and Hammerstein's transcendent score (with a couple of new songs added).

It also gave us something no previous incarnation of the show had: Julie Andrews, in one of the most graceful, lovable screen performances of all time.

In The Sound of Music Story, these factors are acknowledged — alongside many more specific factoids.

Author Tom Santopietro, whose previous books include The Importance of Being Barbra and Considering Doris Day, has served as a stage and company manager on Broadway for more than 30 years, and clearly has a fondness for detail. His book, as its exhaustive subtitle suggests, includes accounts of the real-life Maria Von Trapp and her family, whose journey from Austria to Hollywood glory was not without rough patches.

The musical's own often rocky path to the screen is extensively documented, from pre-existing studio problems to the search for the right cast. Doris Day and the retired Grace Kelly were among those considered for Maria — played in the original Broadway production by Mary Martin — while Rex Harrison and Sean Connery were proposed for Captain Von Trapp before that part went to a then-little-known stage actor named Christopher Plummer. (Plummer's initial wariness of the film, which he now remembers fondly, is recalled in his own self-deprecating quips, and accounts of him "swearing and fuming" and taking refuge at his hotel bar.)

Santopietro also traces the various players' progress after the film. We learn, among other things, that Charmian Carr, the radiant young actress who played Liesl, worked for Michael Jackson as a decorator, "growing close" to the late superstar "until a falling out over Jackson's never-ending plastic surgeries."

The Sound of Music Story is far more compelling when Santopietro focuses on the aspects that make the film itself enduring — particularly Andrews' presence, and her gift for "using her voice not just to comfort, but to tease, cajole, make happy, and set free."

That's something bigger than raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.

The Sound of Music Story: How A Beguiling Young Novice, A Handsome Austrian Captain, and Ten Singing Von Trapp Children Inspired the Most- Loved Film of All Time

By Tom Santopietro

St. Martin's Press, 324 pp.

3 stars out of four