HOME   News   Reviews   Adv Search   Features   My DVD   About   Apps   Stats     Search:
  Directed by
  Starring
  Specs
  • Widescreen 2.20:1
  • 16:9 Enhanced
  • Full Frame
  • Dual Layer (RSDL )
  Languages
  • English: Dolby Digital 4.1 Surround
  Subtitles
    Hebrew, Czech, Polish, Hungarian, Portuguese, English - Hearing Impaired, Icelandic, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish
  Extras
  • Theatrical trailer
  • Audio commentary - by director Robert Wise
  • Isolated music score
  • TV spot - and radio spots
  • Interviews - Julie Andrews & Robert Wise radio interview - audio only + on location interviews with key cast and crew.
  • 2 Documentaries

The Sound of Music - SE

20th Century Fox/20th Century Fox . R4 . COLOR . 175 mins . G . PAL

  Feature
Contract

A timeless classic comes to DVD; what could be more pleasing?

Click here to enlarge and send to a friend
Soft focus, slowly zoom in, let's sell the love story people.

Rodgers and Hammerstein have brought many stage shows to celluloid such as Oklahoma! and The King and I. They were the Andrew Lloyd Webber of their time and their hits still remain as popular today as they did over 5 decades ago. It's amazing that the Sound of Music was their final collaboration together. Talk about ending on the highest of high notes.

We begin on a mountain top where Maria (Julie Andrews) is enjoying time on her own and with the sound of music filling the mountains. Her love of music forces her to leave her religious life so she becomes a governess to the seven children of a widowed Austrian naval Captain (Christopher Plummer). Her adventurous spirit soon takes hold of the children and turns them into a singing septet, much to the dismay of the Captain who plans to marry the Baroness.

It is not long before the cold heart of the Captain is melted as the voice of his children singing wipes away the years of being a stern, single father. He is now torn between marrying the Baroness and a new found love for the poor governess who brought life back into his home. This combination is too much for Maria so she returns to the Abbey, leaving the children devastated. It's now up to the children to bring her back, knowing she is right for their father whilst the imminent second World War puts a dampener on what looks to be a happy ending.

DVD has entrenched itself as THE format for archiving your favorite films for personal use. It's nature is to provide exceptional video and audio with an endless amount of extras, knitted together by a menuing system that enables the viewer to reach any part of a movie or an extra with a touch of a button. A film like the Sound of Music, and many others of that epic ilk, were made for DVD allowing us to enjoy the visual and aural splender without the degredation that VHS has bestowed upon us for decades. It is here where that enjoyment stops in it's tracks, momentarily.

  Video
Contract

Click here to enlarge and send to a friend
Thunderbirds are go.
Let me start by stating that I was disappointed with the transfer and then go on to explain why. The image here suffers from a very obvious amount of edge-enhancement that produces halos around objects that are in direct contrast to the backgrounds. Right from the outset, with Maria taking a stroll through the trees, the distractions begin and it is hard not to look at the rest of the movie without spotting the effect again. Couple this with a more than normal amount of grain and you have an image that is somewhat reminiscent of what could be found on laserdisc. Don't worry, the region 1 THX certified DVD suffers from exactly the same fate. What makes it even more obvious is that the edge-enhancement actually makes the grain look even more apparent. The opening title sequence also seems to fade in and out as if it were suffering a mild case of macrovision.

Adding to this, a color palette that seems to be undersaturated and devoid of a real richness that we would normally expect from DVD. I really have to wonder just how much special effort really went into this transfer at times. Was that a bit harsh?

Ok, we started on a bad note so lets finish on a good note. The transfer is the best you're going to get for a home video medium and those of you who've only ever seen the movie on TV or VHS will be mightily impressed with this new image. The level of detail DVD has to offer helps produce an image many wouldn't have seen before with the original 2.20:1 aspect ratio and anamorphic image helping produce an excellent expanse of cinematography on the screen. But it is still not up to the standards that we are used to, even from classics released earlier than Sound of Music.

Click here to enlarge and send to a friend
If only we could all have a view like this

Let me also re-iterate that whilst the initial reaction to this transfer wasn't a great one, as the movie goes on it becomes more stable in it's look without any of the overly distracting traits exhibited above. On a CRT television the issues aren't as apparent but those of you expecting to blow it up on anything LCD equipped you're going to notice it right away, even you DVD-ROM only owners out there.

  Audio
Contract

The highlight of the Sound of Music is the music itself and this DVD does a good job of presenting it to us as the movie is encoded with a 4.1 soundtrack. Whilst dialogue is generally good, with the center channel seeming to bleed into the left and right at times, the overall front sound stage is pretty consistent to what we are used to on our VHS/TV versions.

Where the soundtrack opens up though is with the presence of the Academy Award winning musical score that Rodgers & Hammerstein are renowned for. Irwin Kostal won the Best Music oscar and rightly so as this is a magical score that always gets involvement from the audiences I've had the opportunity to view this title with. Bass response is sufficient to support the score with enough oomph, never becoming overbearing at all.

  Extras
Contract

Click here to enlarge and send to a friend
The travelling Von Trapps.
Here is what really makes this DVD worthy of a special edition title, a whole second disc full of extras to keep any and every fan happy for hours, complimenting the audio commentary on the first disc.

Disc 1 features some beautifully designed menu layouts to help navigate through the DVD. The main and only extra on this disc is an audio commentary by Director Robert Wise that is interspersed with an isolated musical score. His commentary is pretty good revealing various insights into the movies popularity and how they went about achieving that grand feel. Having the isolated track compliment his commentary is a nice change but would have been better suited if it were on it's own track and a full 5.1 mix rather than stereo.

Disc 2 is a feature laden disc that has a plethora of goodies to behold and is broken into 3 sections, Documentaries, Broadcast Promotions and Interviews and Audio Supplements. First up are the 2 documentaries; "Salzburg Sight & Sound" deals with the production of the movie, is presented by Liesl (Charmian Carr) and was recorded during the making of the film back in the 60's. "From Fact to Phenomenon" is the pick of the bunch. It runs for some 87 minutes and details every aspect of the actual Von Trapp family, the stage show and the movie itself. Interviews abound for all parties involved and the extensive footage is something that will interest even the slightest of fans out there.

Following on to the Broadcast Promotions and Interviews section. Here we have a rarity on DVD these days, radio spots and radio interviews. Back in 'those' days TV was just coming into its own with advertising and radio still seemed to be the more common household entertainment unit. To go into detail about each one would be a worthless exercise but to sum up we have 5 radio Spots, a reissue interview with Julie Andrews and Robert Wise, 5 assorted trailers of extended length and 2 TV Spots. Why were trailers so long back then?

Finally we have the Audio Supplements. On Location interviews with cast members Christopher Plummer, Julie Andrews and Peggy Wood, A Telegram from Daniel Truhitte and Ernest Lehman: Master Storyteller. In all, an astounding amount of archival promotional material is at your disposal, maybe even sparking a childhood memory for those of you who were able to experience the movie on its first release.

  Overall  
Contract

Click here to enlarge and send to a friend
Do ray me...
An excellent movie that is marred by a transfer that could have been better. That's how I think of it. I WAS expecting more than this given the information that is available on the greater Internet in regards to the effort that went in to bringing this movie to DVD. I get that funny feeling we are dealing with the same digital master that was used for the laserdisc edition. I could be wrong and if I am then we're not going to see anything better come along anytime soon as the print has degraded over time.

As a word of encouragement, this is the best it has ever looked and sounded, it's just not up to the standards we are used to for such classics on DVD.

Slightly Disappointed.


  • LINK: http://www.dvd.net.au/review.cgi?review_id=469
  • Send to a friend.

    Cast your vote here: You must enable cookies to vote.
  •   
      And I quote...
    "An excellent movie that is marred by a transfer that could have been better."
    - Steve Koukoulas
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Sony DAV-S300
    • TV:
          Hitachi CMT2979 68cm
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard Optical
    • Video Cables:
          standard s-video
      Recent Reviews:
    by Steve Koukoulas

    Star Wars: Clone Wars - Volume 1
    "... created for the Cartoon Network, made their way onto starwars.com in small quicktime versions and are now available on DVD."

    The Fifth Element - Collectors Edition
    "a truly special edition"

    Duel - Special Edition
    "Duel is easily the best bang-for-your-buck suspense car-chase, truck hounded thriller ever ... a must have for Spielberg and suspense fans."

    Dodgeball - Uncut
    "Sometimes the simplest of ideas for a movie pay off the best."

    Ultimate Matrix Collection (10 Disc Box Set)
    "If no-one can be told what the Matrix is, this Ultimate collection edition is the closest you're going to get to finding out."

      Related Links
      None listed

     

    Search for Title/Actor/Director:
    Google Web dvd.net.au
       Copyright © DVDnet. All rights reserved. Site Design by RED 5   
    rss