Huge plot hole in The Sound of Music

WOW talk about nit-picking maria is just surprised by the toad in her pocket and though edelweiss grows wild in Austria it is also grown in gardens and around ones property

These are character inconsistencies, not plot holes.

Thank you OP. These are the threads which give LIFE to this increasingly unwitty and sad site.

Speaking of huge holes...

Those are minor. The play was not performed in Austria for decades, not because of the Nazi element, but because it gets so much of Austrian culture just plain wrong. It wasn't performed until the R&H allowed changes. Some of the major ones are, Austria does not use Do-Re-Mi (Solfeggio), they use 1,2,3. Schnitzel is NEVER served with noodles/spätzel. It is served with roast potatoes. And yes, the use of eidelweiss flowers. One of the major issues was that the choir director was a well know and well loved person in Austria. The character of Max would be the equivalent of doing an allegedly historical play and portraying Laurence Welk in the same way as Max.

R5 There's another huge goof in this movie that I'm sure the Austrians don't mind very much - this film portrays them as very anti-nazi, while very few Austrians were against the Anschluss in real life.

Here's a funny piece of trivia about filming the Anschluss scene in TSOM:

[quote] As part of his research for the film, William Wyler met with the real Maria von Trapp and the mayor of Salzburg. Wyler was concerned that the local residents would be alarmed at seeing their buildings draped with Nazi flags and seeing stormtroopers in the streets only 25 years after the real thing had taken place. The mayor assured him that the residents had managed to live through the Anschluss the first time and would survive it again. Other city officials were much more resistant to the idea of decorating Salzburg with Nazi colors. They soon changed their mind when the film-makers said they would use newsreel footage instead. This footage was actually highly incriminating as it showed the Salzburgers openly welcoming the Nazis, something that the proposed scenes for the film would not do.

All this for only $18 folks!

I'm so confused. All these years and I thought TSOM was fiction - I had no idea it was a documentary. I just assumed that since everyone spoke English it was a work of fiction.

R8, don't be a troll.

That was the partial use of my idea.

"Edelweiss" is not an actual Austrian folk song. It was written by Oscar Hammerstein specifically for TSOM. But many still believe it's a song all Austrians typically sing in regards to their homeland (like us with "God Bless America").

There are frogs in the mountains? Frogs live in placid waters, mostly in low altitudes. Frogs are rare in high elevations because of the fragility of eggs/tadpoles, which makes it hard for frogs to survive that critical stage.

R12, it might have helped if you did some research before posting.

R12 Yes, there are frogs in the mountains. Frogs have even been spotted at altitudes as high as 2600 metres in the Alps. So if Maria really was a child of the mountains she'd be no stranger to frogs, spiders and snakes.

There are frogs at high altitudes but not in high abundance...and the higher you go, the smaller they get.

I wrote "Frogs are rare in high elevations..." I didn't say they didn't exist but rare.

"At high altitudes, the tadpoles at the embryonic stage are the most threatened. Egg clutches deposited at the shallow edges of the ponds often desiccate before the embryos are hatched. Acid runoff during the snowmelt period or heavy rain is another risk in ponds of crystalline catchments (Faber 2000)"

The biggest plot hole will always be the way the von Trapp family walks to Switzerland from Salzburg, when in fact Salzburg is over 200 miles from the Swiss border. As the real Maria said when she first learned of this impossible plot device, "didn't anyone look at a map?"

My mom grew up in a semi-rural area and is afraid of snakes.

R16 Geography in American movies set in Europe always sucks. One of the funniest mistakes I can remember was in one of those old James Bond movies in which James had to escape from Bratislava to Vienna. These two capital cities lie about 35 miles apart and there's nothing but some wooded flatland in between, but the screenwriters decided to put a huge mountain range between the two cities to make the escape scene more dramatic.

They screw up American geography as well. I remember a film where a man was in Portland and just hopped over to Seattle before catching his plane out.

These cities are HOURS apart. This is not like New York and Yonkers.

OP/R18 here again. Here's photo of area between Vienna and Bratislava in real life:

And here's what Hollywood version of that area looks like:

[quote]The character of Max would be the equivalent of doing an allegedly historical play and portraying Laurence Welk in the same way as Max.

Second time around. Still trying to extract meaning from this sentence.

[quote]The biggest plot hole will always be the way the von Trapp family walks to Switzerland from Salzburg

They weren't walking to Switzerland. They were walking into Germany. The Rev. Mother needed money for her convent, Germany needed to arrest Captain von Trapp. How do you solve a problem like Maria? Make her a honey trap and collect the cash.

R13, I thought eidelweiss were white. I mean, it's in the name, and everything.

[quote]They weren't walking to Switzerland. They were walking into Germany. The Rev. Mother needed money for her convent, Germany needed to arrest Captain von Trapp. How do you solve a problem like Maria? Make her a honey trap and collect the cash.

That's why I told that cunt-face to climb EVERY mountain. Eventually, they'd stumble upon Adolf and Eva having tea at Berchtesgaden.

[quote]Speaking of huge holes...—Rolf

The son/daddy love affair between Rolf and Max never made it into the show because Mary Martin was a prude. If Tallulah Bankhead had played Maria, it would have been left in the story.

And you totally missed the huge plot hole that some rich playboy would prefer to marry some virginal nun over the many other women who were throwing themselves at him?

No mention of the deportations of the Jews to mysterious eastern regions of the Reich either. That's a big omission.

[quote]No mention of the deportations of the Jews to mysterious eastern regions of the Reich either.

Don't you remember the scene where Gretl is standing in a field and she smiles and waves at trains going by and yells "Have a good journey"?

That's a really funny piece of trivia about TSOM R6, considering it was Robert Wise who directed (and won an Oscar for) The Sound of Music.

[quote]That's a really funny piece of trivia about TSOM [R6], considering it was Robert Wise who directed (and won an Oscar for) The Sound of Music.

Wyler was originally set to direct The Sound of Music. He was born in Germany, so it *seemed* like a good fit. But Wyler gave the project up.

I shouldn't be saying this to you R30, since I don't know you that well, but you're one dumb cunt!

[quote]But when Baroness Schrader arrives to Salzburg Gretl givers her a bouquet of edelweiss.

What do you want, for them to throw a five-year-old girl in jail?

R29, don't you recall the little girl on the farm as the train whizzes passed her? She took her thumb, cut her throat with it and said, "Good bye, Jews! Good bye, Jews!".

See. I told you this thread was LIFE. Gawd I love this place.

[quote]What do you want, for them to throw a five-year-old girl in jail?

Yes.

How the hell do you think I felt suffocating under those goddamn klieg lights in the ugliest fucking dress in 120 years of movie history? How much uglier could Fraulein Helga's dress possibly have been unless it was stitched together out of old burlap potato sacks? And when Julie Andrews went on [italic]The Muppet Show[/italic] and sang to Kermit she acted like the whole damn incident never happened.

Thank you R32. I am properly chastised. I did not know that Wyler was the original director hired to do the movie. R6 included a quote but not a link, or I would have been better and correctly informed.

So I will say that indeed is a nice bit of movie trivia. I thought I had heard Robert Wise tell the story on a DVD extra, but I don't remember him mentioning Wyler's name.

I will make sure I do a better search before posting here again.

R38 You are forgiven. A lot of people don't know that Wyler was the original director. He even spent a couple of weeks in Austria location scouting together with Lehman. But Lehman got a feeling that Wyler wasn't fully commited to the project (Wyler admitted he hated the Broadway show) so he secretly sent Robert Wise a copy of the screenplay. Soon after that Wyler decided to make The Collector with Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar instead and was replaced with Wise.

From what I have read, the real Maria Von Trapp was not a nice person. She was pushy, walked all over her husband, treated her stepchildren as inferior to her biological children with the Captain, refused to allow the children to step away from the family when they wanted to live separate lives... She owes Julie Andrews a huge debt of gratitude; her post-TSOM popularity was due to Andrews' warm performance in the movie.

They didn't show any of the nuns rapping the children's hands with a ruler.

[quote]From what I have read, the real Maria Von Trapp was not a nice person.

I saw an interview with Maria von Trapp in the 1970s and she said she told both Mary Martin and Julie Andrews that they weren't tough enough in the role.

[quote] What do you want, for them to throw a five-year-old girl in jail?

I'd love to see Gretl in nazi jail. She was such an annoying, attention-seeking little cunt. The only person who was immune to her tricks was Sister Margaretta. I love that scene where the kids want to visit Maria in the abbey and Gretl tries to pull her "I have a sore finger" routine on Sister Margaretta but she simply replies "Some other time, dear" and kicks the kids out from the abbey.

In the song "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria,", there are some lines that go:

"She's always late for chapel

But her penitence is real

She's always late for everything

Except for every meal"

However, on her first day at the Von Trapp household, she arrives late to dinner.

"The son/daddy love affair between Rolf and Max never made it into the show because Mary Martin was a prude. If Tallulah Bankhead had played Maria, it would have been left in the story."

Christ, if Tallu had played Maria the Nuns would have been singing 'How do you a problem like Gonorrhea.

And I don't even want to thin about her favourite things.

I'm also reasonably confident the Reverend Mother never really said what is it, you cuntface?

R27 You greatly underestimate the appeal of a hearty, sexually repressed authoritarian Fraulein to an Austrian aristocrat. Frump-chic is part of the allure.

R26 It's sad how Rolf had to run away with the Nazis just to dodge Leisl.

What about the deleted scenes with Franz the butler delving into the seedy underbelly of the German S&M culture?

So Gay Uncle Max was based on a real life impresario?

I presume Georg hung out with him for shits and giggles, and access to Max’s glamorous fag hag investors.

No, he hung out with Max because he missed the Navy.

Franz the Butler has a much bigger part in the original German version of the film. It's only hinted that he's a nazi in The Sound of Music, but in the original film there's a dramatic scene where Franz takes off his jacket the moment he hears the Anschluss occured and reveals a nazi uniform underneath. But when the nazis come to the villa to take Georg away he still hides the family and helps them escape. I guess Hollywood didn't want to include a sympathetic nazi character in its version.

I would've fought harder for it, R52.

Maria must have been the inspiration:

I want to bury my tongue in SOM Live Rolf’s plot hole.

I know it was culturally incorrect but my favorite scene in The Sound of Music is when Maria and the kids made tacos in the kitchen before going up to bed and singing "My Favorite Things."

Raindrops on roses

And whiskers on kittens

Hot crispy tacos and warm woolen mittens

Brown paper packages tied up with strings

These are a few of my favorite things

And nobody thought to ask what the hell Mary Poppins was doing in a convent. Maria my ass.

They need to do a remake where Rolf sings "Tomorrow Belongs to Me."

And of course, in real life, and in the original German film, they didn't "climb every mountain," in fact they didn't climb any mountains. They took the train.

But that's not good material for a finale song. "Get on the train."

[quote]But that's not good material for a finale song. "Get on the train."

Trigger warning!

My favorite part of the film is how quickly everything goes to shit after Maria gets her cherry popped.

I know, there weren't even any good songs afterward.

So, wait, was Maria a replicant like Harrison Ford because I'm pretty sure the Mother Superior was a replicunt. Or at least she threw the word around a lot.

The nun who let the air out of the tire was immediately executed as an example to the other nuns.

It's a shame they cut this scene from the convent.

Plothole:

When Maria fluffs her big down comforter up and down during "My Favorite Things," no-one notices me hiding underneath, naked and curious about this Fraulein Maria. At that point we'd been at it for hours, maybe three, when the thunderstorm hit.

Of course Georg had her heart, the producers made sure of that. But I alone had her, and had her, and had her.

R18 -- the Bond films are British, not American. I wouldn't care except that you seem to be gleefully insulting American filmmaking so...

Her eiderdown comforter was like a character in itself. Great set design. You just want to dive into that gorgeous bed on a stormy night.

Oh,Maria... you’re such a drip. Shut the fuck up.

But, OP, zere aren't froks in ze Alps. Dots vy she vas shkert!

R13, but that's Salzburg, MISSISSIPPI!

Plus the Captain is fucking the babysitter!

Here’s another piece of TSOM trivia:

After the film was released and it began to be shown in other countries, a theater owner in Japan was concerned about the length of the movie. Because it was so long he could only show it once an evening, which cut into his profits since he was used to presenting two viewings of a feature film each night.

The greedy owner then figured out a way to shorten TSOM so that it could be shown twice a night: HE CUT OUT ALL OF THE SONGS.

Can you imagine?!?

[quote] the Bond films are British, not American.

They're made by an American studio and have American producers. British, my ass.

I want to see Eartha Kitt as Maria.

Will there be a porn parody about Daddy Von Trapp and Nazi-twink Rolf?

I have a huge hole

The daughter of friends of mine went to Europe on a school trip a couple of years ago . Her and some classmates were in the hotel room and turned on the television and were delighted at the coincidence that they were in Salzburg and The Sound of Music just happened to be on TV. Next day they discovered that one station plays it on a 24-hour loop.

The Baroness and Rolf were secret lovers.

R79 Who wasn't a "secret" lover of Rolf?

As a small kid, I never got over the fact that they forgot the guitar in the mountains during the do re mi song.

MARIA! @ r81.

[quote]Plus the Captain is fucking the babysitter!

We stole that plot.

I want to see a remake with Stormy Daniels as Maria.

[quote] Not true.

Sorry -- that was for r74

Did Christopher plummer really sing or was he dubbed?

My favorite part was the swan pooping in the background of the fountain scene.

Eh! eh ! R82 ! I was a very naive, first degree child.

Fortunately, I grew up.

r87, he really sang but they ended up dubbing him. Here is his undubbed performance of Edelweiss.

That sounds almost identical to the movie version. The guy who dubbed him had a very similar singing voice.

The nuns complained that "...underneath her wimple she has curlers in her hair."

Does she look like she EVER put curlers in her hair?

R92 Good point. This movie really is riddled with plot holes. Uncle Max's sloppy prolapsed hole is the least of this film's problems.

Why hasn’t any of the cast ever acknowledged in their many reunions that Eleanor Parker was even in the picture? Was she so hated on the set? Or was she so good in the role that it influenced how everyone felt about her? I just wish she was given more, and by that I mean any, credit for being superb by her castmates.

R74 - The Bond films are produced by Eon Productions, a British company. They have been distributed by different American (Hollywood) companies over the years, but the are created by Brits.

Also, it's "British my arse!" not "British my ass!"

Actually r92, they shaved it off as punishment for the curlers in a scene which ended up on the cutting room floor. It was an homage to Eleanor Parker in CAGED, Peggy Wood taking over Faye Emerson's duties).

^ Shit! HOPE Emerson, of course!

The Bond movie that was discussed above was co-produced by United Artists and written by two American fellas. British, my ARSE!

R98 - United Artists distributed the Bond movie, The Living Daylights. Per both Wikipedia and IMDb, Eon Productions (a British company) has the sole Production credit. The American fellas were adapting a story by Ian Fleming, a Brit, and the movie's director was John Glen, another Brit. But, frankly, the countries of origin of the people involved mean little (Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, who founded Eon, were American and Canadian) because Eon is a British production company, operating out of Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, SLO UK. Yes, most Americans are shitty at geography... but The Living Daylights' location shoot in your original example has nothing to do with that assertion.

There’s a hole in thi film alright. It’s one I was gladly going to fill. I was originally cast as Liesl, but I couldn’t take the part because ABC said it would interfere with filming for EIGHT. Another disappointment. I would have killed in that role.

^^^^^^ The other hole being you were cast 20 years too late.

[quote] We stole that plot.

From The King and I?

R73, I can imagine. The French have never really cared for Broadway musicals and when film of "The King and I' opened there, all the songs were cut.

Back in the '70s, I saw the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers musical "Carefree" on one of those "Dialing for Dollars" afternoon movies on TV. To make time for the commercials and the dialing for dollars segments, they cut all the songs and dancing.

When the film of SOM played Austria in its initial engagements, the studio and the producers were so concerned about how all the Nazi imagery would be received that the film ended at the intermission, immediately following the wedding.

Broadway's TSOM was written specifically for Mary Martin. Mary and her husband owned the rights to Maria vonTrapp's story. Rodgers and Hammerstein came on board later.

Movie glosses over the fact that Maria was not a virgin at marriage. In fact she had many beaus and rumor was she had had an abortion.

r105=Baroness Elsa Schraeder

R105 is correct. Maria von Trapp was knocked up by the captain soon after she arrived to their villa and they were forced to get married to avoid a huge scandal.

R104 is correct. The original idea was to use traditional Austrian folk, classical and religious music of the sort the von Trapps did on their tours. Mary went to R&H and asked if they'd be interested in writing one or two new songs for her. One thing lead to another....

Georg was the sweet one whom all the children adored. Maria was a sociopathic monster who terrorized them.

Opening night of the show, Maria was seated down front close to the stage. When Martin came out to take her solo bows during the curtain calls, Maria stood up in the audience and started bowing along with her.

"Sixteen Going On Seventeen" - Andrew Keenan-Bolger and Jay Armstrong Johnson

[quote] When Martin came out to take her solo bows during the curtain calls, Maria stood up in the audience and started bowing along with her.

So, Maria was like a real-life version of Fraulein Schweiger?

"Sixteen Going On Seventeen" - Brendon O'Hea and Dame Judi Dench

After the intermission you still have to sit through Climb Every Mountain, Maria's return, the Baroness's graceful retreat and Something Good.

Then the wedding.

I can't believe this needs to be said to anyone on DL.

Anyway it ends the film on a high note and avoids the problem of the Von Trapps attempting to escape but stupidly walking straight into Nazi Germany.

In real life, they didn't have to escape by foot over any mountains. Because of the the way national borders were redrawn after WWI, the Captain ended up with dual citizenship in both Austria/Hungary and in his birthplace, northern Italy. The family announced they were going on tour again, packed their bags and simply took the train to Italy. This was in 1927, long before the Anschluss or even before the Nazis had seized control in Germany. Eventually they emigrated to the US.

It's true they didn't want to leave but the Captain saw the handwriting on the wall that early on and they were able to leave quite undramatically.

Maria was never sent by the convent to be governess to all the children. One of the girls had become bedridden by Scarlett Fever and Maria was sent to tutor her during her recovery so that she didn't fall behind in her schoolwork.

The musical drastically telescopes the time period of the actual events.

^ Er, Scarlet Fever, not Scarlett. I'm a southern boy and know the extra T was a fictional device by Miss Mitchell.

R113 Actually he was born in Zadar, Croatia, which isn't really in Northern Italy and was a part of Austro-Hungarian empire at the time of his birth. But the city did become an Italian exclave during the two world wars so he must have been granted Italian cituzenship during that period.

Thanks, r115.

r113 Thanks for the details. Much appreciated. However, you were mistaken about when the family left Austria.

Yes, Maria came to the home in 1926 as a tutor for young Maria who was recovering from Scarlet fever.

Yes, Georg and Maria were married in 1927.

Yes, the family left by train to Italy, saying they were going on tour.

However, the family did not depart Austria until June 1938, not too long after the German Anschluss in March 1938. And yes, it was growing concerns about the Nazis which prompted them to leave, despite Georg being offered a naval command and the family being invited to sing at Hitler's birthday part.

Was he supposed to captain Rhine tours with Viking?

Maria VonTrapp occasionally claimed to be Mary Martin to obtain better airline flight.

R119 LOL I can just imagine Maria von Trapp, with her heavy German accent, pretending to be America's Sweetheart: "Ja, ich bin Mary Martin und I vant ein seat by ze windov, vit a a bag of Bavarian pretzels, bitte!"

I always regretted their decision to cut the Countess’s two songs from the movie: “How Can Love Survive?” and “No Way to Stop It.” They’re both witty and incisive, and their loss allows a saccharine miasma to overwhelm.

They are good songs but don't belong in the film. They'd hold it up. Lehman and Wise were right to cut them.

And in our prayers every night we can thank the good Lord they cut An Ordinary Couple.

This is true.

More a song for the oldsters in the audience.

Such bs. Those two are about as ordinary as Adolf and Eva. (In a different kind of way, of course...)

I was the Asian Maria!

‘‘A Hundred Million Miracles’ should have been the next ‘My Favorite Things’ or at least as well known as that fucking Do-Re-Mi song.

😤

I saw Mary Martin in The Sound of Music. Wonder what she really thought about the musical. My guess is Martin was asked far more often often about Peter Pan and South Pacific. My guess is Mary was glad;.