The Sound of Music is such a timeless classic, how anyone could dislike the movie is beyond me.
So you might be surprised to know that one of the lead actors, though it catapulted their career, was not thrilled with the film, sometimes referring to it as the “Sound of Mucus”.
Christopher Plummer, who played Captain Georg von Trapp in the 1965 musical, routinely discussed his opinion on the film, and it was far from favorable.
As a Shakespearean trained actor, Plummer felt the role of von Trapp was beneath him.
“I was a bit bored with the character,” he said, comparing the character to “flogging a dead horse.”
In 1982, Plummer insisted he loved the film, commenting that his occasional jokes about The Sound of Music were often taken seriously.
“I didn’t hate the movie at all,” Plummer told film critic Gene Shalit. “I did not, and that’s absolutely true. I thought it was a wonderful movie. Just because I made a joke about it, every journalist remembers that and not the good parts about the film. I wasn’t ashamed of it at all.”
However, in the years that followed Plummer continued to comment on his unhappiness with the film. In his 2008 memoir, In Spite of Myself, he wrote how he would avoid calling the musical by its name and would instead call it “the movie,” “S&M” or “The Sound of Mucus.”
in 2011, during a roundtable with the Hollywood Reporter, Plummer called the role one of his toughest while stating The Sound of Music was “so awful and sentimental and gooey.”
He recalled having “to work terribly hard to try and infuse some minuscule bit of humor into it.”
It wasn’t until much later in life that Plummer acknowledged the film’s impact and success.
“The more I watched, the more I realized what a terrific movie it is… The very best of its genre— warm, touching, absolutely timeless… totally seduced by the damn thing— and what’s more, I felt a sudden surge of pride that I’d been a part of it.”
READ MORE:
- Christopher Plummer, Oscar-winning legend of stage and screen, dies at 91
- Julie Andrews reunites with von Trapp child actors during surprise ‘Sound of Music’ sing-a-long
