Three Fantastic Musicals-Sound of Music, West Side Story and South Pacific 2007

Three popular musicals. In ‘The Sound of Music’ (1965), ex-nun Maria (Julie Andrews) becomes the governess for a family of seven children who live in the shadow of their domineering and repressed widower father (Christopher Plummer). She brings love, music and excitement into the children’s lives and also eventually begins to have an effect on their father. But just when things are looking up, the rise of Nazism and the threat of the coming war darkens all their futures. Includes a host of memorable songs, such as ‘Do-Re-Mi’, ‘Climb Ev’ry Mountain’, and ‘My Favourite Things’. ‘South Pacific’ (1958) is a legendary Rodgers and Hammerstein musical in which an American Navy nurse (Mitzi Gaynor) stationed on a South Pacific Island falls in love with a middle-aged French planter (Rossano Brazzi), who goes on to become a war hero. Includes the songs: ‘There is Nothing Like a Dame’; ‘Bali Ha’i’; ‘Happy Talk’; and ‘I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair’. In ‘West Side Story’ (1961), a neighbourhood on New York’s West Side provides the setting for a love affair between Tony (Richard Beymer) and Maria (Natalie Wood), a couple of kids caught on opposite sides of a gang war. Maria is the sister of Bernardo (George Chakiris), leader of the Sharks, and Tony is the best friend of Riff (Russ Tamblyn), leader of the Jets. The two gangs are sworn enemies, and nothing Maria or Tony can say will dissuade them from the violence which leads to the film’s heartbreaking finale.