Filmed during World War two "Going my way" is a movie that the great Bing Crosby  drove all the way to the Oscar ceremony where it won 8 Academy Awards, including the Best Picture.

This Crosby vehicle is a simple tale of a New York church where the incumbent ageing priest has a loose grip on goings on. O’Malley is sent by the bishop to balance the books and tend to a congregation who need direction from someone with a spring in their step, although they don't know it. Yet.

Swinging his way from scene to scene in a straw boater hat cocked to one side, he plays Father O’Malley: a young priest blessed with a casual demeanour and irreverent charm that the 'squares' just don't understand. The existing Priest at O’Malley’s new parish appears at first to be immune to his persuasive powers- however, old timer Father Fitzgibbon's (Barry Fitzgerald) icy resistance is sure to melt before too long. I’m sure you get the picture.

Oh dear. I am open to accusations of having a deaf ear to musicals, counting but a few in a very long list of beloved films. However, this classic, a jaunty tale of an entitled middle-aged American ex-G.I. (Gene Kelly as Jerry Mulligan) struggling as an artist in a painted set Paris really did exemplify why the genre is so maligned by many.

The inevitable love affair begins when he daintily harasses a very reluctant 19 year-old (Lise Bouvier, played by Leslie Caron)  into a date while taking advantage of the vulnerabilities (and means) of a divorcee closer to his age (Milo Roberts, played by Nina Foch). We are supposed to love this. Gene Kelly's charms are undeniable- the smile, his grace, his looks and voice would each be enough to launch a star and in combination he lights up the screen. But when forcing himself on young women, the charms flake away revealing a forty-something guy who dyes his hair and won't take no for an answer. Eugh.

Lise soon reveals that she only feels compelled to marry Henri because he looked after her when she was a child, while her parents were fighting for the French Resistance. There's something more than just a little uncomfortable about this Woody Allenesque arrangement. But never mind. LOOK! Dancing!

The movie is also distractingly disjointed. Not just because I watched it over two viewings. The story leaves holes big enough to build several Eiffel towers: what happened to Milo, Jerry's cash cow divorcee? Last seen exiting stage left for a glass of champagne, unbeknownst to her Jerry then left the room without saying goodbye to bid his other love farewell. Milo would have returned with two glasses wondering where her date went. But don't think about that. LOOK! A dance number! 

After a brief exchange with Jerry we see Lise drive off with tears in her eyes. After a 17 minute song and dance number that happens in Jerry's head Henri drives Lise back into the arms of Jerry (-literally, he takes her there in a powder blue Citroen). Why was Henri, the man previously so pleased with his 10 year grooming project coming to fruition so glad to see Lise disappear into the arms of Jerry? Did a gendarme see this scene of mid-life crisis (19 year old woman crying out of the window being driven away by a middle aged menace to innocence) question both parties and promptly turn the car around? Was it a noble act, without a hint of reluctance? Did he have another friend queueing up to hand over their daughter? Take your pick of the explanations, because it is far from clear.

This is a musical about a woman's coming of age. But this is not a coming of age we would recognise in today's world- this teenager has no angst, she is happy all the time and her transition to womanhood is thanks to her aunt who runs a one woman finishing school.
The men that surround her (Honore played by Maurice Chevalier, and Louis Jourdan as Gaston) think themselves sharks in a pond of lady-fish known as 'Gay Paris'. Although I do wonder if they mis-spelled 'Gaudy'. Technicolor, the company that were behind the colour  revolution in Hollywood may also have been behind the set design... much like Around the World in 80 Days which suffered from the same headache-inducing promotion of scarlet reds, panther pinks and canary yellows. 

​Now, this film was clearly made in another age. The innocence in having 60 year old Chevalier sing an opening song called 'thank heaven for little girls' directed a schoolgirls in uniform without thinking it might come across as creepy... especially since you hear him declare that he loves to collect pretty young things. The men are free to galavant, they brag about attempted suicides from the women they have spurned and do so while somehow receiving favourable treatment from the director who expects us to applaud and admire them. 
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The chaos caused by young Gigi having the presence of mind to turn down Gaston's offer of marriage in the film only highlighted just how insane the idea of a woman having her own will is in this universe they all inhabit.

​Once again, this was a triumph for a film providing audiences with an experience they could not get close to anywhere else. Parisian high society of the turn of the century had taken on a mythical status- mentions of the Moulin Rouge, Monte Carlo... and all in colour. Once again, the spectacle trumped quality. The film is entertaining enough, if you can get around lines like "So fresh, so eager, so... young!" from pensionable men aimed at young teens in school uniform. 

The soundtrack contains memorable numbers, although not always for the right reasons. The sets and locations are beautiful, costumes once again garish to remind you that the film is in colour (I KNOW!). At least there were no unnecessarily overlong song and dance numbers and there was at least an effort to tell a story. But it was all just a bit dull.

By the end you are struggling to understand why anyone would go for Gaston, a spoilt rich boy who having mistreated every woman in town can't seem to pin down how he feels about Gigi. With more back-and-forthing than a metronome (and just as much predictability) he finally settles on proposing, by which time the correct response from Gigi and her aunts would have been to "sling yer 'ook, mister." Surely it'll be a short-lived engagement, nil chance of marriage, less chance of fidelity?

But despite the propaganda and conditioning process she has been through, Gigi is very clear on what she is getting herself into. In her words: "I'd rather be miserable with you than miserable apart." She has little choice either way. Depressingly, she may as well benefit from the material gains brought by this unfortunate alliance. And so it ends.

Unless you are writing a masters on the sanitisation of predatory male figures in historical cinema you too will want to avoid it.
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​Although your critic has seen many of these films at least once before, somehow The Sound of Music has escaped my attention. This puts me in the rare and enviable position of being able to see a widely regarded classic for the first time. A musical often included in all-time top 10 lists, this is a film that Julie Andrews couldn’t resist starring in, despite her reluctance in reprising “another nanny role” after her success as Mary Poppins.
 
Now, clearly I am not going in blind, I know much of the music while the setting and tone have become familiar by cultural osmosis. The film is ubiquitous and its cultural importance cannot be underestimated, it defines an age. The impenetrable protective bubble created by Rogers & Hammerstein’s score and Julie Andrews performance as Maria the governess was strong enough to thwart even the Nazis, and convincingly so.

​But how does it look to someone watching it in adulthood? At very nearly 3 hours running time and almost certainly the closest thing to a children’s film best picture winner, could I sit through it? There does seem to be a fairly strong divide in people I know: between cisgender men and everyone else on just how good this film really is. Make of that what you will.
 
My initial impression is that Julie Andrews exercised a power that swept up all before her, yes, even me. There were cracks if you looked for them, I found it very difficult to get past the innocent (/absurd), portrayal of the benign sisters and mother superior of the nunnery where the film opens. However, I am very much aware that I am completely open to the accusation of wilfully resisting the suspension of disbelief as the son of a woman who told me horror stories of her time in a school run by German Catholic nuns, so this is likely to be my failing rather than the film's. As someone who works with primary aged children I also found the young Vonn Trapps escapades early on largely unconvincing. However, in both of these cases Andrews convinced me in her performance opposite them that this was just the way things were, and I should get over it. And I did.

As theatrical as the performances are, so stylised, I didn’t ever feel that the camera was the actor’s focus. I didn’t feel performed to, like I have done in other musicals; it appeared that they performed for each other rather than their audience. This provided a gateway into their world; an escape from my own. Once this has happened, in any film, if the magic continues for the reminder you will forgive it almost anything.
 
It is also shot sumptuously: exteriors shot on location in Salzburg, Austria and the difference made on screen is astounding. The visual depth seems limitless and this sucks you in body and soul from the first truly iconic shot of Maria atop an Austrian hill, telling us how alive it was. I believed her, the proof was there before me.
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There are some very interesting shot choices, one such eyebrow raiser during the ‘climb every mountain number’. The Mother Abbess (MA) sings to Maria to convince her to return to Captain Von Trapp and be brave enough to find out if her feelings are mutual (Maria's feelings, not the Nun's) in full black habit. The singing nun spends almost the entire duration obscured, in complete darkness in the foreground, with Andrews face illuminated by a light which suggested to me that the voice she hears is in fact a message of divine provenance, directing her away from the habit and into the arms of the man she loves. There are many theories on why it was done this way: to preserve the MA's modesty; to highlight how dark Maria's life would be in the Abbey seeking the love of Jesus just there for consolation (in comparison to the outside world which appears so brightly lit through the windows here); to obscure Peggy Wood's (the actress who played the MA) poor lip-syncing (as it was not her singing)... I'll stick with my initial interpretation on this one until directed to believe otherwise.

​The chemistry between the Captain and Governess was a beautiful example of a slow burn beginning to a relationship, so often used in cinema before and since, rarely as successfully. When Maria returns from her honeymoon there is a visible, arresting change in her presence and interactions with the Captain. The suggestion that the marriage was a missing piece in their relationship was poetic, everything between them had now fallen into place.

The biggest departure from the norm, something that I have still struggled to get my head around, is the structure of the film. I do not mean this as a negative, quite the opposite. Typically, films (and almost any tale, however old, however told) have three acts. You will know this already: when we teach children to write fiction in England we repeat ad nauseam from when they are 3 until 11 years old, throughout what we call primary school, and often beyond that you must 1. Establish your characters, setting & situation; 2. introduce a dilemma / change to the status quo you have established; 3. Resolve the situation. The Sound of Music, in fact, is a film and its own sequel.

The Sound of Music has 6 very clearly defined acts:
1: in the nunnery
2: role as governess
INTERMISSION
3: wedding
and then a 40 minute sequel in which we
1: meet the Nazis
2: see the Nazi net close in on the Vonn Trapps
3: escape the Nazis
 
Each ‘film’ is perfectly capable of standing on its own two feet, but together they create an epic where nothing stands still, not for a moment. Both parts fit together in a seamless and natural way that cannot be challenged because hey, it all just works so well. Most importantly it doesn’t feel like 3 hours. At the end of the 3rd act we had to put our son to bed, at the wedding scene, perfect timing. I was amazed to see that there were only 40 minutes left.
 
Were this a studio movie made 20 years ago vast swathes of it would have been cut and it would have been a flop of 88 minutes. 10 years ago it would have been a 3 picture franchise (each of 2.5 hours) and today it would have been a Netflix series with each of the Von Trapp children having a spin off of their own. All of these alternatives would have sucked.

This picture struck me to be like an antique music box, containing a magic that could only have been created in its time. Any imperfections I may have noted add to its personality. So yes, I enjoyed it. If somehow, like me, you are yet to see it, male cisgender or not, get thee to the Salzburg nunnery.

 
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Addendum
​Although I found it hard, I have decided to consciously avoid discussing the sexual or wartime politics which are present in the film. Perhaps another day. I may be wrong to take the film as intended by the makers, but there was a pleasure in doing so. The suspension of this part of my consciousness made for a much more enjoyable experience, something I am not often capable off doing. Although I do feel a little guilt akin to having just finished a 500ml tub of Haagen Dazs despite myself.

This is much more what I expected of an aged Hollywood “Best Picture”. My hopes were high after ‘Wings’, and perhaps my inability to appreciate schmaltzy musicals is to blame, but this is definitely one for the ‘you had to be there’ pile.
 
There was, however, much to say for The Broadway Melody at the time. It brought the magic of Broadway to a cinema near you, belters that most would previously only ever had heard over the wireless, disembodied, were now accompanied by the faces that sang them. It did suffer from more than its share of crowd-pleasing gimmicks- there were more than enough semi-clad ladies in fancy silk underwear changing backstage, or in a bathroom, or offstage, or in the hotel room, or bathing nude… come to think of it I am not sure there were any scenes that did not feature or were not bookended by scenes of chorus girls getting changed.