The Sound of Music Companion

A new book commemorates this month’s 50th anniversary of The Sound of Music.

A lot of things you see in The Sound of Music might surprise the real Von Trapp family. Like the finale: The mountain location that director Robert Wise used to film that triumphant escape over the mountains was Berchtesgaden, the site of Hitler’s vacation chalet — maybe not the best route for fleeing the Nazis. (The real von Trapps perhaps agreed; they made their exit by train to Italy.) Though inaccuracies like this don’t really take away from the story we’ve come to know and love, they make fascinating fodder for Laurence Maslon in his new book The Sound of Music Companion (Universe; $30), released to coincide with the movie’s 50th anniversary. Maslon delves into the source material and the 1959 Broadway musical, but he knows most readers have come for the Julie Andrews version (who wrote the book’s foreword). Rare and beautiful pictures accompany behind-the-scenes stories from Salzburg to Hollywood — and will make any fan happy to revisit this classic story.

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