As the above poster said, it's pleasant, and as these misbegotten adaptations go, faithful to its origins. The 1939 operetta was a megahit in the West End, thanks to a lavish production, Novello's lovely melodies, and characters rather more three-dimensional than the genre generally invited. Rudi and Maria are flawed, interesting people, self-absorbed but kind, loving but suspicious, and a reasonable amount of their adult qualities make the transition from stage to screen. (There's even a love child involved, and the movie doesn't judge its parents for that.) Some pretty songs are missing, as is all of Act Three, in which Rudi -- an Austrian Jew, in the stage version -- runs afoul of some nasty Nazis and is rescued through the last-minute intervention of Maria. (What with a Salzburg music festival, a heroine named Maria, and snarling Nazis, the work actually shares quite a lot with "The Sound of Music.") What remains tends toward soap opera, and Price isn't a truly charismatic leading man. But it's a nice surprise to encounter so much intact stage dialog and music, performed by a generally capable cast (and Patricia Dainton is delightful). Pretty Technicolor, too.
Review of The Dancing Years
