HOME ENTERTAINMENT : A ‘Sound of Music’ Laser Set to Treasure

In a season filled with long-awaited laser-disc releases of memorable films, the “30th Anniversary Edition” of “The Sound of Music” (Fox Video/Image Entertainment, $120) arrives as a hallmark.

The three-disc boxed set is a treasure trove for any fan of this extraordinary 1965 film of the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical. It includes:

* Five extended-play sides on which the nearly three-hour movie starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer unfolds. The gorgeous Todd-AO film, shown in a new film-to-tape transfer using the 65mm camera negative and interpositive, was supervised by director Robert Wise and produced for laser in clear, carefully monitored THX audio and video, with an aspect ratio of 2.2:1. The picture and sound are lush, far richer than an earlier (1982) laser release. (Intermittently, however, on the copy previewed the color seems to occasionally fade in and out slightly, most likely the result of problems with the original source material. But there is still no comparison to the earlier disc, which literally pales in comparison.)

* An 87-minute documentary, “The Sound of Music: From Fact to Phenomenon,” on the making of the five-Oscar winner starts on the fifth side and continues on the standard-play sixth side. Unlike most such accounts, this documentary is a carefully put together, thoughtful presentation that offers valuable information and historical tidbits.

* A candid, informative commentary by Oscar-winning director Wise on an analog soundtrack for the full length of the film, except for the musical numbers. During those numbers, you can listen for the first time to the orchestration alone on a stereo analog track. In effect, you can have your own “Sound of Music” karaoke track at home, accompanied by the lush musical direction of the late Irwin Kostal, who also won an Academy Award.

* Screenwriter Ernest Lehman’s (“West Side Story,” “The King and I,” “Somebody Up There Likes Me”) incredibly valuable 35-minute track on the set’s fifth-side analog channel and a booklet detailing “The Saga of the Ernest Lehman Screenplay.” In combination, along with Wise’s discussion, they are an invaluable course in screenwriting taught by one of the cinema’s premier screenwriters.

* A 24-karat gold CD made from a new 75-minute master and including previously unreleased music. The music sounds great, though, it doesn’t need gold to give it its sheen.

* An eight-page full-color booklet with pictures of the entire cast, including the seven children (who have all remained good friends), a timeline beginning with the birth of Georg von Trapp in 1880, and excellent chapter stops so you can find any scene or musical number in an instant.

* A host of interactive still archives tracing the history of the Von Trapp family, on whom the story is based, and the making of the film take up the balance of the sixth side. And, if you let them, the balance of a well-spent weekend.

Luckily, most of the principal players in the film’s saga were alive during the making of this commemorative edition and cooperated eagerly in the production of this laser set, which took more than a year for producer Mike Matessino to complete.

Throughout the analog track, Wise credits Lehman, who won an Oscar for his screenplay, with finding ways of restructuring the original Howard Lindsay-Russel Crouse book that turned the successful stage musical into an overwhelming cinematic experience.

Rarely in Hollywood do screenwriters (even top-flight screenwriters) get public credit, let alone the respect, they deserve, which makes listening to and reading about the screenplay’s evolution so fascinating. Lehman, in fact, became involved in the translation of stage musical to film musical even before Wise, who came onto the project after director William Wyler--who was never that enthusiastic about it--bowed out.

Lehman not only suggested the elimination of two songs, but also the addition of two others (“I Have Confidence,” “Something Good”) that an eager Richard Rodgers wrote expressly for the film, after the death of his collaborator Oscar Hammerstein II. The screenwriter also suggested that several songs be placed elsewhere in the film than they were in the stage play, contributing significantly to the power of the narrative line.

“My whole thrust, my whole direction toward the film was primarily the screenplay itself and my knowledge of the stage show before it,” Wise says. Any liberties taken with the story of the novice Maria and the Von Trapp family came about in the interest not of “telling an untruth” but of developing “a more effective and dramatic line.”

The details of how that was done, including the overwhelming cinematography and problems on location in bitter-cold Austria, during alternating three days of rain and three days of sunshine, make for a wonderful laser disc, put together with care and attention.

Laserbits

New Movies Just Out: “This Is Spinal Tap,” (Criterion, with additional footage and other extras, $100); “Maverick” (Warner, $40); “I Love Trouble” (Touchstone, $40); “Blown Away” (MGM/UA, $45); “Guarding Tess” (Columbia TriStar, wide-screen, $35); “The Night Before Christmas” (Touchstone, $30); “Little Big League” (Columbia TriStar, $40); “City Slickers II” (Columbia TriStar, wide-screen, $35); “The Flintstones” (MCA/Universal, $30). Warner’s “The Client” at $40; LIVE’s “Wagons East,” $35.

Coming Soon: Paramount’s “Clear and Present Danger,” with Harrison Ford, is due Jan. 31 at $45; “Wolf,” featuring Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer, is coming out Feb. 15 at $40; New Line’s “The Mask,” starring Jim Carrey, is scheduled for Feb. 22.