The Sound of Music

Factual error: The von Trapps are shown walking over the border to Switzerland after a short drive out of the centre of town...except Salzburg is about 200km east of Switzerland. If one walked across the border at Salzburg, you'd be entering Germany, which is where (I believe) the people they were trying to get away from lived. Take a look at a map.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Even though the von Trapps were 200km from the Swiss border, in the last 5 mins, they received a car from the sisters at the convent and the sisters disabled the cars of their pursuers.

Captain Von Trapp was clear, when they were about to hide, that they would drive into the mountains in Salzburg (which the movie did a close up on to show it was those mountains specifically) and walk over them on foot confirming the movie is pretending those are mountains into Switzerland. The director himself admitted this when the real Maria Von Trapp complained of this error. He said "In Hollywood you can make up your own geography."

More for The Sound of Music

Mistakes

Revealing mistake: When the kids step out of the water and walk towards the house, the floor is already soaking wet from previous takes.

Sacha ★

More mistakes in The Sound of Music

Quotes

Maria: I am not finished yet, Captain!
Captain Von Trapp: Oh yes you are, Captain! Fraulein, you will pack your things this minute and return to the Abbey.

More quotes from The Sound of Music

Trivia

Trivia: In the boating scene, Kym Karath (Gretl) nearly drowned when she fell in the water. The scene originally called for Julie Andrews (Maria) to pull her out of the water as Kym couldn't swim, but Andrews fell out of the wrong side of the boat. In fact, the crew had to stop filming to rescue Kym. In the movie Heather Menzies (Louisa) pulls her out - Kym threw up on her after swallowing so much water.

More trivia for The Sound of Music

Questions

Question: In the scene where the nuns are singing 'How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria', one nun says 'I even heard her singing in the abbey.' This is used as though Maria was doing something bad, but throughout this song, aren't the nuns in the abbey, and aren't they singing? If it was so wrong for Maria to do this, why is it okay for them?

Answer: Postulants/Novices, such as Maria, were forbidden from singing in the Abbey. However, these rules did not necessarily apply to the sisters who are singing. In addition, it's a musical, and the nuns weren't "really" singing. Their complaints about Maria are simply put into a song.

More questions & answers from The Sound of Music

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.