Family Home Theater

Grade: B/B-
Entire family: Yes (well, two-thirds, at least)
1945-1965, 838 min. (6 films), Color
20^th Century Fox
Rated G
Aspect ratios: 1.37:1, 2.55:1, 2.20:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 7.1, DTS-HD MA 5.1, DTS-HD MA 4.0, DTS-HD MA Mono
Bonus features: B-

Rodgers & Hammerstein are Broadway legends, having won a total of 34 Tony Awards for their work. They’ve done all right with film adaptations, too, earning 15 Academy Awards. So if you’re a fan of old musicals and want to share that with your children, it might be tempting to pick up this collection. But don’t do it because you think it will be a good resource should your children get a part in a future high school musical. According to The Broadway Scoop, not one Rodgers & Hammerstein musical ranks among the Top 10 Musicals currently being performed by high schools.

Does that mean they’re dated, or as corny as Kansas in August? Some of them, yes. For that reason, it might be better to wait (right now four out of six are only available through this collection) to buy these titles individually, rather than as an eight-disc, six-film collection, because while two of the films are surefire winners and two are entertaining-enough slices of rural Americana to where they will be of marginal interest to younger viewers, the remaining two musicals feature topics that won’t engage children much.

The King and I and The Sound of Music, with 10 Oscars between them, are the most likely to have wide family appeal. They’re colorful spectacles, and both of them have a large cast of children that will interest young ones.

Set in the 1860s, The King and I features Yul Brynner as the King of Siam, who, in his desire to become a more “scientific” ruler, has decided to educate himself and to hire a teacher to instruct his many children. Deborah Kerr is the English widow who arrives with her son and falls in love with the children (as we do). Audiences also love the give-and-take sparring between her and the king, while everyone around him is so fearful of his authority. She helps him put on a state dinner for visiting western dignitaries to prove he’s no barbarian, and he charms her with his own grace and gratitude. The costumes are lavish, the songs are wonderfully catchy—like “Getting to Know You,” “Shall We Dance,” and “I Whistle a Happy Tune”—and they have core messages that will resonate, even with children. The ending is sad and it might take some discussion to frame it for your youngest, but The King and I still has wide appeal. Unfortunately, the film isn’t out on Blu-ray except in this collection.

The Sound of Music is already available as a stand-alone Blu-ray title, and in fact if your family likes bonus features the stand-alone is the better buy. That’s because the second disc of bonus features on the stand-alone is not included in this set—an unfortunate omission. But the film is a triumph. It overwhelmed audiences from the start with its story of the von Trapp family singers, who fled Austria for Switzerland during the Nazi occupation.

Exteriors were shot on location, so there’s a beautiful authenticity to complement a storyline that’s classic: a woman studying to be a nun (Julie Andrews) doesn’t seem particularly suited to the convent and is sent to serve as governess to the children of a widowed Austrian captain (Christopher Plummer). There, she reintroduces song into the household, becomes beloved to the children, and falls in love with her employer. How do you solve a problem like Maria? Especially when she becomes part of a romantic triangle in this blended family tale set against the backdrop of war? The songs are some of the best that Rodgers & Hammerstein ever produced, including “Maria,” “Sixteen Going on Seventeen,” “My Favorite Things,” “Do-Re-Mi,” “The Lonely Goatherd,” “Climb Every Mountain,” and a song written especially for the film that’s so convincing as a national anthem that it almost brings tears to your eyes when Capt. von Trapp leads the crowd at the Salzburg music festival in a chorus, right in front of Nazi officials. It’s as stirring a moment as those dueling national anthems in Casablanca.   More