"THE SOUND OF MUSIC" is one of the most beloved of all musicals.  It's also a great family film, and fans will be delighted with the magnificent presentation its received from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with this 2 disc, supplementary filled release!

Locations are often key to the film's scope and atmosphere, as is evident from the wonderful opening scene in which Julie Andrews is running around a mountaintop and singing the film's theme.  It's a great moment, and it's made all the better here, with a flawless transfer.  Created from a 65mm print, it's sharp, free of any trace of grain, and offering incredible depth!  FOX has presented this with the original 2.20:1 ratio, 16:9 enhanced.  While the previous laserdisc versions looked wonderful, the 16:9 enhancement really offers a substantial improvement in clarity over them on a 16:9 screen.  There are no artifacts anywhere, and the contrast is wonderful with deep blacks and grays!  The dolby digital 4.1 sound mix is wonderful, and an improvement over the laserdisc version.  While surround sounds aren't extremely aggressive, they're always present, offering great atmospheric mood to every scene, especially the musical numbers.  The LFE track helps provide a real boost to some of film's songs as well as to the suspense near the film's ending.  The score is also offered on a stereo track without vocals, presumably for Karaoke fans. Director Robert Wise can be heard at points throughout this track, and while his commentary is interesting, it may be too dry to anyone but the biggest of the film's fans.  He goes into the minutia of almost every scene.

The 2nd disc offers an abundance of supplementary materials including two documentaries.  The first, "Salzburg Sight and Sound" was made in 1965, and appears extremely "dated" in its scope as a documentary. The 2nd documentary, "From Fact to Phenomenon" is wonderful!  It explores in a really fair manner everything about the real family and where the truth departs from reality in the film, and even offers interviews with some members of the real Von Trapp family.  There is a large amount of radio excerpts that have been included!   An 8 minute interview with Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer is overshadowed by a half-hour one with writer Ernest Lehman. All this and much more make this a true Collector's edition that should be a part of every dvd collector's library!