A young novice is sent by her convent in 1930s Austria to become a governess to the seven children of a widowed naval officer.
In 1930s Austria, a young woman named Maria is failing miserably in her attempts to become a nun. When Navy Captain Georg Von Trapp writes to the abbey asking for a governess that can handle his seven mischievous children, Maria is given the job. His wife is dead, he is often away, and he runs the household as strictly as he does the ships he sails on. The children are unhappy and resentful of the governesses that he keeps hiring and have managed to run each of them off one by one. When Maria arrives, she is initially met with the same hostility, but her kindness, understanding, and sense of fun soon draws the children to her and brings some much-needed joy into all their lives, including the Captain's. Eventually he and Maria find themselves falling in love, even though he is already engaged to a Baroness named Elsa and Maria is still a postulant. The romance makes them both start questioning the decisions they have made. Their personal conflicts soon become overshadowed, however, by world events. Austria is about to come under Germany's control, and the Captain may soon find himself drafted into the German Navy and forced to fight against his own country.—LOTUS73
In 1930s Salzburg, Maria is a novice at a convent, she always having thought about being a nun growing up on the hills above town and being able to see above the convent walls to the goings-on inside when she was a child. The sisters, including the Mother Abbess, however openly muse about Maria's fitness as a nun, they not questioning her faith but rather her temperament, as she always seems to be getting into one form of trouble or another. As such, the Mother Abbess feels it best, against Maria's wishes, for her to leave the convent if only temporarily to see if distance will provide some clarity for all of them, Mother able to secure her a position as governess for wealthy widowed Navy Captain Georg Von Trapp's seven children, age range from sixteen year old Liesl to five year old Gretl. It is a difficult transition for Maria working under the extremely regimented mentality of the Captain who treats his children and her like they were in the military, especially since the passing of their mother, to dealing with the disruptive children who have gone through many governesses in they not wanting a governess but rather love from a present father and a mother. As Maria is able to soften the workings of the household, first with the children and then the Captain, the latter may see what the children need, namely a mother, he having chosen wealthy Vienna-based Baroness Elsa Schraeder. What he is unaware of is that while she wants to be Mrs. Captain Von Trapp and live the life of gaiety and wealth, the Baroness has no want to be a mother to the seven children. Complicating matters are, in no particular order, the Nazi takeover of Austria, the Captain ultra-Nationalistic who has no intention of working within the Nazi regime, and Maria and the Captain falling in love with each other, neither wanting to admit so both because of the Baroness and Maria's long and singular course of being a nun.—Huggo
In the middle of second World War, a young female is hired as a nanny to take care of the kids of a big working family. With all the trouble that is happening around them, they do everything that they can to survive and get through the difficult times.—RECB3
Maria had longed to be a nun since she was a young girl, yet when she became old enough, she discovered that it wasn't at all what she thought. Often in trouble and doing the wrong things, she is sent to the house of retired Naval Captain Georg von Trapp to care for his seven children. He was widowed several years before and was left to care for the children, who have run off countless governesses. Maria soon learns that all they need is a little love to change their attitudes. She teaches them to sing, and through her, music is brought back into the hearts and home of the Trapp family. Unknowingly, Maria and the Captain are falling helplessly in love, except there are two problems: he is engaged to a Baroness named Elsa and she is a postulant.—Katy Richardson
The widowed, retired Austrian naval officer, Captain Von Trapp (Christopher Plummer) has made his Austrian home one of overly restrictive and harshly enforced discipline, one that, most unintentionally, causes his seven children to be underfed when it comes to joy and love. Being a nun living in a convent is similarly restrictive and unfulfilling for Maria (Julie Andrews), who breaks rules to try to change it. The reverend mother (Peggy Wood) decides that Maria, who is not cutting it as a nun, should leave and take on a job as governess at the nearby Von Trapp household in Salzburg.
Through music and various outings, Maria gives the children a taste of a more fulfilling, joyous, life than they have ever known, and they come to love her very dearly. The Captain grows closer to his children, too, coming to understand the value and beauty of the freedoms that Maria has given them. Ironically, the freedom of all Austrians to live their lives to the fullest is in danger, for it is 1938, and Germany is marching into Austria. The Captain is a patriot, passionate about the fulfilling life that Austria has always offered its citizens.
In his personal life, the Captain is having a romance with a wealthy, cultivated, and lovely Baroness (Eleanor Parker), but he is becoming more and more captivated by Maria, and is falling in love with her, and she, too, feels growing affection for him. She is a nun, however, and unschooled in dealing with the situaiton. Frightened by the developments, Maria runs back to the convent, where the reverend mother convinces her that she must face, rather than run from, the situation, causing Maria to return to the Captain's home. It seems, though, that she is too late, learning that the Captain and the Baroness have become engaged.
The Captain, who had surely concluded that he could never have Maria for a wife, confides to the Baroness that he loves Maria, but the Baroness admits she had sensed it long ago, and the engagement is called off. The Captain and Maria marry, but an ugly situation befronts them upon return from their honeymoon -- the Captain has been summoned, in a telegram, by the Third Reich to serve in its navy.
Due to the Captain 's unwillingness to serve the Third Reich, the Captain and Maria resolve to leave Austria, and, after escaping the pursuit of some Nazi officers, they set out, with the children, for the mountains of Switzerland on foot.
