The Screen is Alive...

Last night shortly after 8 p.m., Diane from Livingston updated her Facebook status with this: "The Sound of Music. Best movie ever!" I agree and grabbing my laptop, I went out to the living room to flip it on.

Settled on the couch with my computer, I updated my own Facebook status: Jane "is waiting for her favorite part of the Sound of Music -- when the nuns take the starter out of the Nazis' car. What's your favorite part?"

While I waited, the Von Trapp children, wearing play clothes that were curtains in a previous life, do-re-mi-ed around Salzburg while their father softened up enough to serenade everyone with Edelweiss, and after a few starts and stops, finally dispensed with the Baroness and ignited the sparks that had been smoldering between him and the erstwhile nun since the opening credits.

All the while, my friends were describing their favorite scenes in Facebook comments:

Like me, Peggy's son favors the nuns masquerading as mechanics.

Laurie and Leslie are partial to the Captain singing Edelweiss.

Jacquie can't decide on just one scene from her very favorite movie of all time.

Jane from Omaha loves the wedding scene.

Jane from Atlanta loves the whole thing...and has since she was seven and, sitting on pillows in the front row, saw Mary Martin play Maria on Broadway.

Sara's favorite part is Sixteen Going on Seventeen.

Rachel favors the kids singing So Long, Farewell at the party -- and when her mother sings along, too!

Kristin also likes the nuns and singing along.

Those last two reminded me of my "Sound of Music Sing-a-Long" adventure at the Hollywood Bowl during 2002. The outdoor amphitheater in the Hollywood Hills seats nearly 18,000 and on the summer night I was there, every seat was taken. Some filling those seats were sporting lederhosen while others had donned white dresses with blue satin sashes. Still others were schlepping brown paper packages tied up with string and, despite the pleasant Los Angeles weather, a few were wearing warm woolen mittens.

A juried costume parade preceded the subtitled screening (the better to truly sing along) and was won by two young kids dressed as "a needle pulling thread" and a guy dressed as a plumber--complete with a plunger--who told all 18,000 of us that he was "Christopher the Plumber" and that he'd been called in "because of a clog at the Hollywood Bowl." Big groan....

And then, before I knew it (both last night and at the Bowl), the Anschluss was on, the Von Trapps were singing in the music festival and then...they were gone.

Finally, my favorite scene: As the family high tails it out of the abbey to the Swiss border, the Nazis race to follow, but alas their cars won't start.

Divine intervention?

No, not quite. Just a pair of irreverent nuns with a little mechanical know-how doing their part to fight Nazism in 1938.

Way to go, sisters!