NEW YORK – Fans of the stage show and1965 film were reportedly bemused if not displeased when NBC’s special live presentation of “The Sound of Music,” which aired at 8 p.m. Eastern Thursday night, featured scenes in which star Carrie Underwood murdered several Nazis with firearms. The scenes were allegedly a contractual demand.
Underwood, an American Idol winner and multiplatinum country star famous for songs like “Before He Cheats” and “Jesus, Take the Wheel,” starred as Maria opposite “True Blood” lead Stephen Moyer, who performed in a British accent as Captain Von Trapp. Underwood sounded like she was from the Muskogee, Okla., part of Austria.
Fans of older versions of “The Sound of Music” first grew confused when Maria, playing acoustic guitar, taught the Von Trapp children to sing while barefoot in cutoff jeans with mud up to her knees. Brows furrowed deeper when Maria got the captain back for perceived slight by keying his car.
“What the – what the hell is going on here?” asked fan Deborah Folton at a group viewing. “I mean, I guess it’s kind of fun, but that’s not quite right.”
The true surprise lay in the TV movie’s final act, however, when Maria “got herself a shotgun” during the captain’s solo of “Edelweiss” and began cutting down officers of the Third Reich with apparent relish.
“Swastikas on live TV is really weird, but governess-on-Gestapo violence is way weirder” Folton commented. “And of course I never mind seeing some Nazis get it … My high school just did it differently, that’s all I’m saying.”
In statements, Underwood, who said she insisted on the scenes personally, praised her fellow cast members and said she thought Thursday’s “Sound of Music” stayed true to the original, which Rogers and Hammerstein first produced in 1959.
“Jumping on that feather bed and singing about the billy goat were fun,” Underwood said, “but I really took the role in order to shoot me some Nazis.
“And we only had to have them write one of those scenes,” Underwood added, “the rest we just restored from an older draft.”