the last book I ever read (The Sound of Music Story, excerpt one)

from The Sound of Music Story: How A Beguiling Young Novice, A Handsome Austrian Captain, and Ten Singing von Trapp Children Inspired the Most Beloved Film of All Time by Tom Santopietro:

Given the family’s real-life escape to Italy, the film’s lushly filmed finale of their brave climb over the mountains into the safety of Switzerland was, of course, a complete fiction. As many have pointed out, most particularly Maria herself, if they had climbed over the Austrian mountain peaks, they would have ended up in Germany, not Switzerland, and very close to the führer’s retreat at Berchtesgaden at that. In Maria’s typically blunt statement, “Don’t they know geography in Hollywood? Salzburg does not border on Switzerland!” In fact, Salzburg lies 150 miles from Switzerland, but as canny old pro Robert Wise analyzed: “In Hollywood you make your own geography.”