La Mélodie du bonheur (1965)

Peggy Wood: Mother Abbess

Photos 

Quotes 

• Sister Margaretta : Reverend Mother, I have sinned.

  Sister Berthe : I, too, Reverend Mother.

  Mother Abbess : What is this sin, my children?

  [the nuns look at each other, then reveal from under their robes the distributor and coil they have removed from the Germans' cars] 

• Maria : I can't seem to stop singing wherever I am. And what's worse, I can't seem to stop saying things - anything and everything I think and feel.

  Mother Abbess : Some people would call that honesty.

  Maria : Oh, but it's terrible, Reverend Mother.

• Mother Abbess : Maria, these walls were not meant to shut out problems. You have to face them. You have to live the life you were born to live.

• Maria : Reverend Mother, I'm sorry. I couldn't help myself. -The hills were beckoning and... the sky was so blue today... and everything was so green and fragrant, I had to be a part of it. The Untersberg led me higher like it wanted me to go through the clouds.

  Mother Abbess : Suppose darkness had come and you were lost?

  Maria : Mother, I could never be lost up there. That's my mountain. I was brought up on it. It was the mountain that led me to you. When I was a child, I would come down and climb a tree... and look in your garden. I'd see the sisters at work and hear them sing... Which brings me to another transgression, Reverend Mother. I was singing out there today.

  Mother Abbess : Only in the abbey do we have rules about postulants singing.

  Maria : I can't stop wherever I am. Worse, I can't seem to stop saying things. Everything I think and feel.

• [last lines] 

  Mother Abbess : What is this sin, my children?

• Mother Abbess : [singing]  How do you solve a problem like Maria?

• Sister Bernice : She's missing from the abbey again.

  Sister Berthe : Perhaps we should have put a cowbell around her neck.

  Sister Margaretta : Have you tried the barn? You know how much she adores the animals.

  Sister Bernice : I have looked everywhere, in all of the usual places.

  Mother Abbess : Sister Bernice, considering that it's Maria... I suggest you look in someplace unusual.

• Mother Abbess : [singing]  Climb every mountain. Ford every stream. Follow every rainbow, till you find your dream. A dream that will need all the love you can give, every day of your life, for as long as you live.

• Mother Abbess : [singing]  Climb every mountain. Search high and low. Follow every byway, every path you know.

• Mother Abbess : Captain von Trapp? Are you in love with him?

  Maria : I don't know! I don't know, I... The baroness said I was. She... She said that he was in love with me... but I... I didn't want to believe it. Oh, there were times when we would look at each other... oh, Mother, I could hardly breathe.

  Mother Abbess : Did you let him see how you felt?

  Maria : If I did, I didn't know it. That's what's been torturing me. I was there on God's errand. To have asked for his love would have been wrong. I couldn't stay. I just couldn't! I'm ready at this moment to take my vows. Please help me.

  Mother Abbess : Maria, the love of a man and a woman is holy too. You have a great capacity to love. What you must find out is how God wants you to spend your love.

  Maria : But I've pledged my life to God. I... I've pledged my life to his service.

  Mother Abbess : My daughter, if you love this man, it doesn't mean you love God less. No. You must find out. You must go back.