Keeping a special Christmas tradition, ABC will be airing the 1965 hit musical drama film The Sound of Music on Dec. 17 starting at 7 p.m.ET

According to Remind Magazine, the classic movie featuring Julie Andrews and the late Andrew Plummer will run on a four-hour-long programming block. It was also reported that the film has been running on ABC during the holiday season since 2002. 

The film is on the 1959 stage musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, which was based on the 1949 memoir The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria von Trapp. It is set in Salzburg, Austria before World War II started where Maria is training to become a nun. Her convent sends her to become a governess to the seven children of a widowed naval officer, Georg von Trapp. As time goes on, Maria and Georg fall in love. However, they eventually had to escape during the annexation of Austria into the German Reich (known as Anschluss). 

The Sound of Music, which only had a $8.2 million budget, became a huge box office success. It achieved $286.2 million during its theatrical run. Starring in the film with Andrews and Plummer were Eleanor Parker, Richard Haydn, Peggy Wood, Chairman Carr, and Ben Wright. 

Julie Andrew Opened Up About Her ‘The Sound of Music’ In Her Second Autobiography 

While sharing details about her life in her 2019 autobiography, Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years, Julie Andrews shared some stories about her time on The Sound of Music set. Per Forbes, Andrews had no problem poking fun at the original Broadway musical. 

“I’m ashamed to admit that at the time we weren’t wildly impressed,” she admitted. She explained she saw the stage adaptation with her then-husband, Tony Walton. “We loved the music, but the show seemed rather saccharine to us — so much so that Carol Burnett and I did a spoof of it called ‘The Pratt Family Singers’ in our 1962 television special.”

Andrews also admitted she was worried about being typecast for her nanny role. The film was right after her other hit film Mary Poppins. In Mary Poppins, she played the lead as a nanny. “It would be my second nanny role, almost on the heels of the first,” she explained. “Arthur (Park) very much encouraged me to accept the job. And I’ll be forever grateful for the nudge over the fence that he and Bob (Wise) gave this nervous and insecure young woman.”