NEW YORK: The hills are alive with the sound of a big, lucrative anniversary.

The 1965 Oscar-winning film adaptation of the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical “The Sound of Music” is celebrating its 50th birthday this year and its star Julie Andrews can’t quite believe it.

“This is a lovely moment to mark. I’ve been saying all along it’s like a very bad joke because surely it was only 30 years ago — not 50,” she said. “I feel I lost 20 somewhere along the way. A little thing called life got in the way.”

The movie that popularized whiskers on kittens and warm woolen mittens isn’t holding back on its golden anniversary: There are events, DVDs, books, soundtracks and screenings.

Other American movie musicals may be revered — “Cabaret” and “West Side Story,” for example — but few are as beloved as “The Sound of Music.” Andrews, 79, thinks she knows why.

“This one stuck because it was very well made with beautiful music and a lot of glorious assets like scenery and mountains and children and an adventure story and a love story and all of that,” she said.

To honor the milestone, 20th Century Fox is releasing a five-disc Blue-ray/DVD collection, the soundtrack is being re-released, and the film will be screened at the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood later this month and over 500 movie theaters in April.

Angela Cartwright, who played Brigitta von Trapp, said cast members have gone through ups and downs and births and deaths during the past 50 years but “when we all get together, we pick up where we left off.”