Themes: Cons and Scams, Mothers and Sons, Mischievous Children
Main Cast: Robert Preston, Shirley Jones, Buddy Hackett, Pert Kelton, Ronny Howard, Hermione Gingold, Paul Ford
Release Year: 1962
Country: US
Run Time: 151 minutes
Plot
Meredith Wilson's hit 1957 Broadway musical was transferred to the screen in larger-than-life fashion in 1962. Robert Preston repeats his legendary stage performance as fast-talking con man Harold Hill, who goes from town to town selling citizens on starting a "boy's band," then extracts money from them by ordering instruments and uniforms, with the promise that he'll teach the kids how to be musicians. Once he's collected his bankroll, Hill skips town, leaving the kids in the lurch. Looking for new suckers in Iowa, Hill arrives in River City, where he declares that the only way to save the youth of River City from the lure of the poolroom is to organize a boy's band. He charms the mayor's wife Eulalie (Hermione Gingold) into forming a "ladies' dance committee" and sets his sights on winning over local music teacher Marian Paroo (Shirley Jones). Marian rightly considers Hill a fraud, especially when he espouses the "Think System" of learning music: if you think a tune, he claims, you can play it. But Marian becomes Hill's staunchest ally when her young brother Winthrop (Ronny Howard), sullen and withdrawn since the death of his father, exuberantly comes out of his shell at the prospect of joining Hill's band; and Marian's budding romance with the charming but unreliable Hill ultimately brings her out of her own shell as well. Marion Hargrove's script uses most of the original play, with a handful of amusing expansions, especially in the roles played by Gingold and by Buddy Hackett as Hill's comic sidekick. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
The Music Man is among the best movie musicals, transforming Meredith Willson's Broadway hit into an energetic slice of Americana. Robert Preston's virtuoso portrayal of con man Harold Hill transfers from the stage (despite the studios' nervousness about casting no-name Preston), and the result is one of the most explosively vital performances in any movie musical. Until the very end, Preston never sugar-coats or softens Hill's rapacious self-seeking, nor does Shirley Jones downplay the stubborn snobbishness of his love interest, Marian Paroo. The portrayal of the River City townfolk is memorably caustic: "You can have your fill of the all the food you bring yourself!" runs only one of the snide remarks in their introductory song, which offers, "Glad to have you with us -- even though we may not ever mention it again." The film's embrace of small-town American life is not confined to its sentimental, sickly-sweet aspects (the movie's hero, after all, is a con man, whom Preston's vigorously charming performance dares us to like), and this dimensionality makes the movie as distinctive dramatically as it is musically. Preston carries the movie, but he receives memorable support from Jones, Ron Howard as her brother Winthrop, Buddy Hackett as his sidekick, and such stalwarts as Paul Ford, Hermione Gingold, and Pert Kelton among the River City townspeople. The underrated score includes Till There Was You, later covered by The Beatles and often mistaken for one of their songs. Made at the acme (yet last gasp) of the blockbuster movie musical in the first half of the 1960s, The Music Man can hold its own among such better-known contemporaries as West Side Story (1961), My Fair Lady (1964), and The Sound of Music (1965). ~ Leo Charney, All Movie Guide
Susan Luckey - Zaneeta Shinn; Harry Hickox - Charlie Cowell; Charles Lane - Constable Locke; Mary Wickes - Mrs. Squires; Oliver Hix - Buffalo Bills; Natalie Core - Truthful Smith; Ronnie Dapo - Norbert Smith; Roy Dean - Gilbert Hawthorne; Timmy Everett - Tommy Djilas; William Fawcett - Lester Lonnergan; Jesslyn Fax - Avis Grubb; Percy Helton - Conductor; Rance Howard - Oscar Jackson; Anne Loos - Stella Jackson; Therese Lyon - Dolly Higgins; Natalie Masters - Farmer's Wife; Peggy Mondo; Milton Parsons - Farmer; Barbara Pepper - Feril Hawkes; Max Showalter; Monique Vermont - Amaryllis; Hank Worden - Townsman; Peggy Wynne - Ada Nutting; Delos Jewkes - Harley MacCauley; Ray Kellogg - Harry Joseph; The Buffalo Bills - Jacey Squires; Olin Britt; Ewart Dunlo
Credit
Onna White - Choreography, Dorothy Jeakins - Costume Designer, Morton Da Costa - Director, William H. Ziegler - Editor, Ray Heindorf - Composer (Music Score), Ray Heindorf - Musical Direction/Supervision, Gordon Bau - Makeup, Paul Groesse - Production Designer, Robert Burks - Cinematographer, Morton Da Costa - Producer, George James Hopkins - Set Designer, George Groves - Sound/Sound Designer, Marion Hargrove - Screenwriter, Meredith Willson - From Musical by, Franklin Lacey - Play Author
