by Pat Perry
Is there anyone who doesn’t love “The Music Man”?
By any reasonable measure, “The Music Man” is one of the most enduring and popular warhorses of Broadway’s Golden Age, one that has permeated all realms of pop culture. The Beatles recorded its eleventh-hour romantic ballad (“Till There Was You”) and even performed it in their first Ed Sullivan Show appearance. Two of its most memorable numbers (“Trouble” and “Shipoopi”) have been lovingly spoofed on “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy” respectively. Even the lyric catchphrase “We’ve got trouble, right here in River City!” has remained in the common parlance for over fifty years.
Few musicals of this vintage are so beloved or so frequently mounted on both amateur and professional stages. But for many, the 1962 film version is their first and most memorable experience of the show, and rightly so. Remarkably faithful to the stage original and featuring a good cross-section of the Broadway cast, the film is the best and most accessible evidence of the qualities that give “The Music Man” its lasting, generation-spanning appeal.
First and foremost, there’s Robert Preston as the charismatic con man, Harold Hill. Has any performer ever put such an indelible stamp on a musical role? Certainly other characters in musical theatre have been tough to separate from the actors who originated them (Barbara Streisand’s Fanny Brice, for example, or possibly Rex Harrison’s Henry Higgins), but Preston’s Hill goes further than that. It has become the defining characterization on which virtually every other Harold Hill is based. I’ve seen more stage productions of “The Music Man” than I can count – I’ve even acted in a few – and I’ve never seen a wholly original interpretation of this role. To a man, every actor plays not Harold Hill, but Robert-Preston-as-Harold-Hill, right down to the line readings and mannerisms. (Even Craig Bierko, in the 2000 Broadway revival, was taken to task by some critics for channeling Preston too accurately
in this clip he even sounds like Preston.)
Preston’s irresistible charms are on full and glorious display in the movie; his performance dominates and energizes the film without overwhelming it. Hill has the seemingly impossible task of convincing hard-shelled, small-town Iowans to fork out their hard-earned cash for the musical instruments and uniforms that will transform their town’s potential juvenile delinquents into a shiny, wholesome boy’s band. (A band he has no intention of leading – he’s just there to collect the cash and scoot out of town before the townspeople find out he doesn’t know a note; the “professor” status he claims for himself is a total fabrication.) His sales pitch kicks off with the legendary musical jeremiad “Trouble” in which he warns the citizens or River City that the new pool table being installed in the billiards parlor is “the first big step on road to degred-ay!”
See the whole thing here:
His breathtaking performance here gets the town’s horrified attention. Over the subsequent summer weeks, he uses his “spellbinding” powers to turn the perpetually bickering, four-man school board into a harmonious barber shop quartet. He entices the mayor’s wife (Hermione Gingold) and her band of clucking acolytes to stop gossiping and start dancing, and gains the trust of a little boy who’s barely spoken since his father died (a seven-year-old Ron Howard, billed as Ronny). As per his usual routine, he sets out to seduce the town’s resident piano teacher/librarian, Marian Paroo (Shirley Jones); in a surprising, late-breaking turn of events, the previously resistant Marian comes on to him, even knowing full well that he’s a fraud. The role requires a truckload of charisma and then some; Preston’s got both the inexhaustible energy and the nimble, roguish charm to keep everyone happily off balance, including those of us in the audience.
But Preston’s performance isn’t the only defining element of the musical that’s captured here, nor the only one that’s come to dominate most subsequent productions.
Onna White’s choreography, recreated here from the Broadway production, has become almost as iconic of the show as the lead performances. White was an assistant to Michael Kidd before coming to “The Music Man,” and Kidd’s influence is apparent in the exuberant, athletic dances she created for “Seventy Six Trombones,” “Marian, the Librarian,” and “Shipoopi.” You’d be hard pressed to find a stage production that doesn’t reproduce those dances almost entirely, especially in “Shipoopi” which incorporates the ”cakewalk” step created by early 20th century dancers Vernon and Irene Castle.
Morton DaCosta, who directed the original 1957 Broadway show reprises his directorial duties here. That’s likely the reason that the film captures and reproduces so much that is emblematic of the stage production, but may also explain the film’s sometimes “stagey” feel and occasional lack of visual inspiration. In particular, the scenes from the Fourth of July pageant in the River City gymnasium are bizarrely framed, with Paul Ford’s Mayor Shinn smack in the middle of a large, mostly bare wall and the school board members sitting at his feet just barely visible in the frame. Many scenes end by going dark, save for a spotlight-styled close-up on the key characters, recreating the feeling of a play’s scene-ending stage blackout. When Marian sings “Sweet and Low” in counterpoint to the quartet’s “Lida Rose,” it’s framed to look as if you’re watching her through one side of a pair of binoculars and the quartet in the opposite side; it sounds clever on paper, but watching it is just irritating. (Which side do I focus on? I kept thinking.) The intermittently stage-bound feeling, along with the ill-conceived framing flourishes, are the primary reason that I ranked “The Music Man” a bit lower than some of my fellow voters. It’s not that I don’t love the musical, I just don’t think it’s quite as a great a film; as it could be.
Then again, there are far worse things than a slavishly-faithful-to-the-play “Music Man.” If you want to see just how badly a completely re-imagined version can turn out, look no further than the 2003 television remake, featuring a woefully miscast Matthew Broderick in the title role. Despite a wealth of talent and good intentions (Broadway veterans Kristen Chenoweth, Victor Garber and Debra Monk round out the cast and Katherine Marshall choreographed) it is an unmitigated disaster from start to finish. (Of course, for pure freak-show value, you could also check out the 2006 mockumentary “Pittsburgh” in which Jeff Goldblum takes the role of Harold Hill in a regional theatre production. The joke here is that Goldblum is all wrong for the role, but the laughs are uneasy at best; Goldblum’s Harold Hill doesn’t even appear to be from the same planet as Preston’s.)
Much of what draws audiences to “The Music Man,” I think, is a collective nostalgia for the kind of idealized American existence evoked by its 1912 Midwestern setting. It takes us into the kind of simpler, slower world that many long for, but in which few (if any) of us have actually lived: a cozy world of ice cream socials and Fourth of July picnics; a world where public libraries are kept absolutely quiet under the rule of bespectacled spinsters, and everyday speech is liberally peppered with quaint colloquialisms like “I couldn’t make myself any clearer if I’s a Quaker on his day off!” or “Not on your tintype, sister!”; a world where sweethearts’ stolen kisses on the town footbridge are the most illicit activity imaginable.
There’s certainly a family-friendly innocence to “The Music Man,” but it never deteriorates into sentimentality or preciousness. Nor is it entirely idyllic. Listen carefully when Mayor Shinn apprehends young Tommy Djilas for throwing a firecracker at his wife; not only is Tommy the only character without an Anglo-Saxon surname, but the Mayor finds it necessary to mention that “his father is one of them Lithuanians lives out south of town,” and spends the rest of the movie trying to keep Tommy away from his daughter. I’m not sure this little vignette of small-town prejudice was intended as social comment – it gets brushed by too quickly to have any serious impact – but it’s a bit jarring to contemporary ears and gets more so with every passing year.
For all that is great in this musical, we can thank the man who created it. Because, while the recognizable face of “The Music Man” belongs to Robert Preston, its true but unseen star is Meredith Willson.
A native of Mason City, Iowa, Willson had a long and varied career which comprised playing flute and piccolo in both John Philip Sousa’s band and the New York Philharmonic, music directing a number of popular radio shows in the 1930s and ’40s, and composing the Oscar-nominated musical scores for “The Great Dictator” and “The Little Foxes.” “The Music Man” was a culmination of his life-long dream to make a musical comedy about his Iowa boyhood, and it went through many revisions and reworkings over an eight-year-period before finally making it to the Broadway stage. (At various times, it was imagined as a film or television special, and both Bing Crosby and Ray Bolger were courted to play the lead role.) Willson not only wrote the score, but also collaborated on both the the book – and, later, the screenplay – with Franklin Lacey.
The result is a very funny show with one of the most ingenious – and most underrated – scores in musical theatre history. Numbers like “Seventy-Six Trombones,” “Trouble” and “Till There Was You” have becomes such well-known standards that it’s easy to overlook just how intricate and accomplished the the show’s score really is.
“Seventy-Six Trombones,” for example, isn’t just the rousing production number than gives River City a vision of its future band. It’s also a reworking of Marian’s first solo number “Goodnight My Someone,” addressed to the beloved she hasn’t yet met but says “goodnight” to on the evening star. This duality comes to light in a duet between Marian in her bedroom, and Harold waiting for her at the gate; they sing snippets from “Goodnight” and “Seventy-Six” respectively, but suddenly switch and sing each other’s songs. In that moment, the romantic bond between the two characters is irretrievably sealed.
Willson also gives us many delightful numbers that play off the everyday rhythms of small-town life. In the opening number, “Rock Island,” a train car full of travelling salesmen exchange information about Harold in a patter song that exactly mimics the rhythm of the train starting up, rolling along the tracks and finally stopping at the next station. Marion argues with her mother while conducting a piano lesson, and their conversation is sung along to the scales Marian’s pupil plays. In “Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little,” the ladies of the town trade frenzied gossip while their heads bob like those of the hens feeding in a nearby lot; “Cheep! Cheep! Cheep!” they sing, and the “hen party” effect is is memorably amusing.
As a lyricist, Willson is among the wittiest and best. Ironically, the cleverest lyrics in “The Music Man” are found in the least-remembered numbers, “Iowa Stubborn,” “Marian the Librarian” and my personal favorite of show, “The Sadder But Wiser Girl,” in which Harold sings of his preference for “experienced”
A girl who trades on all that purity
Merely wants to trade my independence for her security.
The only affirmative she will file
Refers to marching down the aisle.
No golden, glorious, gleaming pristine goddess–No sir!
For no Diana do I play faun.
I can tell you that right now.
I snarl, I hiss:
How can ignorance be compared to bliss?
I spark, I fizz
For the lady who knows what time it is
I cheer, I rave
For the virtue I’m too late to save
The sadder-but-wiser girl for me.
Willson wrote just two more musicals: “The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” which came to the screen two years later with Debbie Reynolds in the lead, and “Here’s Love,” a musical version of “Miracle on 34th Street” that produced the Yuletide standard, “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.” But the “The Music Man” was his crowning achievement, and one that is perfectly preserved in this film version.
And here’s the greatest personal endorsement I can offer. Last night, just after putting (what I thought would be) the finishing touches on this article, I switched on the television to unwind … and discovered that “The Music Man” was being broadcast on the local PBS station. What did I do? I tuned in and happily watched nearly the entire film all over again. After having performed in three different productions of this show, I like to joke that I’ve spent a significant portion of my life in River City. Apparently, it’s a place I haven’t yet tired of visiting.
How The Music Man made the Elite 70:
Marilyn Ferdinand’s No. 8 choice
Sam Juliano’s No. 11 choice
Dennis Polifroni’s No. 16 choice
Greg Ferrara’s No. 19 choice
Pat Perry’s No. 31 choice
Allan Fish’s No. 50 choice
Click on names for archives
Writers/Founders
Pat, a great, really enjoyable and well-written post. You were absolutely right to focus so much at the beginning on Preston’s performance. It’s the foundation on which all the other elements of the film are built. Reading this reminded me of all those great songs and the range of moods they express. Probably only Rodgers & Hammerstein were this good at creating such a range of songs in one show. I actually liked the spotlight blackouts. I did, however, find that opening sequence in the train jarring. Too much staginess too soon got the film off to a rocky start for me. But I thought Da Costa used his outdoor locations quite well. After all, this nostalgic fantasy Americana town is as much a character as any of the people (save, of course, Prof. Hill). I also thought Shirley Jones was great, and I liked the way you pointed out how her seemingly virginal character had hidden depths. I saw a local little theater production of this when I was in high school. My high school art teacher played Harold Hill, and he did play him just like Preston. It was a wonderfully enjoyable experience. I must confess at this point that I saw the movie for the first time only a few months ago. I was afraid I might find it a letdown, but I enjoyed it tremendously. It’s a long movie but didn’t seem it, one of the best of all stage-to-film musicals.
R. D. – Excellent point about the town of River City being as much a character as the townspeople, and I have to agree that the film gets the small-town atmosphere exactly right.
PAT-Tremendous and tremendously detailed look at one of the very greatest in the genre. More than anything though, I believe you hit on something with one of the most vital details that make this film hum like a well oiled machine. ROBERT PRESTON give such an energetic, distinct and utterly perfect performance that he steals a film filled with tons of charm and great music with every scene he’s in. I love that you mention that every other incarnation of the character is really other actors recreating Preston. Its a character that the actor was born to play and hard to think of a better male musical performance from that decade better than his. Putting the lackluster Rex Harrison in the same sentence with Preston is doing Prestons work a comparitable disservice. GREAT FILM!!!!!
And, BTW, the television remake of the film, a blunder by Disney in every way, only makes you yearn for Preston more once the laughably out-of-place Matthew Broderick makes his first appearance. No match for this film Pat has so perfectly reviewed above, the Broderick version is a joke… And not a funny joke at that. I can think of having my fingernails wrentched out by the roots with a boiling hot pair of pliers being more satisfying than that lame, boring and uninspired retread…
Dennis, I couldn’t agree more about Broderick being out of place. I suppose the producers thought that since he’d played Ferris Bueller, he had that ‘charming huckster” thing down, but OH they were wrong! Almost as bad, for me, was the horrendous casting of Molly Shannon as the mayor’s wife. She was completely clueless.
Yeah, the funny thing is, Broderick’s not a terrible singer. It’s his whole PERSONA that’s wrong for THE MUSIC MAN. He’s been riskily cast before and, in the case of GLORY, the risk pays off big time. Not here. In THE MUSIC MAN he looks sleepy eyed and uninspired like a kid in a high school theatre troup with little interest in the play he’s working on and smoking a bone before he goes out in front of the audience.
Sloppy, considering Brodericks laid his acting roots on the Broadway stage…
PRESTON is the only one that should be remembered and the only one that ever will be. HE WAS BORN TO PLAY HAROLD HILL.
Pat,
It would be unfair for me to say anything about this film since I have not seen it in more than thirty five years or so. I do want to just say that you have written a glowing and stupendously detailed review which I enjoyed reading. Many of the songs are so well known that people, who have not even seen the movie, or a theater production, are still familiar with them. Very nicely done.
Thank you, John, I appreciate the kind words.
Pat,
Loved reading your essay and it’s easy to see you really enjoy the film. I’m only surprised you ranked it at #31! Haha! Anyway, I actually was someone who thought I didn’t like the film. As was usually the case, my younger sister, who always seemed to be watching musicals, had this film on constantly (along with Fiddler on the Roof and Grease) and my parents just love the thing. I used to not be able to stand the thing! So of course, I felt that for the purposes of this countdown, I would watch it in its entirety, something I’m not even sure I ever did before. I was able to pick up the Bluray of this film and watched it about a month ago.
I was quite impressed! Not only is it much better than I remembered it being, but its downright one of the best musicals ever made and I completely agree with the words you wrote about Preston. He carries the thing magnificently. Although I do really like Shirley Jones here as well and think she’s rather enchanting. I must say my favorite moment is the musical number in the library which is wonderfully choreographed and so well done.
There are only a couple quibbles with the film
1. I couldn’t quite figure out what the “talk-singing” was about early in the film. There are about 3 instances of songs where the words are spoken rather than sung. Was strange to me, but I guess worked for the most part.
2. I thought the ending was a bit of a cop-out and a bit too happy-seeming.
Even with those quibbles it’s still a tremendous film and bravo to you on your write-up. I learned some things I didn’t know.
Jon – In retropsect, I should have ranked “The Music Man” considerably higher. I hadn’t watched it in a few years before preparing for this post, and realized as I watched that – despite my occasional quibbles with the framing – it really is a wonderful movie.
Thanks to all who have responded with kind words so far. This was a labor of love for me – as I note, I’ve had some personal connection to “The Music Man,” starting with the high school production in which I played the Widow Paroo, with my younger brother playing Winthrop.
I’m glad you agree wtih me that this is one of best musicals in the classic canon, but almost unimaginable without Robert Preston.
I had written an additional, late-breaking paragraph, unfortunately not in time to have it included, praising some of the other cast members. Here it is:
“As for the rest of the cast, they’re wonderful, too. I’ve found Jones a little bland elsewhere, but here she proves a perfect foil for Preston’s wily maneuvering. Ron Howard’s Winthrop sings loudly and enthusiastically, but not well, and can’t dance at all – but that’s what makes his performance so appealing. He’s far more like a real little boy than so many of the preternaturally polished moppets who have taken this role on stage. Gingold’s take on the mayor’s wife is idiosyncratic and very funny. (A brief scene has been written in to the film, apparently just for the fun of hearing her sputter through a mispronunciation of “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.”) And Paul Ford, reprising his Broadway role, bring just the right amount of comic small-town crankiness.”
Also -a correction: the choreographer of the dreadful TV remake was KATHLEEN Marshall, not Katherine.
Well Pat, this is your magnum opus, your piece de resistance, your astounding appreciation of one of the greatest of all screen musicals. Your stupendous consideration of the music, the performances, the unique setting and the spirit that drives this energetic film to listing heights of musical theatre and film is surely one of the most authoritaive, passionate and engaging reads of the entire countdown. Your personal anecdotes again fully embellish your subject with the ‘something extra’ that places everything in the most consumate perspective. THE MUSIC MAN is a celebration of old-fashioned American virtues, conveyed by a thing plot on the surface that is carried along by the fabric of it’s songs, and the electrifying performance by Robert Preston, a turn that surely must be considered the greatest every given by an actor in a leading role in all of musical cinema. The fact that Preston reprises his stage role is proof parcel that this role was his from the start and virually no one could ever or will ever supplant his interpretation. Preston transforms River city into a singing and dancing community circa Iowa, 1912. His crisp, authoritative delivery is wholly captivating, and he’s given more than able assistance by a marvelous supporting cast. ‘Trouble’ is one of the most animated, forward rushing songs in all of musical theatre, and the lovely ‘Till There Was You’ reprised by the Beatles, is an unforgettable song, covered by many. You have captured teh magic in this musical masterpiece as well as anyone in print, and I offer youy unreserved applause!
Ted Sennett in his seminal volume “Hollywood Musicals” framed Preston’s contribution superlatively:
“Whether raising the citizens of River City to fever pitch, or serenading his lovestruck Marian, or leading the boys band in full regalia, he is the epitome of the ‘music man,’ a flesh and blood man among animated figures.’
Infectious and celebratory you have hit the highest note of the trobone playing in the film’s big parade Pat!
I might add here that this musical could well be the all-time performance champion when it comes to school and community productions in the USA.
No wonder for all sorts of reasons. But Meredith Wilson’s score is as American as apple pie and then some.
Wonderful piece, Pat, full of infectious enthusiasm! This was a musical I had hoped to watch in the run-up to the countdown but didn’t manage to get hold of a copy and then time ran out – apologies for that, but it got a very high place anyway! I’d have to say in my defence that this musical isn’t so well-known in the UK – I’ve never come across a stage production and it isn’t out on DVD here, with even VHS copies being quite rare. The songs 76 Trombones and Till There Was You are very well-known, however, and after reading your great piece I will certainly aim to fill in this gap in my musical knowledge!
Precisely Judy. This is one that would resonate in the US more than anywhere, though your testament here confirms it does have universality as well.
Judy – Thanks so much. Your comment confirms my long-held suspicion that “The Music Man” is uniquely American in both subject matter and appeal, more so than any other classic musical I can think of. But I do hope you get your hands on a copy, I think you’ll be delighted by it.
PS, I noticed the Broderick version is on Youtube, so, when this musical got such a high vote from everyone else, I had wondered about watching that one, but glad I didn’t – it sounds like it has to be Robert Preston!
Stay away from the Broderick version – stay FAR away! If you start with that, you’ll never want to see this again.
Sam – I’m blushing a bit here as a result of your extravagant praise, but I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your kind words.
Here’s an interesting fact: Cary Grant was offered the film role of Harold Hill initially, but turned it down, saying that no one could play it like Preston. He was absolutely right, of course, but I can’t help being curious at how a Cary Grant interpretation of Harold Hill might have turned out. Of all the other actors who were ever considered for this role – on film or on stage – he’s the only choice I actually might not have minded seeing; his singing voice is no great shakes, but, for me, he has just about enough charisma to pull it off, But no matter. Preston owns this one and always will, and it would never have held up so well for so many years without him. Interesting that it took 43 years before a Broadway revival was mounted, and I’m sure Preston’s legacy has a lot to do with that, too.
Thanks again for giving me the joy and privlege of participating in this countdown !
I have to agree with Sam and others that Pat Perry has authored one of the best essays of this countdown. Preston is a real force of nature, and the songs in this film are to be listened at your own risk, meaning they will stay in your head all day and beyond. “Trouble” is my own favorite song, but this one is loaded. The River City setting is a joy.
Thank you very much, Frank.
“Trouble” is a great number – it’s the third song in the show and film, but the one that really sets the story in motion. Apparently, Willson originally wrote those lyrics as a monologue for Hill, but at some point realized they’d work better as a musical number. Good call!
What an exhilarating piece! All the praise given Preston is well-deserved. He’s a Rainmaker or Elmer Gantry with rhythm. The viewer can virtually reach out and touch his taste and relish for the con, his contradictory moral qualities. Every move he makes — every gesture — establishes the definitive Harold Hill in a way no other musical performance ever achieved to my recollection.
The other perfect piece of casting here is Shirley Jones, a most talented singer and actress. Speaking of Elmer Gantry, the qualities she showed in that film serve the Marian character, as well, so that we believe she could fall for a master flim flam artist like Hill and help him become a better man. Some of the other characters, Hermione Gingold and Paul Ford, for example, are icing on the cake.
Before reading this piece, I’d have agreed with you about the film being a bit stagey, but I have to say that the “Trouble” clip seems quite well conceived and executed.
I’m not sure this little vignette of small-town prejudice was intended as social comment – it gets brushed by too quickly to have any serious impact – but it’s a bit jarring to contemporary ears and gets more so with every passing year.
During the era depicted in the film, I think that’s the Midwestern way of life for better or worse. In some areas, the Lithuanians could’ve been Italian, for example, or gypsies. I don’t feel that the roots of this type of phenomenon dug as deep as pure racism, but I agree that it’s jarring to contemporary ears.
Thanks, Pat, for the great read!
Pierre – Love this: “He’s a Rainmaker or Elmer Gantry with rhythm.”
And I agree with you about the kind of mild prejudice expressed by the Mayor as being pretty much the way of life jfor the midwest of 1912, the small-town midwest. In truth, that line flew right by me many times before I realized the underlying ugliness of it,. Now I can’t hear it without wincing a little.