Warner Bros. | 1962 | 177 mins. | Rated G
As a huge fan of the Hollywood musicals that came out during the fifties and sixties, The Music Man is near the top of my list of favorites. Based on the 1957 Broadway musical of the same name by Meredith Willson, the film was one of the biggest box office hits of 1962, and was nominated for five Awards, including Best Picture. Though the film lost the Best Picture race to Lawrence of Arabia, it did win the award for Best Musical Score (adaptation or treatment). Further, in 2005, The Music Man was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
Almost fifty years after the films debut, it’s impossible to picture anyone but Robert Preston in the role of con man, extraordinaire, Professor Harold Hill. Though Preston has originated the role on Broadway, Jack Warner wanted Frank Sinatra or Cary Grant for the lead, because Preston wasn’t a box office star. It was only after Meredith Willson insisted upon Preston, and Cary Grant reiterated that no one “could do the role better than Bob Preston,” that Warner relented. What a wise choice that was. Preston had performed the role over 1000 times on the Broadway stage and had every mannerism of the character down to a tea. Preston’s Hill is brash, beguiling, egotistical, and fast talking. Yet he’s filled with more compassion than even he could’ve believed.
Hill stops in River City, Iowa circa 1912, with the intention of selling a musical instrument and a band uniform to every boy in sight, even though he can’t play a note of music himself and has no intention of forming a band. The plan is to collect all the money he can from unsuspecting parents, and hightail it out of town. But of course things don’t go as planned, and the Professor soon finds himself deeply involved in the lives of River City’s residents. He finds himself smitten with the town librarian Marian Paroo (Shirley Jones), and along the way he has to deal with Marian’s little brother (Ronny ‘Ron’ Howard) the Mayor and his wife (Paul Ford and Hermione Gingold), an old buddy (Buddy Hackett), and members of the local school board (played by the award-winning barbershop quartet, the Buffalo Bills: Vern Reed, Al Shea, Bill Spangenberg, and Wayne Ward).
Shirley Jones does a great job replacing Barbara Cook who won a Tony for her portrayal of Marian on Broadway. She makes a wonderfully stern, and later befuddled Marian, as she finds herself falling prey to Harold Hill’s charms. But while Jones’ is a fine actress, her true talent lies in her vocal abilities. Since Meredith Willson’s musical score is really what carries the film, Shirley Jones is a true standout. There are two-and-a-half hours of songs, with not a bad one in the bunch. The highlights include “Rock Island,” “Iowa Stubborn,” “Ya Got Trouble,” “Goodnight, My Someone,” “Sincere,” “Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little,” “The Sadder But Wiser Girl,” “Marian the Librarian,” “Gary, Indiana,” “Being in Love,” “Well Fargo Wagon,” “Lida Rose,” “Shipoopi,” “Till There Was You,” and the showstopping title tune, “Seventy-Six Trombones.” When the mood is right, “Till There Was You” can always bring a tear to my eye.
Yes, The Music Man is old fashioned of terms of story and style. However, underneath all of that is an interesting yarn filled with some of the best show tunes ever written. The Music Man is truly a musical for the ages, and it’s nice to see Warner Brothers give it the Blu-ray treatment it so richly deserves.
Using a dual-layer BD50 and a VC-1 codec, the Warner video engineers provide us with a very good Blu-ray high-definition transfer in the film’s widescreen theatrical ratio, 2.40:1. The picture quality with its various restored elements is solid; the colors are bright and vivid, yet never overpowering. Flesh tones are always natural, and object delineation is consistently sharp. Very occasionally one can see some minor age flecks, as well as some light, inherent print grain in wide expanses of color, but it’s hardly noticeable beyond the opening titles.
Warner Brothers has reproduced the film’s soundtrack in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround to wonderful effect. We get a wide stereo spread in the front channels; a glorious ambient musical bloom in the surrounds; and a wonderfully smooth, warm midrange. Highs sparkle and mid bass thunders, with bass drums and tubas sounding resplendent. This is a reference quality soundtrack.
The disc includes English, Spanish, and German spoken languages; French, Spanish, German, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, and a host of other subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired.
The Music Man offers the following special features:
The extras are in standard definition and include most of the same items found on WB’s DVD Special Edition of the movie back in 1999.
• Featurette: Right Here in River City: The Making of Meredith Willson’s The Music Man (22 min) hosted by Shirley Jones. It includes the reminiscences of many of the surviving filmmakers at the time, like Ms. Jones, Buddy Hackett, choreographer Onna White, and actress Susan Luckey.
• Introduction (2 min) hosted by Shirley Jones.
• Pan-and-scan trailer (1 min.)
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