The Music Man (Special Edition)

The Music Man (Special Edition)
by Morton DaCosta, Scott Benson

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DVD Reviews of The Music Man (Special Edition)

DVD Review: A Great Musical and A Great Movie
Summary: 5 Stars

Our story is about one Professor Harold Hill, who organizes boy's bands in small towns across the Midwest, while using this philanthropic enterprise to put a few dollars into his own pocket. That Professor Harold Hill does not know one note of music doesn't seem to stand in his way. As with all great scam artists, the scam works only for the length of time that the scam artist doesn't care. In this movie, Harold Hill begins to care, which leads ultimately to his undoing.

Professor Harold Hill is played by Robert Preston. This role was Robert Preston's definitive career moment, and has set the standard for any would-be Harold Hill of the future. The role of the librarian, the character that ultimately led to Harold Hill's undoing, is played by Shirley Jones, never looking more worldly, pretty and yet innocent than she did in this role.

In addition to Robert Preston and Shirley Jones at a peak in their acting careers, this movie boasts a supporting cast that includes Buddy Hackett, Hermione Gingold and Ron Howard. While the well-known cast members tend to overshadow the rest of the cast, the quality of the supporting actors well-matches those of the leads.

While the movie is entertaining, it is also an allegory regarding life, particularly life in small towns. Fortunately, the movie does not become overburdened with trying to detail and resolve too many problems. Instead we focus primarily on Marian Paroo (Jones) and Harold Hill. Even Winthrop Paroo's (Ron Howard) lisp is used to support the evolution of Marian's character, as she sees the changes that Harold Hill enacts upon the town.

Of course we know that this movie has a happy ending, as most musicals do, but it is the resolution of the problems and a defining moment near the end of the movie that make you realize the movie was deeper than you might have originally expected.

Marian is seeking depth and breadth in life, and the small town in Iowa in which she lives, with its shallow, narrow-minded people, have placed her in an intellectual prison. Frustrated, unhappy, she appeals to the younger generation with their open minds to overcome the rut in which their small town appears stuck. Harold Hill sparks a fire in the people of River City that causes the people to look at themselves and the world in a very different way. Marian admires the radical change that Hill is able to cause, and particularly the speed with which he is able to cause it. You suspect that she yearns to be able to create such changes herself. She values the abilities that Harold Hill has, and sees that he can be a force for positive change if properly directed.

Harold Hill, on the other hand, is brought to the realization that he has been drifting through life, and that the abilities he has can be used for something other than scamming people. For the first time in his life, Harold Hill cares, and it is his undoing. You also sense that perhaps Hill has been doing this for too long, and the comparison with Marcellus Washburn (Hackett), who has settled into River City and made a home and a life for himself, is such that Harold realizes that he is missing out on a part of life that he never knew he was missing until he met Marian.

The final scene of the movie always inspires me. If you want to feel good, reel forward to the picnic in the park and watch the movie from there. When the band plays, badly, for the first time, and you see the pride of the people in the town, at first you want to laugh. But then the band becomes a full marching band with hundreds of members and bright uniforms and shiny instruments. It is at this moment that you realize that in small towns, and in many bigger towns, the pride of the town in what they have reflects in how they see things like the town band. To outsiders the band may appear to be small, with the skill level less than adequate, but for River City the band is every bit as fine as the Philadelphia Philharmonic.

This movie is a bit of nostalgia. Once upon a time, much of the country, especially the Midwest, was as this movie portrays. In many places there are small towns that retain the flavor of River City. People are still people, then as now, and while the times have changed and the names and the faces have changed, the problems of the characters and the awe-inspiring and musical way in which the problems are resolved is still fresh and refreshing. This movie is one of the greatest movies of all time, and is likely to be considered so for many more decades yet; a must-have for anyone looking for quality in their home collection.

Description of The Music Man (Special Edition)