The Music Man (1962): Ya Got Trouble!!

[Wiendish Fitch]

This is a popular talking point on the TCM board, so why not discuss the (rightly) beloved musical The Music Man here?

[Spartan Girl]

Sweet, I love this musical! All the songs are just such ear worms, and damn you, now I have "Trouble in River City" stuck in my head again!

[Browncoat]

6 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

Sweet, I love this musical! All the songs are just such ear worms, and damn you, now I have "Trouble in River City" stuck in my head again!

Same!  Robert Preston was a treasure.

[Mabinogia]

6 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

Sweet, I love this musical! All the songs are just such ear worms, and damn you, now I have "Trouble in River City" stuck in my head again!

You and me both! Music Man is one of my all time favorites. Whenever the gossips at work would start going I would sing "pick a little talk a little" in my head on a loop. 

[LilWharveyGal]

Awesome idea!  Watching on the 4th of July is a yearly tradition for me.

[Wiendish Fitch]

"Shipoopi", despite its giggle-inducing title, is probably one of the loveliest, most joyous musical numbers ever, definitely my favorite in The Music Man. I just love the aesthetic of the ladies' various pink dresses against the dark blue background.

It's always controversial to cast a movie star in a role originated by a Broadway star, but I think casting Shirley Jones as Marian is one of the greatest lateral moves in cinema. Barbara Cook was a Broadway treasure, Jones was a Hollywood treasure, so the role doesn't lose anything. Unfortunately, now we cast people like friggin' Russell Crowe or Gerard Butler, grumble grumble....

[Annber03]

It's been ages since I've watched this movie in full, I need to do that again. I remember watching this movie in my sixth grade music class. I always liked the "Marian the Librarian" song/scene :D. I worked in a library for a time a number of years back and occasionally that song would run through my head :p.

And of course, our high school band would always play "Seventy-Six Trombones". I mentioned in the TCM discussion that I'm from the town that inspired this musical, so naturally it's a big deal for us here and we have various nods to the musical around town :). 

[Morrigan2575]

1 hour ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

Shipoopi", despite its giggle-inducing title, is probably one of the loveliest, most joyous musical numbers ever, definitely my favorite in The Music Man. I just love the aesthetic of the ladies' various pink dresses against the dark blue background.

Family Guy would agree

Going back to The Music Man, the choreography for Shipoopi reminds me of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

[Mabinogia]

2 hours ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

"Shipoopi", despite its giggle-inducing title, is probably one of the loveliest, most joyous musical numbers ever, definitely my favorite in The Music Man. I just love the aesthetic of the ladies' various pink dresses against the dark blue background.

That really is a joyous number. 

I love all the costuming in this movie. 

1 hour ago, Annber03 said:

I mentioned in the TCM discussion that I'm from the town that inspired this musical, so naturally it's a big deal for us here and we have various nods to the musical around town :). 

Are you from Gary, Indiana, Cary, Indiana, not Louisiana, Paris, France, New York or Rome? Childhood me would be soooooo jealous. 

[Annber03]

LOL, no. I'm from Wilson's birthplace, Mason City, Iowa :). Shirley Jones even participated in our local Band Festival parade once!

[kiddo82]

I think I said this in a different thread but while you can't go wrong with any number of scenes in this movie, the piano rehearsal scene is my favorite.  "Well if that isn't the isn't the best I ever heard."  "Thank you."  heh.  My only complaint is I wish that whole sequence was longer.  But how can you also not love Trouble in River City or Marian the Librarian?  Or anything by the Buffalo Bills?  Like a lot of musicals, I do find that the second act drags a little though.  I can do without, what is it, the song when they're on the bridge?  It's like almost every musical is one or two songs too long.  But it's such an enjoyable movie it's hard to complain too much.

[pigs-in-space]

Aw, I love this movie so much. So many quotable lines! Absolutely everything with the Mayor's family is pure gold, such as:

Quote

 

Papa, please. It's Capulets like you make blood in the marketplace! Ye gods.

Not one poop out of you, Madame! / I think he means "peep"!

I settle your hash as soon as I get these premises off my oldest girl.

 

The costumes are also gorgeous, and the cast is amazing.

[PaulaO]

My favorite musical.  Robert Preston was robbed of an Oscar.  I know all the words to all the songs which makes me proud and embarrassed the same time.  Balzac!

[Blergh]

I think Shirley Jones performance as Marion was a bit underrated inasmuch as she started out as a rather repressed dutiful librarian who merely went through the motions to provide for her kid brother and their late-middle aged widowed mother despite all the nasty gossip swirling about via the vindictive townsfolk who were furious that the town big wig left the library to the town but left her the books themselves so she'd have the means to support her family. But it soon became evident that she did indeed have dreams of her own that she'd long since suppressed and it was fascinating seeing her bloom while transforming this would-be con (as unrealistic a development that may have been).  I mean, she actually wound up having more depth and expressing more emotions in the course of that single movie than she would in four years playing the widowed Shirley Partridge who only perfunctorily mentioned that her late husband (her five kids' father) had died six months prior to the pilot and never again alluded to him or even mentioned his given name the rest of the series much less dealt with mourning him or considering dating again. 

[AimingforYoko]

22 hours ago, PaulaO said:

Robert Preston was robbed of an Oscar.

A nomination, maybe. But if O'Toole couldn't win for Lawrence of Arabia, Preston was not going to beat out Peck.

[Mulva]

Am I the only one who thinks that Winthrop was Marion's son?  Seriously, Pert Kelton was in her late fifties when they filmed the movie and Ron Howard looked about six.  If he was Marion's son, it would explain the gossip and Marion's wariness around men.

[kiddo82]

11 minutes ago, Mulva said:

Am I the only one who thinks that Winthrop was Marion's son?  Seriously, Pert Kelton was in her late fifties when they filmed the movie and Ron Howard looked about six.  If he was Marion's son, it would explain the gossip and Marion's wariness around men.

The first time I saw this I thought that was going to be a reveal.

[Mulva]

2 minutes ago, kiddo82 said:

The first time I saw this I thought that was going to be a reveal.

Thank you!  I was told I was crazy when I first said that. 

[kiddo82]

2 minutes ago, Mulva said:

Thank you!  I was told I was crazy when I first said that. 

Nah.  I mean maybe we are crazy, but I'll fight on that hill with you.

[Mabinogia]

51 minutes ago, Mulva said:

Am I the only one who thinks that Winthrop was Marion's son?  Seriously, Pert Kelton was in her late fifties when they filmed the movie and Ron Howard looked about six.  If he was Marion's son, it would explain the gossip and Marion's wariness around men.

When I was a kid I never thought about it but yeah, once I was old enough to do the math it made far more sense that he was Marion's. I think if it were made today that would certainly be part of the storyline but they just didn't talk about things like that back then. 

[Spartan Girl]

How THE HELL did I go this long with realizing that Winthrop was Ron Howard?!?! I’m so ashamed of myself.

Maybe it’s because the Broadway revival will come out soon, but I’m suddenly in the mood to watch it again.

[Spartan Girl]

Bit the bullet and rented it last night. It was the first time I watched it all the way through since sixth grade. There were a few parts that haven’t exactly aged well, namely a certain pageant performance. I know this was supposed to take place back in 1912 but still, yikes. That being said, Robert Preston and Shirley Jones were fantastic.

I guess Harold Hill is one of those protagonists we shouldn’t like because they’re assholes, but end up doing so anyway. Even though he’s a swindler, he does have a few redeeming qualities: sticking up for Tommy, being kind to Winthrop.

[Sarah 103]

On 1/2/2021 at 6:02 PM, Mulva said:

Am I the only one who thinks that Winthrop was Marion's son?  Seriously, Pert Kelton was in her late fifties when they filmed the movie and Ron Howard looked about six.  If he was Marion's son, it would explain the gossip and Marion's wariness around men.

I asked about this at one point. The answer I got, which worked for me, was that women had more children and often with larger differences when the movie was set. Part of the explanation was that there are unseen/unmentioned children that had died or had married and moved away, leaving only the "spinster" Marion and a late in life child (Winthrop).

Underrated songs from the movie/show I love: "Goodnight My Someone" and "Till There Was You." Also, "Rock Island" is brilliant in terms of editing. It's MTV style editing decades before MTV editing was a thing.  

Edited September 14, 2021 by Sarah 103

[SomeTameGazelle]

4 hours ago, Sarah 103 said:

I asked about this at one point. The answer I got, which worked for me, was that women had more children and often with larger differences when the movie was set. Part of the explanation was that there are unseen/unmentioned children that had died or had married and moved away, leaving only the "spinster" Marion and a late in life child (Winthrop).

Marian could be really "sadder but wiser" or she could really be a picky intellectual who never met the right man. The pick-a-little-talk-a-little ladies are suspicious of her friendship with what's-his-name who left River City the liberry building and her taste in what they are sure are nothing more than smutty books. Harold Hill is intrigued by their suggestion that Marian is easy pickings. On the other hand Mrs Paroo who would have to be the only person who knows Marian's secret seems to take her pickiness at face value in the Music Lesson -- there is no sadder-but-wiser subtext there, or in Marian's Being In Love (or My White Knight in the stage production.)

I also think it's a mistake to read anything into Pert Kelton's actual age. Mrs Paroo could be supposed to be 46. Tommy Djilas and Zaneeta are supposed to be in high school but the actors were in their early 20s.

 

[Spartan Girl]

I like Mrs. Paroo but I couldn’t believe she bought his fake shock when she said they were Irish after giving her the line that “all the great coronet players were Irish.” Like it wasn’t obvious. Then again, she was sharp as a tack, so maybe she knew it was a classic salesman move and just played along because she was amused by it.

[SomeTameGazelle]

On 9/14/2021 at 12:28 AM, SomeTameGazelle said:

Marian could be really "sadder but wiser" or she could really be a picky intellectual who never met the right man.

TCM had The Music Man on today and I caught the section where Charlie Cowell comes to expose Harold Hill and Marian delays him. Marian already knew that he was a fraud, but Cowell (an anvil salesman!) suggests that Hill has seduced and abandoned a music teacher in every town and that gives her pause. When she next sees Hill she talks about the scurrilous rumours one hears about travelling salesmen. He mentions having heard rumours about librarians. Her reaction is pretty clearly that since she knows the rumours about her are lies caused by narrow-mindedness and jealousy, it's possible that what Charlie Cowell said was also a lie. I suppose you could play it so that Marian knows that the rumours about her are true but if she wants to deny them then Harold has to be permitted to deny his as well, but Shirley Jones seems to be playing it straight. 

 

[Rinaldo]

On 9/14/2021 at 12:28 AM, SomeTameGazelle said:

Marian could be really "sadder but wiser" or she could really be a picky intellectual who never met the right man. The pick-a-little-talk-a-little ladies are suspicious of her friendship with what's-his-name who left River City the liberry building and her taste in what they are sure are nothing more than smutty books. Harold Hill is intrigued by their suggestion that Marian is easy pickings. On the other hand Mrs Paroo who would have to be the only person who knows Marian's secret seems to take her pickiness at face value in the Music Lesson -- there is no sadder-but-wiser subtext there, or in Marian's Being In Love (or My White Knight in the stage production.)

Thank you for all of this. To imagine that Marian is sexually experienced and has had a secret child makes nonsense of the whole idea that she "took all this time to get to the footbridge with a fella," that she tells her mother (who would know her history) that "Being in Love" is something that she longs for but hasn't happened yet, and that the town gossips are officious busybodies who ostracize her for no reason. There's not a thing to be gained by this notion, and much to be lost.