The Music Man is my favorite musical from my childhood. It came out the year I was born, and when I was very young, my parents shipped me off the the library, where they played movies for kiddies so that parents could have an hour off. I love this movie, but 25 years ago, I told my wife about my affection for it, and she mocked me then and has continued mocking me for 25 years for my love of this old classic in spite of the fact that
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”. (Wikipedia)
It has always been my contention that my wife has never actually seen the movie, but when they showed it on TCM on Thanksgiving day, I taped it in order, as I told my wife, to steer my kids into more wholesome art than her love of Ghost Hunters that she regularly subjects my kids to. Predictably, perhaps, my younger son got bored with the movie after 30 minutes, and while my wife told me (after 25 years!) that it was “a little bit amusing,” she continued to read her ghost book, and I went upstairs and watched the rest of it by myself. And it was as wholesome and good as I remember it.
It starts out slow, but builds to its conflict of a con man who has come to town but falls in love with Marian, the Librarian. She has been seeking her love, but hasn’t found him yet. In her first song, she refers to him only as her “someone” who has yet to manifest himself to her:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC2nFFu-mj4
I told my son, who had not gotten intolerably bored by my movie that this was my favorite song, but he was halfway out the door already and make a joke about it (and me), encouraged by his reading mother. I still love it, in spite of my son’s indifference.
A close favorite came after my son had left and I’d gone upstairs to watch the movie alone. It is sung by the Buffalo Bills, who play the school board and are convinced by the con man that they can sing a capella as a barbershop quartet. After they are started singing ‘Lida Rose’ by the con man Hill, they alternate with Shirley Jones, who sings ‘Will I Ever Tell You?’ who she loves from a distance but hasn’t told of her feelings yet. The song ends with both songs being sung at once. It is fantastic, no matter what my wife thinks!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrUbcXA2bik
Another favorite song of mine, is ‘Till There was You,’ which takes place down by the (also scandalous to the good people of Iowa) footbridge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLDsLeVxOaU
After the movie was over, Ben Mankiewicz announced that the Beatles’ recording of this song earned more money in royalties than they had earned from the initial Broadway run. My wife did not make it to the end, so she could not be impressed with this tribute by the greatest band of the 20th century. Her loss.
Finally, we get to the showstopper, ’76 Trombones,’ which starts out with Zaneeta Shinn, the mayor’s adventurous daughter who has the greatest line in the movie (‘Ye gods,’ she keeps repeating in a phrase also scandalous to the good people of Iowa), as she is transformed from her drab dress to exciting new dress based on the entry of music into her life. She, of course, is thrilled in ways that my cynical wife, who makes me watch her favorite childhood musical, Easter Parade, not once but every year, was not. Once again, it’s her loss.