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Movie:		9.0
Picture:		8.0
Sound:		9.0
Extras:		5.0
Score:		8.0

Director(s):	Morton DaCosta
Writer(s):	Meredith Willson, Franklin Lacey
Starring:	Buddy Hackett • Shirley Jones • Robert Preston • Ron Howard
Genre:	Musical
Release Date:	February 02, 2010
Rated:

List Price:	Blu-ray - $19.99
Amazon:

“Ya got one, two, three, four, five, six pockets in a table. Pockets that mark the diff’rence between a gentleman and a bum, with a capital “B” and that rhymes with “P” and that stands for pool.”

The Music Man may be the ultimate con man flick of all time. Paper Moon is good, mind you, but it never touches that zest which comes with Robert Preston’s delivery of Harold Hill’s well-practiced smooth talking. You may think the two are incomparable, after all one’s a musical, the other isn’t, and one focuses on the relationship between a man and a con artist, the other doesn’t. However, like every movie about grifters, it’s all about the con, even if The Music Man’s ultimate swindle is set to catchy tunes. The Music Man has given so much to popular culture, so taking a look at it in hi-def glory makes for an interesting walk down memory lane. The Blu-ray conversion treats the film well, better than a lot of other older films, that much is certain.

Harold Hill (Preston) has a reputation in small towns across the country with its citizens and his competition. If you’ve heard of him at all, chances are you know his shtick: he sweeps into an unsuspecting populace, makes promises of creating a grand marching band of the local youth, and then skips town with their money – leaving them to organize everything on their own. He’s hated by his victims and his fellow salesmen for besmirching their good names. It should therefore surprise no one that his arrival in small burg River City sees him going about his typical plan with a sense of immediacy. It’s not the mayor (Paul Ford) or even his lackeys who put a kink in Hill’s plan, but instead the librarian Marian Paroo (Shirley Jones), his greatest initial detractor who comes to love (and humble) him for what he attempts. While in River City, Hill makes a barbershop quartet of the mayor’s aides, creates a social club out of the local gossips, and (as always) brings “moral” stability to the town’s youth with the eternally-imminent marching band he’s going to make of them.

That old saying “flash over substance” plays a large role in the film’s plot, and contributes largely to something I affectionately call “The Music Man Syndrome”. The idea of clinging desperately to the promise of a final product without ever checking on the promise between start and finish should be of greater concern to a nation like ours. For a country so apathetic about politics until we don’t get what we want, The Music Man presents a valuable allegory for American voters. We set men and women behind podiums, listen to their words of brighter futures, and then tune out until we notice the message we heard doesn’t match the product we received. But by then it’s too late and the person was elected to office. For that, The Music Man is one of those ultimate representations of Americana, both metaphorically and literally. Beyond the comparison to a politician, it was Hill’s ability to stir up a baseless frenzy over the immorality that the newly instituted billiard hall was sure to arouse which brings that lauded image of a purebred U.S. town under assault. What won’t idealistic American traditionalists do to preserve the image of a squeaky clean 1950s America that has long since vanished (and never really existed anyways)? Things are never as perfect as we’d like them to be, and that distorted perception can lead us to put trust in people who will tell us what we want to hear, but for a price.

Would anyone care about Gary, Indiana if it didn’t have a song sung by a really young Ron Howard? No, they wouldn’t. Would The Simpsons have the triumphant monorail episode if not for the pitch perfect reuse of The Music Man’s plot? Again, no. It’s a film that stands the test of time because not only does it have a solid story about a cheat who discovers the importance of connecting and not just double-dealing, but it also moves at such a brisk pace that it’s able to cover so much ground without ever feeling like it’s trying to do too much in too little time. Some of the great older musicals, often placed in the pantheons of greatness alongside The Music Man, don’t have such endearing qualities – nor were they as well preserved as this. The feature looks fantastic for an older film remastered to hi-def and makes a worthy entry to a Blu-ray collection.

Blu-ray Bonus Features

Before settling in to rewatch this classic, you can preface the experience with an intro by actress Shirley Jones, and then follow-up the film’s conclusion with a decent making-of featurette. It’s not very eye-opening, but it’s a nice look back in film history.