The Music Man (1962) on Netflix
G19622h 31m
Harold Hill, a con man, comes to River City, Iowa, posing as a boys' band organizer to sell instruments and uniforms. Marian Paroo, the town librarian, is suspicious of him.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.7/1021,043 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes94%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1912 a con man named Harold Hill steps off a train in River City, Iowa. His routine is to talk a town into paying for boys' band instruments and uniforms, then vanish with the money, and other salesmen on the road know it. River City is home to Marcellus Washburn, an old partner of Harold's who now lives honestly there, and Marcellus warns him that Marian Paroo, the librarian and piano teacher, will expose him quickly. When Marcellus mentions a new pool table at the billiard parlor, Harold builds a crusade around it, telling merchants the table will corrupt the town's young people and that a boys' marching band would keep them occupied. Mayor Shinn orders the school board to get Harold's credentials; Harold answers by teaching its four members to sing as a barbershop quartet.
Cast
- Peggy Mondoas Ethel
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Music Man (1962)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Robert Preston had triumphed as Harold Hill on stage, but Warner Bros. wanted a bigger box-office name for the film: James Cagney and Bing Crosby turned the part down, and Cary Grant declined, saying nobody could do it as well as Preston.
- Jack L. Warner then wanted Frank Sinatra for Harold Hill, but composer Meredith Willson blocked him: Willson had cast approval written into his contract and threatened to cancel the whole project unless Preston played the lead.
- Shirley Jones was pregnant during the shoot; when she and Robert Preston embraced in the footbridge scene her baby kicked him, and the costume designers had to adjust her dresses several times to hide the pregnancy.
- Robert Preston, the film's Harold Hill, publicly wanted Doris Day as his co-star, saying before production began that he had told studio officials there was no point in making the film without her.
- Nearly all the show's songs were kept at full length for the film, but the middle verse of "My White Knight" was retained while the rest of it was thrown out and replaced by a new Meredith Willson song, "Being in Love."
- Amid the soundtrack sessions of late 1961 and early 1962, some recording time went to "Chicken Fat", President Kennedy's "Youth Fitness Song", performed by Robert Preston.
