The Music Man

It s the early twentieth century American Midwest. A con man currently going by the assumed name Harold Hill has used several different schemes to bilk the unsuspecting, and now travels from town to town pretending to be a professor of music - from Gary (Indiana) Conservatory of Music, class of 05 - who solves all the respective towns youth problems by forming boys marching bands. He takes money from the townsfolk to buy instruments, music, instructional materials, and uniforms for their sons. However, in reality he has no degree and knows nothing about music, and after all the materials arrive and are distributed, he absconds with all the money, never to be n again. Many of the traveling salesmen in the territory have been negatively impacted by him, as the townsfolk then become suspicious of any stranger trying to sell them something. For Harold s scheme to work, he must gain the trust of the local music teacher, usually by wooing her, regardless of her appearance. And if the town doesn t believe it has a youth problem needing to be fixed, he will manufacture one for them. That is the case when he arrives in River City, Iowa, population 2,212, where he will have some unexpected help from Marcellus Washburn, a friend and former grifter colleague who now lives in River City and has gone straight, but still wants to make sure Harold survives his stay in town. River City s music teacher is spinster and town librarian Marian Paroo. He s able to impress all the other River Citizens with his fast-talking sales pitches, but not suspicious Marian, whose hard-as-nails exterior The music teacher he has to impress in River City is spinster Marian Paroo, who is also the town librarian. Unlike all the other River Citizens who he is able to impress with his fast talking sales pitches, he is unable to impress suspicious Marian, whose hard-as-nail exterior is partly due to her somewhat removed standing in the town, as all the gossipy housewives believe she is a smut peddler - encouraging the teenagers to read authors such as Chaucer and Balzac - and mistakenly believe she got her position as librarian through less-than-scrupulous means. What Harold does not know is that one way to Marian is through her young adolescent brother, Winthrop Paroo, a sullen boy who has withdrawn from life since their father s death two years before, when he started to lisp. Harold starts to fall for Marian, something that never happened with any of the other music teachers. Further complications may ensue if any of those traveling salesmen who have been following his route through the territory catch up with and expose him. Written by Huggo The Music Man is a 1962 American English-language Comedy Musical movie featuring Robert Preston, Shirley Jones, Buddy Hackett, Hermione Gingold, Paul Ford, Pert Kelton and Peggy Wynne. The movie is based on The Music Man by Meredith Willson. The Music Man was Produced by Morton Dacosta. The movie is directed by Morton Dacosta. Warner Bros. acquired the distribution rights for the motion picture. The Music Man was released on 19th June 1962 and takes a screen time of 151 minutes. and it received positive reviews from critics when it was released. The motion picture made a box office gross of $15 million. The screenplay for the movie was written by Marion Hargrove. Cinematography was done by Robert Burks and editing by William H. Ziegler. The music was composed by Meredith Willson.
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