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 The film is described as "joyous" and the boxcopy calls it "an irresistible
skyburst of Americana." They note that star Robert Preston essayed the role as
con man Harold Hill on Broadway, winning a Tony award for doing so. Harold Hill
comes to River City, Iowa to swindle the residents out of some cash under the
guise of forming a boys band. Shirley Jones is the librarian who frowns on
this, but is eventually won over by Preston's character. Cast members Ron
Howard and Buddy Hackett are mentioned. The musical score is called "sassy,
brassy" and it's noted that it was an Oscar winner. 1962, 151 minutes, Widescreen, DVD
Robert Preston portrays con man Harold Hill, who stops off at River City, Iowa
to work his pet con: the old "let's start up a boys band and con everyone out
of the money they spent on instruments and band uniforms" con. This is a
ridiculous con to say the least. First of all, everyone gets their instruments
and uniforms. All Preston does is skip town without actually teaching them how
to play. How does he make any money doing that? Doesn't he have to spend the
money to buy the instruments and uniforms in the first place? Also, this takes
place over an entire summer. How good a con man can you be if it takes you all
summer to set up this great con? Surely, there are easier and faster ways to
swindle the hillbillies. The effort this guy puts into the scheme is
astonishing. I thought the whole point of grifting was to get as much as fast
and as easy as possible. That said, this movie was still fairly enjoyable, if
not about 30 minutes too long.  Preston comes to town and immediately sets about insinuating himself in the
fabric of the community so that he gains their trust and make them want to give
him money for his make believe band. He's done it enough times before that he
has it down to a science. He knows he has to have an "in", someway to show the
town a band is desperately needed. He hooks up with pal Buddy Hackett who is
now living in River City and he clues Hill in on the fact that the town has
-gasp- just gotten its first pool table. This apparently is seen as some sort
of descent into hell because no sooner does Hill know this than he proceeds to
whip the townspeople into a frenzy. He denounces the pool table as ruining
today's youth and extolls the virtues of how being in a band would keep the
teens living clean. Preston did this role in excess of 1000 times on Broadway
and he clearly has it down in scenes like this one. During the musical numbers,
he doesn't so much as sing as he does preach. Running around, gesticulating
wildly about the evil pool table and how salvation can only be achieved through
the formation of a boys band, one can see that preachers and salesmen are cut
from the same cloth. They're both charged with selling people stuff they can
probably get by without. By the end of this number, I was ready to ring up my
congressman and demand that the popular "boot camp" programs for youthful
offenders be changed to "band camp" programs. Since Professor Harold Hill has done all this before he knows that he has to
suck up to the stuffy, suspicious librarian that inhabits all these towns
(huh?). Ignoring the dubiousness of that proposition, it provides the romance
angle that all these musicals seem to require. And because it is a musical it
is also required that Shirley Jones play a librarian named Marion (see, they
rhyme so its easier to write songs about). Well, she's all like, you're just a
con man and he's all like, no I'm a good guy and he spends the next 90 minutes
trying to win her over to complete the perfect con! This leads to another show
stopping number in the library where everyone sings and dances and Preston is
running all over the set, jumping and moving with the assured rhythm of someone
who had done it all 1000 times before. I'm not the biggest fan of musicals, but
I'm always impressed with the work that goes into these big numbers. It takes
something like seven weeks to rehearse a number and then another three weeks to
film. Three weeks for one 12 minute sequence? But it looked damn good.  Eventually Shirley Jones is won over and hides the fact that she knows he's a
fake because this guy has actually made the people of River City happy and has
gotten them trying to sing and dance and all that good stuff. Everyone soon
finds out that he's a fake and they go after him. His pal urges him to skip
town as he's done everywhere else, but he refuses. It turns that he was won
over by Shirley just as she was by him. Now, some of you may quibble with the
speed at which he was caught up in her spell. One minute he was making plans to
hop a train, then the next second he was kissing her and he was willing to stay
put and accept his fate. I prefer to think that he had really been won over by
her long before and the reason he was spending all this time getting close to
her wasn't because the con required it, but simply because he liked being
around her. When finally confronted with actually leaving her, he finally
admitted that to himself and stayed. Love can con anyone. You know what else? I
think he got caught in the whole easy going atmosphere of that small town. This
movie is a tourism board's dream for small towns and the state of Iowa, just
like Field of Dreams was. Personally, I've never seen a town so clean, so bright, and so new, but
watching the guys in their barbershop quartet hats and the ladies in their big
frilly dresses, it's easy to see where you could be swept up in it and wish you
lived then. Of course, for people who really lived then, I'll bet it was quite
a different story, but Hollywood has never sold tickets by showing what boring,
dirty, unhappy lives the average person lives. This disc is widescreen and this format is made for musicals with their full
screen production numbers. The picture is bright and the movie doesn't look
like it's almost 30 years old. That really comes through when you watch some of
the unrestored footage included on some of the bonus features. The difference
in clarity and color is like comparing a new shirt to one that has faded with
countless washings. Shirley Jones does a brief introduction to the movie and
you also get some theatrical trailers and extensive production and cast notes.
What's pretty interesting is the half hour documentary about the making of the
movie. Surviving cast and crew recount what filming was like and you get some
interesting tidbits like Shirley Jones became pregnant three months into the
nine month shoot. She said they just kept cinching her corset up tighter as she
got bigger. The one big gripe I have is that some of the musical numbers seemed
to linger a couple of minutes longer than they needed to. At 150 minutes, this
seemed somewhat bloated and unnecessarily slowed things down. Oh yeah, and can
anyone explain to me that marching band scheme again?
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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