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    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»Movies - 1960s
    Movies - 1960s Movies - M 2 Mins Read

    Music Man, The (1962)

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    When conman “Professor” Harold Hill (Robert Preston) arrives in River City, Iowa, he convinces the townsfolk that they need to start a band and that he is the man to sell them the instruments, the uniforms and arrange tuition.

    His plan is to pocket the money and disappear before the instruments arrive, but his scheme runs into problems.

    A fabulous group of character actors fill out the story superbly, including Buddy Hackett as Marcellus, a former con game player gone straight but not too straight to help out his old pal, Hill, and Hermione Gingold as the initially appalled mayor’s wife who comes to be a misty-eyed true believer after surrendering herself to the power of the ladies auxiliary dance committee Hill sets up.

    musicman

    Marian (Shirley Jones), the town’s snobbish librarian proves to have the hardest heart to melt, but when she sees her son, Winthrop (Ron Howard), grow to be so confident as a result of Hill’s magnificent chicanery, she falls in love with him, and he with her.

    But the professor’s past catches up with him when rival salesman Charlie Cowell (Harry Hickox) turns up to expose him. The people of River City now turn against Hill and demand to have him tarred and feathered.

    Confronted y the band he has formed, he faces the music – and the outcome is as much a surprise to him as it is to everyone else.

    Morton Da Costa, who directed Meredith Willson’s hit musical on Broadway, was given carte blanche by Jack Warner to re-create it on the screen, and this Oscar-winning blockbuster is the result.

    The dynamic Robert Preston reprises his Broadway role as the energetic, silver-tongued conman who charms the elders of River City, Iowa, into financing a band.

    Onna White’s electric choreography and a score that includes the ballad Till There Was You (a future hit for The Beatles) and the show-stopping 76 Trombones contribute to an invigorating experience.

    Harold Hill
    Robert Preston
    Marian Paroo
    Shirley Jones
    Marcellus Washburn
    Buddy Hackett
    Eulalie Mackechnie Shinn
    Hermione Gingold
    Mayor Shinn
    Paul Ford
    Mrs Paroo
    Pert Kelton
    Tommy Djilas
    Timmy Everett
    Zaneeta Shinn
    Susan Luckey
    Winthrop Paroo
    Ron Howard
    Charlie Cowell
    Harry Hickox
    Constable Locke
    Charles Lane
    Mrs Squires
    Mary Wickes
    Avis Grubb
    Jesslyn Fax
    Amaryllis
    Monique Vermont
    The Buffalo Bills
    Oliver Dunlop
    Jacey Hix
    Olin Squires
    Ewart Britt

    Director
    Morton Da Costa

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    Put some beefiness into your mid-week menu with these recipe ideas published in a Birds Eye advertisement from the Radio Times on 30 September 1965.

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