My friend said he wanted to see Korea. I told him to look into my eyes – the eyes are the window to the Seoul.
Back in the day, when The Simpsons was actually, y’know, good, there were occasionally musical numbers. Why not, right? One such number came about when Springfield had a surprise windfall courtesy of a fine against Mr. Burns and the town was discussing what to do with the money. Sure, they could have gone with Marge’s plan to fix up the pothole-laden Main Street (“Look at that pavement fly!”), but all of a suddenly entered a dapper young man by the name of Lyle Lanley, decked out like a member of a barbershop quartet: “You know, a town with money is a little like the mule with the spinning wheel: No one knows how he got it, and danged if he knows how to use it.” Lanley proceeds to lead to the town in a song extolling the apparent virtues of a monorail, culminating in the gathered crowd marching out the front door of City Hall. Like I said, why not?
Years later, when I still watched Family Guy, I witnessed Lois and Brian arguing about the latter’s seemingly high standards for relationships whilst a child practices on the piano behind them. As the child hits the notes, the characters match the bare-bones melody and tonality. I thought it strange, but the show was always filled with random crap, so who knew what they were referencing or what-have-you. In another episode, the one where Peter becomes a member of the New England Patriots, he celebrates a touchdown with a musical number, this time about an apparently hard-to-get woman (the lyrics’ words, not mine) named, get this, “Shipoopi”. A whole major number breaks out, complete with crowds dancing and singing along and players doing a strange dance involving leaning and outstretched legs. It went on for a whole damned song, and I had no idea what was going on.
Now, thanks to the recommendation of our own Grace, I know full well what these cartoons were on about: They were referencing The Music Man.
Originally a Broadway musical by Meredith Wilson and Franklin Lacey and partially inspired by the former’s upbringing in Mason City, Iowa, the story was adapted for the silver screen in 1962, bringing along the show’s director (Tony nominee Morton DaCosta, whose only cinematic directing experience had come four years prior with an adaptation of Auntie Mame) and many of the stage actors. As I’m sure plenty already know, the story follows hoodwink artist Harold Hill as he arrives in small-town River City, Iowa, looking to swindle the town out of money in exchange for the promise of a homemade marching band, complete with instruments and uniforms (with red stripes going up the side of each leg, natch). It’s a tall order, what with the town’s famous (?) pig-headed mentalities, but Hill is a seasoned vet. What he didn’t count on was falling for the local librarian, who just so happens to be both a progressive thinker and something of a lovelorn cold fish, so to speak. What happens when the town finds out about his flim-flam? Oh, we’ll get to that in a bit.
Lemme start out with some positives, ’cause I’m rather divided on this film. Straight away, Robert Preston is mostly fantastic as Harold Hill – something to be expected, considering Preston originated the role on stage. He doesn’t have much in the way of a sonorous singing voice or particularly limber dancing legs, but his energy and confidence make up for these shortcomings. Kinda like a geared-down Danny Kaye, you really believe he’s a con artist-salesman when he rollicks into fast-talking ditties like “(Ya Got) Trouble”, one of the precious few songs I was familiar with, this one due to general cultural osmosis. Without Preston, the film would have likely lacked a solid core, even though the studio had wanted to give the role to, at various points, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and even Cary Grant.
Then there’s Buddy Hackett, AKA the surprise hit of the film, playing Hill’s former shill who just so happens to be living in this bit of podunk nowhere. I only knew him as a comic actor and the voice of Scuttle in The Little Mermaid, so seeing him get in some singing and dancing came as something of a minor shock. But, dammit, he sold it! Maybe it was the skills gleaned from amateur boxing back in the day, but he’s surprisingly light on his feet here, put on full display in his rendition of the aforementioned “Shipoopi” (yup, that weird dance from Family Guy is there, too), my favorite song from the film, likely because it’s got a solid, ear-wormy melody and some actual structure (more on that shortly). Hackett was always a hoot, and he doesn’t disappoint here.
Then there’s the town’s school board. When the opening credits were rolling, I saw a mention of “The Buffalo Bills”. Now, come on, if you didn’t know better, would you be thinking differently from me, that, for some reason, the football team was making some sort of cameo? As it turns out, these Bills are an actual barbershop quartet, one of serious renown, and the originators of the collective role on Broadway. In the film, they embody a running joke revolving around the bickering foursome shockingly becoming closer than ever when made into a quartet and then their continuing struggle to stay on task in the face of a song prompt. Sure, I was disappointed when “Sweet Adeline” didn’t make an appearance, but, luckily, I’ve got a Simpsons episode to make up the difference, and these guys were just grand.
Finally, there were a few turns of phrase that I just gravitated toward, like the evocation of “libertine men and scarlet women” in the aforementioned “(Ya Got) Trouble” and the constant tossing about by the mayor of “You watch your phraseology!” We need to bring that one into regular parlance, kids. Let’s make it happen.
What we don’t need, though, are the other running gags of speech patterns. Y’see, rather than endowing his characters with actual, y’know, character traits, Wilson instead gave several a particular catch phrase, and nearly all of them are brain-slashingly annoying. Of particular note are the mayor’s daughter, Zaneeta, who spouts “egods” so many times that I almost wanted to go out and slap a child out of retribution; her suitor, kid-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks Tommy Djilas, who punctuates nearly half of his sentences with the bewildering “great honk”, which, research has told me, is a revision made for the screenplay of the original “Jeely Kly”, a “regional minced oath for ‘Jesus Christ'”, which definitely goes against what I was thinking the whole time; the mayor hisself, who’s often trying to wedge in the Gettysburg Address for no apparent reason, even at times that such a speech wouldn’t be appropriate, like a kangaroo court headed toward a tarring and feathering; and, of course, little ginger-y Winthrop, whose lisp just grates on you, especially when certain lines are designed to maximize the impediment’s impact. Poor Ron Howard. These verbal shortcuts are leaned on far too much, coming off as more obnoxious and confusing than anything.
You may have noticed some strange character names in there, and you’d better believe I did while watching! I couldn’t figure out Wilson’s game, especially when you had normal names in there like Harold and Marian and George. Part of me wants to think it’s a throwback to Dickens or a throw-forward to Vonnegut, both writers being keen on strange names, but some of them are just overdoing it. I mean, come on, why did he burden that poor girl with the name Amaryllis? (I initially thought it was a set up for some future lyrics to rhyme with, but that never materialized.) And, while I’m thinking about her, why was her shortcut being reminded of the difference between “can I” and “may I”? Anyway, the names were oddly distracting throughout.
Similarly distracting were the songs. For such an acclaimed and well-regarded musical, this has got some of the worst songs I’ve ever heard from a Broadway production. I will excuse the opening number, “Rock Island”, ’cause I could see that they were trying to have the voices imitate the rhythm and sounds of the train on which the scene was set, but the same cannot be said for the others: “Gary, Indiana” is mindlessly repetitive (I swear, I was discussing the film with my parents, and they now won’t stop repeating the words “Gary, Indiana”, I am in Hell please save me) and does nothing to further the plot or tell us anything of value. “Piano Lesson” feels like an excuse to shoehorn song-like attributes to normal dialogue because the filmmakers felt a song could fit in that space. “Marian the Librarian” (not nearly as good as Conan was at the job, I must say) glides along at an awkward pace, the -ian constantly drifting from the end of words and only returning after a strange pause in the singing. (Speaking of that number, Marian continuously tries to silence the dancing youths, but, gotta say, that was probably the quietest dancing I’ve ever seen in my life, so I don’t know what she’s on about. I mean, I get that the whole number was symbolic of Marian being slightly taken in by Harold’s charms, but still, what’s with this chick?) Just about every song focusing on Marian is done in by Shirley Jones’s relative over-singing (she clearly took to heart notes from school chorus classes regarding the vibrato), the general dullness of the lyrics, and her character’s exceedingly poor, nigh-on insulting characterization as someone who’s allegedly really picky but really only waiting for someone to be interested in her, y’know, the best-looking woman in what I can only imagine to be several local counties. “Seventy-Six Trombones”, which, I was surprised to find out, is the centerpiece song and one of the most famous from the show (I’d never heard anything of it before watching), escapes most criticism, but only because it’s bouncy and less forgettable than the others. Based on this selection, I can’t for the life of me understand the show’s appeal as a musical. Hell, most of these songs barely register as “songs”, merely comprising words spoken to an amorphous tune with little in the way of formal organization or lyrical rhyme schemes. I’m lookin’ at you, “Wells Fargo Wagon”! Luckily, the Buffalo Bills provide some fun barbershop licks, and we still have the verve of “Trouble” and the glee of “Shipoopi”, so it’s not a total loss.
Visually speaking, the film is fine, but it’s outshone by most of its musical contemporaries. The choreography is somewhat stilted, the colors are surprisingly not as vivid as I imagined, and there’s little in the way of interesting cinematography or camera movement, though the use of spotlights as faux-irises is an interesting touch, if nothing else. The film just can’t stand up next to luminaries like West Side Story and Oliver! (yeah, I know the latter came out seven years later, but that was during the down-slide of the musical film as a profitable genre, rather than its peak power earlier in the decade), much less fellow classics like My Fair Lady and The King and I. It’s not a bad-looking film, but there’s little of note here, unfortunately. (On a related note, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out when the film was set. I knew from context clues that it was near the turn of the twentieth century and after 1906, but everything seemed so Dr. Quinn with a new coat of paint that I couldn’t get my temporal bearings. Am I alone here?)
Worse, the content and themes have not aged well at all. I was shocked to find out that Wilson grew up in Iowa, what with the show’s sheer disdain for the perceived backward and stubborn folk that populate River City. The whole production seems to be a mocking gesture toward Fly-Over Country, where people are painted as being inherently averse to anything having to do with entertainment, intelligence, or art. The populace’s general stupidity is highlighted just before “Seventy-Six Trombones”, when Tommy places a firecracker behind the mayor’s wife during an already highly problematic performance of some Native American cultural ephemera (presented entirely by white folks, natch): Tommy clearly walks out in front of the assemblage, places the firecracker, and returns to his seat. After the explosive goes off, the mayor calls out, “Who set off the firecracker!?” WHAT!?!?!? You missed that kid moving not the least bit furtively or quickly? Jeely Kly, maybe yinz really are as dumb as the show wants me to think…
Faring even worse is the paint-by-numbers “love” story between Harold and Marian. This whole subplot made absolutely no sense to me. At first, it very clearly looks like Harold is just trying to get Marian on his side so’s he can succeed in his town fleecing, and she’s clearly uninterested in this obvious huckster. Then, he suddenly seems to be smitten with her, and I can’t find a reasoning behind the turn. Worse, Marian gives in with a similarly sudden shift, allegedly because of how well Harold has dealt with poor lispy Winthrop, but even this isn’t all that apparent in the film. They both just start being in love (Marian to the point of being downright hypnotized by Cupid, if we go by the framing of the shots). Just like that. Gotta have a love story, I guess.
This same haphazard quality pervades the film’s ending. (Spoilers ahead, obviously.) So, follow me here: The whole town is after Harold, ’cause they’ve found out what a crook he is. He surrenders (he’s too in love to flee, we’re lead to believe with no proof) and is brought before the aforementioned kangaroo court. He’s just about to be basically lynched (or, at least, the white man’s equivalent thereto), but Marian steps in. Without much effort at all, she essentially tells the crowd, “Hey, maybe, like, not kill him?” Pause for the wheels to creak. And, just like that, he’s off the hook! Sure, we get the most accurate presentation of parents watching their children poorly present a musical recital (“That’s my boy right there! How did he know I love flat notes where sharps belong? He’s just so talented!”), but this resolution has the entire friggin’ crowd turn on a dime and just forgive him for providing a solution to a problem he himself cooked up (don’t get me started on the potential evils of that accursed pool table, it had only just been delivered, and the town sure looked to be repressive enough to maintain the general spiritually clean status quo). As far as we know, he didn’t even return the money! And now we have hundreds more people in this town, all because of a marching band!? Maybe it’s my own inherent bias against marching bands (my buddy was a tromboner in Purdue’s All-American Marching Band and all, but I still found it the worst part of collegiate football games, right ahead of sunburn and my team’s inability to properly grasp the concept of defense (much less winning)), but this just didn’t sit right with me. It’s all too convenient and too quick, making me wonder about what lackluster song we could have cut to make room for proper pacing and narrative flow.
Now, I admit, I’ve been pretty hard on this picture, but most of that came from what I admit to be my own overthinking of things. Taken at face value, The Music Man isn’t all that bad, especially if you’re able to just tune out and let it flow over you. It’s got an intriguing premise (if a bit overly specific of a con job), a damn fine set of lead performances (I may not like her singing at this early point in her career, but Jones does well as an actor), and there is some genuine fun to be found. I can’t quite accept it as the classic it’s been embraced as, but I can easily see nostalgia goggles and whatnot working at full capacity, and I mean that in less of the back-handed/denigrating way I just worded that. What I mean is that I can see people seeing this film (or the show) at a younger age and having fond memories of it that carry over into adulthood. This doesn’t have to be the case, but it’s likely a large factor. Regardless, I’m glad I was finally able to see the source of so many later references, and I learned that Gary, Indiana, was indeed formally incorporated in 1906 (yeah, I looked it up). No matter how it may seem or sound, it’s never a total loss when Grace has our backs.
Next time, it’s looking like a bloody good time…later, taters.
Allusions of Grandeur 