The Music Man

1962 musical

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 14/20)

Plot: A fast-talkin' travelling salesman
arrives in River City, Iowa to con its inhabitants by promising to create a boy's marching band despite having no musical training. He falls for the librarian, the town whore, and cleverly avoids pressures from the members of the school board and the town's mayor to show them his credentials. Everybody sings. A lot.

At two and a half hours, this is at times a test of endurance. If you don't like musicals, you're not going to like The Music Man. It's a musical in every sense of the word. At least it never seems like a stage musical though. The camera's fluent, weaving its way through the colorful characters and the colorful River City, and personality just bursts through the screen. Not literally. I would have been pissed if all those colors ended up on my living room floor. However, if I had to have a movie all over my living room, The Music Man wouldn't be a bad choice. It really is gorgeous. Director Morton DaCosta does a terrific job making Iowa look like the most exciting place on earth. An interesting thing happens to a person physiologically while watching The Music Man:

1) You're so happy that you're watching this during the first half. You vibrate internally, your left arm twitching abnormally. If male, you may have a boner.

2) Around "76 Trombones" you lose control and run head first into a wall, an attempt to stop obsessing over band instruments as phallic symbols.

3) You wake up thinking, because you dreamed it, that there was a Buddy Hackett nude scene, but while you're enjoying the memory, you notice a sharp pain in your lower back and discover that somebody has removed one of your kidneys. During the fifth reprise of "Gary, Indiana," you investigate and discover that you somehow removed your own kidney.

4) At a little over the halfway point, Ronny Howard begins speaking to you subliminally. He tells you, in what might be the worst lisp in cinematic history, that you should find Satan and, no matter what he tells you, kill him. He hints that Satan may be living inside your puppy.

5) You decide you need a break and pause the movie to see if your children still remember who you are or if they've all graduated from college and gotten jobs.

6) Buddy Hackett begins dancing and saying, "Shipoopi!" over and over again. You become a polytheist, believing instantly that every role Buddy Hackett played in his career is a separate god. You have to pause the movie again to found a religion based on your beliefs. You put on a white shirt and a white tie, travel door-to-door in your neighborhood, and let everybody know about the power of Shipoopi. You're assaulted and eventually stoned to death. You resurrect in three days in an ill-fitting plaid suit you've never seen before.

7) During the eighteenth reprise of "Gary, Indiana," you start thinking about Robert Preston living in contemporary Gary, Indiana, singing and dancing in his checkered suit, and being murdered in broad daylight by thugs. You can no longer concentrate on The Music Man because you can't see through your laughter. You pause the movie and laugh for thirty-seven straight hours before you're able to resume.

8) More internal vibration!

9) You finally finish the movie after a month, realizing that you can no longer see out of your right eye, hear out of your left ear, smell out of your right nostril, feel with your left hand, or taste anything white. You decide that it's worth it.

Side note: I honestly feared for my life while watching The Music Man. I really thought Jen was planning on killing me.

Shipoopi! Shipoopi!