Day Twenty-Two: The Music Man

Happy holiday season everyone! Today's post is a musical I wish was (never) made into a movie, and I chose the negative aspect to the question and answered: The Music Man.

I actually don't like today's topic, but I need an excuse to bash on The Music Man. I hate it. I find the show annoying and the plot line stupid (I mean, the show advertises a librarian falling in love with a con man? Boring and stupid.)

I'll give a quick synopsis! It starts with con man "Professor" Harold Hill having his name known due to his recent scam: he convinces parents he can teach their children, whether musically talented or not, to play musical instruments. On the idea that he will create a band, Hill collects orders for uniforms and instruments from the parents, but skips town as soon as the instruments arrive. After overhearing some salesmen talk about him on a train ride, Hill gets off at River City, Iowa.

The town is very stubborn and isn't used to having new guests; only his old colleague Marcus Washburn, who was once a con man but has turned "clean." Hill starts his scheme by informing the River City parents the "trouble" that will occur from the town's new pool table. Hill follows Marian Paroo, a librarian who gives piano lessons and is the only trained musician in town, home and attempts to flirt with her: she ignores him.

At home, Marian is teaching a little girl piano lessons while arguing with her widowed mother about her not finding a husband yet. Marian's teenage lisping brother, Winthrop (whom Amaryllis has a big crush on) comes home. Amaryllis asks Marian who she says 'good night' to because she has no sweetheart. Marian tells her to say 'good night' to her 'someone.'

The next day, Independence Day, the town is having a meeting and one of the boys, Tommy, lights a firecracker. Hill takes the stage and proposes the idea that by getting rid of the town's "sin and corruption" and the town's pool table, he will create a boys' band. The mayor asks the bickering members of the school board to get Hill's credentials, but Hill teaches them how to sing a Barbershop Quartet instead and slips away. Hill sets up the mayor's eldest daughter with Tommy, while pledging to Marcus that Marian is the girl for him (after she turned him down again).

The townwomen, excited for the ladies' dance committee that Hill promises to form, lie to him about Marian and her inappropriate relationship with deceased old miser Madison, who gave the town the library, but gave her all of the books. They also warn him that she gives out "dirty books." The school board finds Hill to get the credentials, but Hill makes them sing as he slips away again.

The next day, Hill declares his love to Marian while she's working in the library and gets the teenagers to help him. They dance and he kisses her. Marian tries to slap Hill, but slaps Tommy instead. Hill signs all of the boys up for the band, including Winthrop. Marian's mother likes Hill and asks Marian why she doesn't. Later, Marian discovers a page from the Indiana State Educational Journal that could catch Hill as a con man, but the instruments arrive and Winthrop feels so confident playing his new cornet. Marian sees Hill in a new light and rips the page out before showing the mayor.

As Harold "teaches" the band how to play, the school board is cracking down on obtaining Hill's school credentials. Meanwhile, a traveling salesman, who has come by town, has evidence that Hill isn't who he says he is and wants to inform the mayor of River City. Marian distracts the salesman so he doesn't have time to tell the mayor and has to catch the next train out of town. Hill realizes that he's in love with Marian and she grows feelings for him as well.

The salesman ended up missing the train and heads to the ice cream social, where he calls Hill a fraud. The town angrily searches for Hill. He ends up being arrested and is taken away. Marian goes to Hill's defense; at that point, the boys march into the gym where Hill was held and the parents of the children were so moved by seeing them play instruments, Hill was released into Marian's arms.

I would do the song "Seventy-Six Trombones," but it's been so overdone. Plus, I just plain hate that song. So, I will play the next-to-most-annoying song, "Marian The Librarian" (this is when Hill proclaims his love to Marian in the library, and yes: Hill is played by Matthew Broderick and Marian is played by Kristin Chenoweth!)