the year: 1962
the genre: musical
the cast: Shirley Jones (Marian Paroo); Robert Preston (Prof. Harold Hill); Hermione Gingold (Eulalie Mackechnie Shinn); Buddy Hackett (Marcellus Washburn); Paul Ford (Mayor George Shinn); Ron Howard (Winthrop Paroo)
the plot: Confidence man Harold Hill arrives at staid River City intending to cheat the community with his standard scam of offering to equip and train a boy's marching band, then skip town with the money since he has no music skill anyway. Things go awry when he falls for a librarian he tries to divert from exposing him.
count: how many times Mayor Shinn warns someone to watch their phraseology.
check out: Mrs. Shinn “count to twenty in the Indian tongue...” . Her nonsense words ("Een! Teen! Tether mether fip!...”) it seems are some form of traditional British sheep-counting.
listen for: “That's Zaneta, she's the mayor's oldest girl. “
did you know: Just prior to the "Lida Rose" number, Harold mentions a bassoon player named Madame Rini. Rini was the name of TMM writer and composer Meredith Willson's wife.
did you also know: the songs "76 Trombones" and "Goodnight My Someone" are the same tune arranged in different time signatures.
also listen for: “Think, boys. Think!”
don’t miss: Tommy and Zaneta in the final credits. While marching down the street, Susan Luckey nearly knocks off Timmy Everett’s tall hat with her baton, apologizing on camera.
4 comments:
Oh, this is one of my favorites! I expecially love the womens' costumes and hats.
Fun tidbits to learn. The only thing I have to add is that "Marian" discovered she was pregnant soon into the filming, but the director wanted to hide it, so her dresses became more elaborate as the filming went on. It stayed a secret until the baby kicked Robert Preston during their kiss on the bridge. Woops! :)
This is such a fun movie! I love the fiesty Irish mother.
I have found that dancing in librarys is frowned upon in many societies!
I imagine dancing in libraries with pregnant librarians is even more frowned upon--especially by the pregnant librarian
And just for the record Chaucer and Balzac wrote some good stuff. Can't speak for Rabelais -- Scott
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