The Music Man

I liked that the story was not totally changed as some remakes have been. It was good but not great. It seemed more like a high school or community production than a professionally made movie. I think Victor Garber is a very good actor but he was miscast as Mayor Shinn. I also thought Kristen Chenowith not right for the role of Marian Paroo. What happened to her mothers Iris accent?

I am not racist however facts are facts. The movie is set in early 1900's Iowa. Black and white people did not interact the way they do in the movie. Racism was alive and well at that time. Blacks were not treated as equal with whites.

It was enjoyable but I would not go out of my way or pay money to see it again. The original was much better so I bought a copy.

Someone once said it best years ago... "Why do they remake the good ones?? Why don't they go back and redo the ones that weren't good the first time?" People often (reluctantly) admit that they miss the glory days of the screen musical (and they're on the cusp of making a comeback), but at this rate, the genre will be dead and buried within another year! This atrocious, wrongheaded TV remake really has only one thing going for it. The producers wisely decided to leave the script (mostly) alone. The actual shooting script is extremely close to the stage version. But it's all for naught! The casting, cinematography, lighting, acting, singing and direction are in almost all cases ghastly. It is blasphemy to even mention Robert Preston's name (or even Shirley Jones'!) in the same breath as this train wreck, but Broderick never stood a chance at topping him. Trouble is....he couldn't even top high school actors who have tackled this role! He is so wrong for the part that it's startling and distracting. His expression in the numbers is that of someone who was walking by and accidentally got caught up in them instead of someone who's instigating them. The inherently talented, but helium-voiced Chenowith is not much better. Saddled with a hairstyle that looks like either a dishwater-colored mop or a new perm she isn't allowed to wash yet, she sings her songs in the currently popular Broadway style. That is to say she oversings them with forced emotion, shrill vibrato, horrible annunciation ("Sweeedreams be yours dear") and no regard for the time and place. Her hair nearly does her in. The stylists on this film obviously have no idea that a performer's primary tool is her FACE. When it's obscured by hair (not helped by the murky lighting), the expression is muted. (For proof, look how much more attractive and bright she seems when hats shove the unruly curls away and leave just her features on view.) The whole film is muted. None of the numbers end with a bang. They all fizzle out and die. There is little or no build to them. No punch. Song after song after SONG is derailed by lackluster presentation and no sense of excitement or energy. Also, the production design is deadly. This is not "The Grapes of Wrath" or even "Little House on the Prairie"! The dusty reality of an early town is unwelcome here. The story is a FABLE (a Pied Piper who winds up having a heart) and should look the way we wish it had been, not the way it was. The original film was a flawless candy box of color and character and splendor. This version is a washed out, lifeless, drab, "why bother" mess. A decision was made to remove makeup from nearly all the characters. So Shannon's expressions (which are merely toned down versions of her Mary Catherine Gallagher persona anyway) don't come across. Chenowith lisps her lines into the blank, pie face of Broderick whose eyes are unlined dots lost in a sea of childlike flesh. Yet Monk, as Chenowith's mother, looks like she's ready for the Emmys! Monk does okay and the little boy is all right, but Garber approaches his character as if he's completely unfamiliar with the material. There are a few teeny touches that are clever, but their merit is erased by the many other moments which are botched (the marbles in the library, the piano lesson punchline, to name just two.) "Bye Bye Birdie" and "Annie" were decent enough, but "Cinderella" (with Brandi and Whitney slaughtering every song) and "South Pacific" (with the 60-year-old Nellie Forbush) were rotten. This joins the latter pile. Pray that Shirley Jones was out the night this was broadcast. It is a travesty! Fears now persist that this breed of musical interlopers will do more harm to "Mame" than even Lucille Ball did in 1974! Please let there be a way to prevent "West Side Story" and "The Sound of Music" from being dimmed by this horrific trend of haphazardly remaking and updating classic works!! (One note: WHY is this film rated a 7.9 today when nearly every comment is -rightfully- negative?!?!)

I am sorry, but to those who felt this was better than the screen version, I completely disagree. Where was the energy in the musical numbers? Full of boring close-ups and TERRIBLE orchestrations was this. I am a huge musical fan, and turned it off after an hour. Someone states in his review that the older film looked too much like a broadway musical filmed. What's wrong with that? That's what it was! A Broadway musical. This is really bad, Matthew Broderick is great as an actor, but he was not in any way right for professor Herold Hill. I was not even remotely convinced. Do yourself a favor and see the 1962 film version.

Reaction to this production has been very emotional and on the musicals board I have had to endure the most incredible bashing because I actually liked it.

Some people have been critical of my opinion because I had the temerity to assume they were comparing it to the classic movie version, which I adore. They weren't thinking of that at all. Yeah, right.

This was a great production of this great musical. I have no reservations. I'm sorry if the Harold Hill was not the creepy crawly we are used to in Robert Preston or that Marion was not the sweet fickle thing we knew in Shirley Jones. It is of the nature of musicals and of stage plays that were not written as screenplays in general to be open to various interpretations in various producations. I've seen a dinner theatre version of West Side Story that was better than the movie.

I just don't get the criticism, most of which is based on our image of Broderick, who will turn 40 next month. He lacks neither the talent nor the presence nor the experience to pull this off, and boy did he pull it off!

At the risk of making a ludicrous juxtaposition, a musical as great as Music Man is like Shakespeare. It has to be defeated by wilfull misinterpretation rather than lifted into triumph by faithfulness to what it is all about, because just doing it right is all that is needed. The Disney production was not a misinterpretation, and it does it right.

This re-make is absolutely great!!! The musical numbers are fabulously choreographed and the songs are catchy. The actors all turn in wonderful performances and the script is almost identical to the original version. Although this version is not QUITE as good as the original (let's face it - nobody does it like Robert Preston), it is still a well-done re-make. I would give it 8 stars out of 10. It rocks!!!