The 1962 movie in my "imaginary movie project" is the film version of a great Broadway play, "The Music Man."

The #1 thing I remember about my reaction to this movie when I saw it in the theater at the age of 11 is that I was horrified by the talk of tarring and feathering the main character, the con man, Harold Hill (Robert Preston). I did not know exactly what tarring and feathering was, and back then, there was no way to pause the movie and research the question on a smart phone. I should have understood entertainment well enough to know that in a peppy, chirpy movie about the foibles of small-town Iowa folk, things would not take such a dark turn that the protagonist would be tortured to death before our eyes. But I wasn't sure enough not to feel horrible.

And did Hill deserve to die for what he'd done? I felt very intense empathy for this character, who I thought might be facing the death penalty. He's hunted down by a mob — these nice people are stirred up into a mob. They're even carrying torches at night as they track him down. We see a makeshift trial. It's so unfair... as a legal matter. But narratively, it is fair, because he came to town, where the people had no problems other than their own dullness and conventionality, and he stirred them all up (just to trick them into giving him money for musical instruments and uniforms for the boy's band that was supposed to solve the problems they didn't have):



That's the best thing in the movie. "Ya Got Trouble." Ha ha. I couldn't help thinking of Donald Trump. The charisma, the effect on the crowd. He made them think he was putting into words problems that they knew they had.

Did you notice Buddy Hackett in that clip? In my little project where I rewatch a movie, one per year, that I saw in the theater when it came out, I happened into 2 Buddy Hackett movies in a row: "The Music Man" for 1962, and "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" for 1963. I already wrote about IAMMMMW, here. I have my rules for this project, but apparently writing about the movies in order isn't one of them. I am watching them in order, though.

57 years ago, I did worry terribly about the tar-and-feathering, and I think I also cared a lot more about the adorable boy with the lisp ("Ronny" Howard) and the way he turned out to be Harold Hill's path to the heart of the woman he needed to con. The woman, Marian the Librarian (Shirley Jones), is the boy's sister and the town's piano teacher, and she maintains staunch resistance to the man who's charming everybody else in town — she's a Never-Hiller — until he happens to help the boy with his lisp (and the shyness that, exaggeratedly, comes with it). What helps with the lisp is music — a song with almost no s's ("Gary, Indiana"), and I know I found that thrillingly cute when I was 11.

Today, I'm most interested in Marian. She's the one person in town who cares about what is in books. The other ladies — led by the magnificent Hermione Gingold — think there's smut in those books and they think Marian had a sexual relationship with the rich man who bequeathed all the books in the library to her. It's as if Harold Hill is a real-life fictional character come to town to break everything open. Marian believes liberation could come from reading, but — such is the logic of the musical comedy — the words need music. It's Harold Hill who reaches into the mind and activates life energy. The whole town gains vivid personality. Marian knows he's a fraud who's taking their money and has no ability to teach them to play the musical instruments, but she can see that he liberates them to the full humanity she's been begging them to find in books. On a deeper level, he really is bringing the music.

And that causes her to sing:



For all her reading about love, she "never heard it singing/No, I never heard it at all/'Til there was you." Beautiful song. It earned a Beatles cover:



Being an older woman, I was genuinely touched by the older women of the town as — inspired by Hill — they turned to dance — Isadora Duncan style dance. The story takes place in 1913, and I loved the idea that within everyone there is the spirit of the artist. Hill was a catalyst and the only kind of artist he was was a con artist... 'til there was Marian. She saw the beauty inside him, and she brought him alive.

As an 11 year old, I wanted Harold Hill to run away when he had the chance. I didn't want anyone to die. On rewatch, I loved seeing him stay for Marian, and I loved seeing her step up and make the argument for the defense at his trial: "I think there ought to be some of you who could forget our everlasting Iowa stubborn chip-on-the-shoulder arrogance long enough to remember River City before Harold Hill arrived.... Surely some of you ought to be grateful to him for what he has brought to River City."

The argument works because the boys show up in their shabby band uniforms and pathetically produce some semblance of Beethoven's Minuet in G on their rotten instruments. (Were they able to play at all because Hill's fraudulent "think system" worked, or because Marian was able to teach them a little something? I didn't know in 1962 and I don't know now.) The sound from the instruments is music only because it's heard through the ears of parents. ("That's my Davey!," etc.) The fraud becomes the truth — through love.

We get a final scene, which I know I didn't understand at age 11. The little band of boys in bad uniforms magically transforms into a gigantic, snazzily outfitted marching band:



How did that happen? What did that mean? — I wondered when I was 11.  57 years later, I get it. It wasn't a supernatural occurrence. It was a visualization of love. This is how the parents see their children. This is what Marian saw in her books. These are visions you see in your head when you read. The inward beauty of the human soul is revealed. It was always there, but you never saw it at all, 'til there was The Music Man.