Music Man (2003)

The really funny thing is, I remember this coming out on TV as a kid and I remember watching it. I remember, probably unfairly, comparing it to the 1962 version, and at the end of it all, it really just disappeared from my memory until recently. The entire movie is available on Youtube so I thought since I was on this Music Man kick, I thought I'd do a review and, again probably unfairly, compare it to the 1962 version.

I'm going to try and give this movie as fair of a shake on its own merits as I can. I do think it's unfair to watch this immediately after watching the 1962 version like I did because the only thing one can do naturally is to compare the two. But like I said in my review of the 1962 movie, I watched that movie so many times that it was impossible not to compare the two, even if I hadn't watched it one after the other.

I hope this review is going to be a little short due to the fact that I reviewed the majority of the plot in the other review and there is little to no difference between the two, storywise. There's also very few photos on Google Image from this movie so, I'll work with what I have and try to keep it brief.

So the TV movie of The Music Man that aired on ABC in 2003 follows the familiar story. Traveling salesman/conman Harold Hill finds his way into River City spouting the promise of a boys band to the stubborn midwest down.

Along the way he goes toe to toe with the city librarian, Marian who is skeptical of his motives, and he brings song and dance to a sleepy town stuck in its old ways.

The main difference this time around is the cast. And I have to say, this is a weird cast and probably the biggest issue I have with the show.

Getting right in to it, I don't understand the choice of Matthew Broderick playing Harold Hill. Now I know its going to be hard for anybody to play Harold Hill, especially in the shadow of Robert Preston. This movie and the 1962 version are the only feature length films I've seen because I get the feeling people just aren't interested in being compared with someone who was able to absolutely own that role the way Preston did. But someone has to explain the rationale for Matthew Broderick.

 I mean I sort of understand, I guess the late 90's/early 2000's were like the hayday for Matthew Broderick and he was in a lot of things as well as flexing a Broadway charm he had been developing with The Producers. But there is a huge difference between Leo Bloom and Harold Hill. I can imagine anybody would have a difficult time making the role their own, but Broderick just felt like a weird choice in 2003 and feels weird now.

The face to the left is the face he makes THE ENTIRE movie and he never really loses that pipsqueak voice and emotionless face he's pulled out in multiple films. Broderick is one of multiple actors in this show that makes me think that Disney just thought, we need to get this TV movie cast, lets fill it with people who have performed on Broadway, regardless of who they are or if they fit with the role.

Not to compare too much, but with the 1962 version, everyone felt perfectly set with the role and it worked perfectly. Not all movies are going to be cast perfectly, but this one had a lot more awkward choices than good ones.

Victor Garber and Molly Shannon play the Mayor and his wife which I guess in theory makes sense, especially Molly Shannon. Mrs. Shinn is a funny character and Molly Shannon is funny and musically talented. And in the 2000s any musical that Disney put in automatically had Victor Garber in it.

The truth is, these two aren't terrible, but they aren't great either. They're just kind of there. Molly Shannon has some okay moments but Victor Garber just didn't really pull off the comedic moments that I think you could get from Mayor Shin. To be fair to both of them, I think it's difficult to make these characters funny. They can be, but it's not gonna break the show if they're not.

The rest of the cast was fine and probably wouldn't have been looked too closely at by me if Broderick wasn't such a huge miscast. Mrs. Paroo is played by Debra Monk which was probably another, "she's on Broadway, cast her" decision. She kind of loses her accent from time to time.

The couple that play Tommy Djias and Zineta Shin (Clyde Alves and Cameron Adams) did an okay job but they did make me laugh when I'm supposed to believe that these two are in high school and no in their late twenties.

A really small but kind of funny piece of trivia is that the kid who plays Winthrop is Cameron Monaghan who you might recognize from Shameless or Gotham. He does a fine job, I just thought that was funny when I looked it up.

The one thing this movie did one hundred percent right is cast Kristin Chenoweth as Marian

Keep in mind this is 2003, the same year Wicked premiered. Kristin Chenoweth was a pretty big name on Broadway with You're a Good Man Charlie Brown but this was actually before Wicked that she did this show and she was pretty much an unknown for most people.

Regardless, she is acting circles around everyone in this show and she actually looks like she's giving it one hundred percent her all. Chenoweth just has a better voice than everyone in the show and every time she sang I was in. This movie is a little bit cringe worthy in a lot of places, but boy was Chenoweth hands down the best part of the show.

The last casting I'll talk about I think blends well into the awkward feel of this show and that's the barbershop quartet.

This is the only good photo I can get of them and in case you can't tell, they're just 4 of the most generic white dudes I've ever seen. There's nothing distinct about any of them and if you asked me to pick one out as a distinct character or from the other out in a crowd, I couldn't do it.

They sing fine, but there's nothing memorable about it and it feels like they were just cast at random haphazardly.

That sentiment as well as the limited photos I've found from this show really encapsulate the vibe I got overall from this show. It was quickly put together, everybody seemed to rush through it as fast as they could, and there's no soul to it.

I realized this when I was watching a community production my buddy was in that the dialogue in the show is very quippy. It has a lot of jokes that I never picked up on as a kid but fully picked up on as an adult and during a stage show, you can pause for the audience to laugh. Movie versions don't have that laugh track or pause, it's not diagetic. So they have to adapt to make the show work. While the 1962 doesn't totally nail it, this one breezes past these moments without really understanding why certain lines are funny. It seems like they saw this show as a romantic musical, not a comedy, and to me that's a shame.

But nothing about this show felt heart felt or like anybody (with the exception of Chenoweth) was really putting their all into it. While it looks cleaner and like it had a larger production value, everything feels like it was done on a small set and like it was a community theater production they'd all move on from after it was done. Everyone seemed to push their lines as fast as they could, and nobody thought to say, "Hey Matthew, Maybe you should do another take on that line".

To be fair, I don't know how difficult it is to make a movie. I'm sure people gave a shit and I don't wanna trash people's livelihood. But I think you can tell when someone is really invested and loves the source material and when something is being made because Disney thought it'd be good to produce a TV movie musical with a bunch of Broadway actors.

This wasn't the first or the last time this happened, especially with Disney, but I think it's fascinating that there really are only two movie adaptations of this story. I think I find it interesting that the 1962 version came out only a year after the huge Broadway style classic West Side Story. Spielberg is actually coming out with a remake of that in the next year or so and Hugh Jackman is doing The Music Man on Broadway. I'm not one who's really good at reading tea leaves, but depending on the success of West Side Story, maybe there could be a new revitalization of this story in a few years.

Overall, I'm glad this movie was free on Youtube. It's a TV movie with probably a deadline they needed to meet in order for it to air. I don't know what the budget was but I can't imagine it was less than the 1962 version. The dancing is and music is fine. They choreograph it pretty well and got innovative with a different medium. The casting is the big hurdle for me. Matthew Broderick not only doesn't live up to Robert Preston's gravitas, but he was just horribly miscast from the get go. Kristin Chenoweth is really good and almost saves the movie, but overall it's a dud that you don't need to check out unless you wanna laugh at the unfair comparison.

But those are my thoughts on The Music Man (2003), did you see it? What'd you think? How does it compare? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!