River City... Here I come...! ! ! !
After seeing this movie musical.. I ran out and booked a flight to
River City Iowa... Got my suspenders and my straw hat...dance shoes too!
Robert Preston is a Stitch.. however..Buddy Hackett sings awful.
and.. Ronny Howard.. OMG.. what happened to all that gorgeous red hair??
I bet he didnt see that comming ah??.. LOL
All the musical numbers are addicting...and if your a 60's child.. This DVD will take you back in time a spell.
Remember..
"We've got Trouble right here in River City ..with a capital "T" that rhyms with "P" and that stands for Pool."

Trouble Right Here on this DVD
Watch out for this DVD! The authoring needs to be vastly improved, as does the overall quality of the transfer. I tried four borrowed/rented copies of this edition in attempting to find a copy that my Coby DVD player wouldn't choke on. Finally I ordered a NEW copy, which looked somewhat suspect to me (bootleg? not sure). A big clue was that even though it played, initially the DVD player's display BLINKED continuously! The silk screen printed label on the DVD is also a little off. The picture seemed overly edge-enhanced as well as dull and in need of chroma correction. The second play registered better, and with a few tweaks the anamorphic picture improved, but it's still not up to today's DVD standards. Remember, this disc dates back to 1999 (with paper packaging to match)! Warner Brothers needs to issue a remastered Blu-Ray disc to get the full beauty of the original Techniscope (8 perf) negative, which was selected for preservation in 2005.
So if your copy isn't up to speed, I'd say return it for a full refund.

Trouble in River City
Meredith Wilson's "The Music Man" is one of those classic musicals. Its plot is simple: con man Harold Hill comes to rural Iowa, saying he'll replace the pool hall with a family-friendly marching band. In the meantime, he woos the beautiful librarian Marian. As a live musical, "Music Man" is exuberant and energetic. Unfortunately, as a movie it seems to go on forever.

Robert Preston is stodgy as Harold Hill, and an unlikely suitor for Marian (Shirley Jones),unless she's a gold digger as well. There's a young Ron Howard, looong before his deadpan narration for "Arrested Development",singing "Gary,Indiana." "The Music Man" drags its feet. Too much exposition between songs. There's no energy to it. Is Iowa this boring? One hopes not.

"Music Man" is the All-American Boring Musical, unless one is fortunate enough to see a live production. Skip this movie; give Iowa a try instead!

Trouble!
This movie is fantastic, and hasn't lost anything over the years. I haven't checked out the other options, but the quality is awesome.

A pleasant way to spend an evening
This is of course a classic big Broadway musical from the era of great tunes and great stars. What makes this film particularly delightful after all of these years is the direction. It is shot in such a way as to not just "open it up" as a film with songs (which it does), but it gives you the feeling of the stage show with the big numbers choreographed with an eye for the proscenium stage and even a curtain call and encore at the end. You can see why Robert Preston was such a great performer (especially in this role). Comedy buffs can get a renewed appreciation of Paul Ford and Hermione Gingold. We can be charmed by Ron Howard and what a terrific actor he was at such a tender age...and marvel that there was such a creation as Shirley Jones with such beauty and such a voice....can't go wrong...