Harrison's Reports (1962)

66 HARRISON'S REPORTS May 5, 1962 "The Music Man" with Robert Preston, Shirley Jones, Buddy Hackett, Hermione Gingold, Paul Ford (Warner Bros., May; 151 mins.) VERY GOOD. This has been a good year for producers who bought costly Broadway plays and made movies out of them. Most of the legitimate vehicles came through successfully in their transition to the screen. This musical reaches enthrallingly exciting, heartwarming heights in the realm of melody entertainment. For all its proof of charm, gaiety, colorful stretches of sheer joy and plenty of dashes of oldfashioned sentimentality on the stage, as a film entry it emerges with all these endowments in greater measure, deeper feeling and more pleasurable residue. How prophetic it is, when you think back to the time when it seemed as if the stage symbol of the music man, Robert Preston, would be supplanted by a "big marquee name" when the celluloidic version got rolling. Where would this superb piece of entertainment have been without the real Robert Preston playing the reel one. Melodic Americana has its own ear-caressed idea of what is good music, set to a good story with its echo of unforgettable beauty. Inter-woven into such a pattern are the skeins of corn, hokum, old-fashioned "schmaltz," provincial nostalgia, endearing tenderness. But, how beautiful it all comes out. How lovely to behold. How wonderful to listen to. If there be cynics who don't go along with us, let them be, for redemption is beyond their sensitivities, to say nothing of their souls. There are drum-rolls and bugle-calls for so many people and factors in this, that space would hardly allow for their full listing. But, away up on top is the performance of the man who had melody in his heart and just a wee bit of innocent larceny in his pocketbook. That's Robert Preston. The actor, with nearly nine-hundred stage performances as the music man, in back of him, achieves new, histrionic triumphs perhaps not imagined by some of us. Charming rogue, innocent hustler of the fast-buck, he is finally trapped by the heart-strings of love. No matter what the emotion, his is an outstanding performance. He delivers a tune and executes dancing steps with a smoothness denoting big talent. Shirley Jones gives a great account of herself. There is sometimes a slight hint of overacting along the long road of the melody play, 151 minutes, - quite a stretch. Accolades and salutes go to Buddy Hackett with his lighter moments; Hermione Gingold with her touch of humor, Pert Kelton's solid performance, Paul Ford and the rest. Special mention should be made of a little, shy boy who stammers and lisps his way into your heart, Ronny Howard. Technirama and Technicolor make their contributions to the entertainment goodness that is to be found in this release. This is an assured bell-ringer for the exhibitors. We're in Iowa (River City). It is 1912. The con game, everywhere, is at its height. Robert Preston uses the route of melody to gain his fast-buck objectives. In this small town he gets to work on the citizenry to make melody men out of the kids, dress them up in uniforms. He makes all sorts of promises and gives all kinds of guarantees. By the time he's collected his loot he'd be on his way. But, not this trip. He's in love with the librarian, Shirley Jones. He stays on and works with the little music men. The townsfolk feel, for a while, that they've been taken. But, soon they come to the decision that he has brought some of the missing melodic culture to River City. In between the narrative (which sometimes gets a little weak) there are the melodies. The Meredith Willson score is the metronome of Americana pulsing through the tale. The heights of throbbing melody, of course, is reached when the "76 Trombones" let loose. It sweeps the populace like so much laughter, love and tears. » and when the end is reached, you're almost prompted to come back and see it all over again. Produced and directed by Morton DaCosta; screenplay by Marion Hargrove, based on the Meredith Willson-Franklin Lacey stage libretto; music and lyrics by Willson. General patronage. • "Lonely Are the Brave" with Kirk Douglas, Gena Rowlands, Walter Matthau, Michael Kane (Unwersal-lnt'l), June; 107 mins.) GOOD. This is a motion picture based on truth. It is almost bitter in its concept. Raw, bloody-andgutty, rough and homicidal it whips into the harder side of life with the fierce brutality that can be man's hatred for his fellowman when seeking his own, free way of life. Something that may still he beyond the reaches of the fences of modernity. Within his own conscience, he may have felt himself as right as the rains that ultimately figured in his death. But he broke the laws of the society aborning around him. He had to pay the price for his strange transgressions. Thus we find Kirk Douglas in a dramatic portraiture vastly different from what he has done before. He is before the camera for most of the running time of the film. A less capable actor would have lost his hold on your emotions long before the final fade out. While we see here a western criminal, his mixed-up philosophy of what constitutes one's free way of life stamps him more as a "crazy cowboy." To be sure, the women won't find this their dish of cinematic tea. Yet, Douglas has a feminine following. Some of it may respond to this raw, meaty offering. It is for the men who are in search of tales that deal with the brave, the fearless, the fighter, the lonely roamer. Whatever the box office returns of this one, they will have to depend on the Douglas name and its appeal to the movie-goer. It is a picture that will create some talk, which in turn may create some additional revenue. In some sections this will score. Verily, it is a challenge to Universale ability to do a strong "sell" job on this one. Walter Mattheau, a stalwart Kirk Douglas stand-by, does well with the chore of sheriff of Duke City, which is Albuquerque. The sharp-bitten delivery of Matthau makes the sheriff more than a man-hunter. His small-town sense of coated humor is big time. Gena Rowlands, Michael Kane and the others are in for short roles but do well. Douglas' horse with silvertinted mane and tail, is a well-trained beautiful animal. The rugged, dangerous Sandia mountains form the picturesque background of most of the exteriors. Panavision in black-and-white can be mighty eyecompelling as this is. Kirk Douglas gets himself thrown in jail so that he could help a friend (Michael Kane) escape. The friend will have none of it. Douglas gets out, and