The Music Man is a musical with book, music, and lyrics by Meredith Willson. The show is based on a story by Willson and Franklin Lacey. In 1957, the show became a hit on Broadway and spawned revivals and a popular film. It is still frequently produced by both professional and amateur theatre companies.

The Music Man is a 1962 film musical starring Robert Preston as Harold Hill and Shirley Jones as Marian Paroo. The film is based on the 1957 Broadway musical of the same name by Meredith Willson.

The film was one of the biggest hits of the year and highly acclaimed critically. It also at last made Robert Preston into an "A" list star in motion pictures, after years of appearing in supporting roles in famous films and in starring roles in "B" movies. It also marked one of the first pictures in which Preston's character was not killed off, one of his former screen "trademarks." After the success of the film, Preston began getting much better film roles.

Although he scored a great success in the original stage version of the show, he was not first choice for the film version, partly because he was not a box office star. Jack L. Warner, who was notorious for wanting to film stage musicals with stars other than the ones who played the roles onstage, wanted Frank Sinatra for the role of Professor Harold Hill, but Meredith Willson insisted upon Preston. Cary Grant was also "begged" by Warner to play Hill but he declined, saying "nobody could do that role as well as Bob Preston".

Unusually for a musical film at the time, Morton DaCosta, who had directed the show onstage, not only directed the film, but produced it as well, ensuring that the film was extremely faithful to the show. The actress Pert Kelton and the Buffalo Bills also reprised their stage roles. All of the show's songs were retained for the film with the exception of "My White Knight", which was replaced by "Being in Love"; this new song included some of the original song's lyrics.

Warner Bros. Records issued the soundtrack album in both stereophonic and monaural versions.

Contemporary rethinking of the legendary Broadway musical and 1962 film, updated to reflect a few early twenty-first-century sensibilities. Professor Harold Hill an energetic con artist, convinces the citizens of a small turn-of-the-century community to form a boy's marching band. which he plans to lead. The television movie based on Meredith Willson's musical, The Music Man. Starring Ferris Bueller's Day Off and The Producers' Matthew Broderick and Wicked's Kristin Chenoweth.

Contemporary rethinking of the legendary Broadway musical and 1962 film, updated to reflect a few early twenty-first-century sensibilities: A masterful con artist tries to bilk a staid Midwestern community, with unexpected results. More subdued than the earlier film, and therefore less joyous, but it's tough to get too far off the mark with material as good as this. Written by Carl Schultz

A NEW NOTE IN BRIGHT ROMANCE...with a song for every kiss in Tin-Pan Alley! (original poster)

RHYTHM and ROM-ANTICS! ...eight-to-the-bar! (original poster)

Confidence man Harold Hill arrives at staid River City intending to cheat the community with his standard scam of offering to equip and train a boy's marching band, then skip town with the money since he has no music skill anyway. Things go awry when he falls for a librarian he tries to divert from exposing him while he inadvertently enriches the town with a love of music. Written by Kenneth Chisholm

Professor Harold Hill likes a challenge and when the other salesmen on the train west tell him that Iowa is the biggest test of all of sales ability, he gets off at River City. We know it's the 20th century there, only because of a reference in one of the songs to Gary, Indiana. Marian the librarian doesn't buy the professor's line but he convinces many of his other potential customers that the new pool table that has just been placed in the billiard parlor could mean "trouble in River City." How to keep the youngsters "moral after school?" Form a boys marching band. Written by Dale O'Connor

Classic of flag-waving, feel-good, musical comedic Americana, based on a hit Broadway show, with a refreshingly jaundiced subtext: Footloose con man sets out to fleece a repressed Midwestern community during the early days of the twentieth century, but instead learns a lesson in moral responsibility from the town's comely librarian. Written by Carl Schultz