MovieChat Forums > The Music Man (1962) Discussion > Question on the Final Scene (Spoliers)

Question on the Final Scene (Spoliers)


Before the eventual parade, the small band managed to play Beethoven's Minuet, though many were out of tune or rhythm. This is somehow still plausible.

However, how did it transit to the successful final parade performance? I know there might be an implied meaning that this final scene is happening MUCH LATER than the town hall gathering scene. But how did they learn to play so well and perfectly without any trained instructor that could coach them?

reply

the final parade is pure fantasy... or perhaps taken from the townies' viewpoint in which the band's first effort to play the minuet will be remembered as the grandest parade river city had ever seen. it's a story that will grow in glory with every subsequent retelling.

i don't think it's meant to be taken literally.

reply

I see, thanks!

reply

The original staging in 1957 (legit stage) ended with 'Minuet in G'scene, etc. NO fantasy huge marching band ending. Then during curtain calls the rhythmic clapping along with "76 Trombones" being played started the first night. I'm theorizing but it may have evolved in DaCosta's mind from there.

reply

The story asks the question: do you want to believe, or to doubt and condemn? The townspeople, when seeing their children actually playing, (after a fashion), decide to believe in the band, just as Harold and Marion have decided to allow themselves to fall in love with each other.




The past is a series of presents. The present is living history we are privileged to witness

reply

I don't think it's just implied that the final scene is much later - it HAS to be much later. The prior "trial" scene had been at night, everyone was still costumed for the sociable...but then the last scene is in the full light of day, and everyone is totally differently dressed. The "magic" switching of the old uniforms to the new was just artistic license...and perhaps implies there had to be a WHOLE lot of magic...or think method...in order for the pathetic little band to evolve into a full-fledged marching band.

The only thing that confounds the "much later" explanation is the appearance of the anvil salesman in the credits. He needed his time in the credits, of course, but in the "much later" reality he'd have been long, long gone...

reply

I took it as fantasy, divorcees from the narrative. The speculation of it being the towns imagination was good. Being that it was an actual marching band at the end filled with similar aged players all in time. A fun way to play out the credits to be sure.

When there are two, one betrays-Jean-Pierre Melville

reply

I can't think of a better way to "open up" a stage production. It's also the film version of a curtain call.
"May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?"

reply

The stage play ended with the kids just honking on their horns, playing nothing but tuneless cacophony. The parents, of course, were delighted, crying out "That's my Johnny" and such. But this is a movie, and a big final number was needed, so they went into fantasy, with their cheap little uniforms transforming into handsome equipage, and playing the "big number" from the show as an encore. Just go with it, and have fun. No logic about "a much later time" needed.



We provide ... Leverage.

reply

I have always believed that, on one level, the show could be seen as a spoof of the country's mania for the preachings of Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. His book, "The Power of Positive Thinking," had Americans enthralled for years after its initial publication. (It first hit bookshelves in 1952 and the original "Music Man" was born in 1957-- but possibly conceived a year or two prior to that.) In addition, the wonderful "Trouble" number has all the fervor and contagious spirituality of the old-time tent revivals, which might have provided inspiration for Peale's self-help anodynes.

In this context, the "76 Trombones" finale carries out the theme that "we can be what we believe we are"-- however self-delusional that belief may actually be. Thus, even though Professor Harold Hill is a con-man and charlatan, his deception has had a salubrious effect on the citizens of River City-- so much so that they have become all that he has convinced them they are (as with the quarrelsome town board members turned harmonious barber shop quartet, and the town "delinquent" transformed into trustworthy youth leader).

This magical show takes a cynical premise and conjures it into a cause for rejoicing.

reply

You must have a very sad, little life.
Get some sun and take an antidepressant. It's a movie, not a treatise by Freud.

reply

I don't know about a direct connection to Peale, but I agree with your point that the idea behind the movie is suspension of disbelief -- as in, believe it to be so and it is so.

reply

Think of the band playing the Minuet and the think of the credits coming on - just printed credits rolling. It wouldn't have worked. After a big, spectacular movie musical like this, you need a big ending. To just cut out would have been worse than anticlimactic.

Given that, the magical transformation of the band uniforms, the change from night to day, and the fact that the finale band has over a hundred members (far more than a small town could supply) and the fact that they are not young boys all indicate that that final sequence is not to be taken as part of the movie but is an elaborate staging of the end credits.

I remember when I first saw it in 1962 how the audience cheered and applauded each actor or group of actors, just as if they were on stage live. That's how much everybody was caught up with enthusiasm for the film.

By the way, if you want to see the ACTUAL 1912 boys' band of Mason City, Iowa (which "River City" stood for) I posted a link to a photo of them a while back but it's still on the message board here on page 3.

reply

I just got through doing the play, playing the anvil salesman (Charlie Cowell). The script ends with Mayor Shinn's line "Look, Mrs. Paroo, there's Winthrop!" The focus seems to be on Winthrop coming out of his shell as his coronet playing is to be the loudest. This justifies Marion and Harold being together and the whole town loving Harold. When reading the script, this ending is written in the style of a screwball comedy (i.e. it all ends when all hell breaks loose). There's no realistic ending and it ends in a futile mess, but the twist is that the "neck-bowed hawkeyes" described at the beginning of the play actually buy the schlock Harold is selling. The film could have effectively ended (albeit a postmodern take) with Harold grimacing at the band as they murdered the minuet and the Mayor giving his line to Mrs. Paroo, with both her and Marion looking on, smiling, and a close-up on Winthrop. Fade to ending title card and miniature soldiers for the instrumental curtain call. Still, DaCosta's ending is ideal for a stage-to-screen adaptation...so much so that when we staged our version, the director took scriptural liberties and added a line to lead into the marching band coming onstage. Winthrop ran to Harold, yelling "It all happened just like you said! River City has a band!" The Mayor responded with "Three cheers for Harold Hill" and those cheers cued the band to march through the audience. Charlie effectively ducked out just as the chase ensued. No recurrence.

Btw, while the guy who played Charlie in the film was fantastic, I would have loved to have seen Paul Reed (Car 54) reprise his Broadway role and the entire Rock Island included. The cast recording is brilliant!

reply

Btw, while the guy who played Charlie in the film was fantastic, I would have loved to have seen Paul Reed (Car 54) reprise his Broadway role and the entire Rock Island included. The cast recording is brilliant!


The shooting of the film took place while Reed was doing "Car 54" in New York (and he was also appearing regularly in "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying" while doing "Car 54") so he never could have taken time out to do the film. Harry Hickox already had experience with the part having originated in the National Company in 1958.

reply

You're seeing the band through the parents' eyes, a factor that Prof. Hill had overlooked. Haven't you ever seen a group of parents at a school play or music recital, enthralled with their children's performances, and convinced their children will grow up to be operatic sopranos, rock stars, Broadways stars, or whatever? That's what is happening in the last scene.

reply

This is exactly how I read the ending credits parade the first time I saw this film many years. Subsequent viewings have remained the same for me. The parents saw their kids as seasoned professionals in shiny band uniforms. Imagination goes a long way when it is your child or loved one.

reply

I agree that it is a quasi-fantasy sequence seen from the viewpoint of the town people. Marian has just given her impassioned speech in defense of Harold Hill. She has just admonished the town folk to remember what they were like before he came to town, and then what happened all summer while he was there. She had also just told Winthrop that everything he had promised over summer had happened in the way that people looked out for each other and the excitement they all felt in anticipation of the Band.

Remember it was Zaneeta who was the first to actually see the transformation. Tommy came out and as Zaneeta was watching him with love in her eyes, he transformed into the fully dressed drum major. Then the drummers transformed, then she did. This was a confirmation that the town folk believed in Harold Hill.

reply

The explanations are good. But you can't get around it. They build and build a case against Hill and he just walks (or marches) away in a fantasy? I'm sorry it doesn't work.
Yes it needs a re-write. Great musical no question but the ending prevents it from being a great film like "My Fair Lady or Cabaret."

reply

To ProFromDover: You must remember that the end is a fantasy as the some of the above posters said, and I agree. It's also not so unusual for the townspeople, when realizing that Professor Hill was telling the truth about making a school band (after a fashion), that they would drop the charges against him. This is a feel-good musical with a partial fantasy ending.

reply