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Silver-tongued con artist Harold Hill hoodwinks the stubborn townsfolk of River City, Iowa into buying instruments and uniforms for a boy's band, but his game ultimately and romantically backfires.
Storyline It's the early 20th-century American Midwest. A con man going by the assumed name Harold Hill has used several different schemes to bilk the unsuspecting, and now travels from town to town pretending to be a professor of music - from the Gary (Indiana) Conservatory of Music, class of '05 - who solves all the respective towns' youth problems by forming boys' marching bands. He takes money from the townsfolk to buy instruments, music, instructional materials, and uniforms for their sons. However, in reality, he has no degree and knows nothing about music, and after all the materials arrive and are distributed, he absconds with all the money, never to be seen again. Many of the traveling salesmen in the territory have been negatively impacted by him, as the townsfolk then become suspicious of any stranger trying to sell them something. For Harold's scheme to work, he must gain the trust of the local music teacher, usually by wooing her, regardless of her appearance. And if the town doesn't believe it has a youth problem needing to be fixed, he will manufacture one for them. That is the case when he arrives in River City, Iowa, population 2,212, where he will have some unexpected help from Marcellus Washburn, a friend and former grifter colleague who now lives in River City and has gone straight, but he still wants to make sure Harold survives his stay in town. River City's music teacher is spinster and town librarian Marian Paroo. He's able to impress all the other River Citizens with his fast-talking sales pitches, but not suspicious Marian, whose hard-as-nails exterior is unlike all the other River Citizens. Her exterior is partly due to her somewhat removed standing in the town, as all the gossipy housewives believe she is a smut peddler - encouraging the teenagers to read authors such as Chaucer and Balzac - and mistakenly believe that she got her position as librarian through less-than-scrupulous means. What Harold does not know is that one way to Marian is through her young adolescent brother, Winthrop Paroo, a sullen boy who has withdrawn from life since their father's death two years before, when he started to lisp. Harold starts to fall for Marian, something that never happened with any of the other music teachers. Further complications may ensue if any of those traveling salesmen who have been following his route through the territory catch up with and expose him. ( )
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
Harold Hill: Oh, my dear little librarian. You pile up enough tomorrows, and you'll find you've collected nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays.
Marian Paroo: Do you think that I'd allow a common masher - ? Now, really, Mama. I have my standards where men are concerned and I have no intention...
Mrs. Paroo: I know all about your standards and if you don't mind my sayin' so there's not a man alive who could hope to measure up to that blend of Paul Bunyan, Saint Pat, and Noah Webster you've concocted for yourself out of your Irish imagination, your Iowa stubbornness, and your li'berry full of books!
Mayor Shinn: You watch your phraseology!
Tommy Djilas: Mayor Shinn, Your Honor, your daughter and I have been going steady behind your back.
Mayor Shinn: What?
Tommy Djilas: We'd rather be doing it in front of your back.
Mayor Shinn: Doing what?
Tommy Djilas: Well...
Mayor Shinn: Never mind!
Mrs. Paroo: When a woman's got a husband, and you've got none, why should she take advice from you? Even if you can quote Balzac and Shakespeare and all them other high-falutin' Greeks.
Marian Paroo: The librarian hasn't felt much like doing research lately, but she did plenty when you first came here.
Harold Hill: What about?
Marian Paroo: Professor Harold Hill. Gary Conservatory of Music, gold medal class of '05. Harold, there wasn't any Gary Conservatory of Music in '05.
Harold Hill: Why, there most certainly w...
Marian Paroo: Because the town wasn't even built until '06. I tore this page out of an Indiana Journal. I was going to use it against you, but now I give to you with all my heart.
Harold Hill: Ladies and gentlemen, either you are closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge, or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated by the presence of a pool table in your community!
Harold Hill: Mothers of River City, heed that warning before it's too late! Watch for the telltale signs of corruption! The minute your son leaves the house, does he rebuckle his knickerbockers below the knee? Is there a nicotine stain on his index finger? A dime-novel hidden in the corncrib? Is he starting to memorize jokes from Captain Billy's Whiz-Bang? Are certain words creeping into his conversation? Words like "swell" and "so's your old man"? If so my friends, ya got trouble!
Marian: "All I want is a plain man All I want is a modest man A quiet man, a gentle man A straightforward and honest man To sit with me in a cottage Somewhere in the state of Iowa And I would like him to be More interested in me Than he is in himself And more interested in us Than in me."
Últimas palabras
Aviso de desambiguación
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
This work is for the 1962 Film, DVD or Video. Do not combine with the 2003 remake starring Matthew Broderick
Editores de la editorial
Blurbistas
Idioma original
DDC/MDS Canónico
LCC canónico
▾Referencias
Referencias a esta obra en fuentes externas.
Wikipedia en inglés
Ninguno
▾Descripciones del libro
Silver-tongued con artist Harold Hill hoodwinks the stubborn townsfolk of River City, Iowa into buying instruments and uniforms for a boy's band, but his game ultimately and romantically backfires.
It's the early 20th-century American Midwest. A con man going by the assumed name Harold Hill has used several different schemes to bilk the unsuspecting, and now travels from town to town pretending to be a professor of music - from the Gary (Indiana) Conservatory of Music, class of '05 - who solves all the respective towns' youth problems by forming boys' marching bands. He takes money from the townsfolk to buy instruments, music, instructional materials, and uniforms for their sons. However, in reality, he has no degree and knows nothing about music, and after all the materials arrive and are distributed, he absconds with all the money, never to be seen again. Many of the traveling salesmen in the territory have been negatively impacted by him, as the townsfolk then become suspicious of any stranger trying to sell them something. For Harold's scheme to work, he must gain the trust of the local music teacher, usually by wooing her, regardless of her appearance. And if the town doesn't believe it has a youth problem needing to be fixed, he will manufacture one for them. That is the case when he arrives in River City, Iowa, population 2,212, where he will have some unexpected help from Marcellus Washburn, a friend and former grifter colleague who now lives in River City and has gone straight, but he still wants to make sure Harold survives his stay in town. River City's music teacher is spinster and town librarian Marian Paroo. He's able to impress all the other River Citizens with his fast-talking sales pitches, but not suspicious Marian, whose hard-as-nails exterior is unlike all the other River Citizens. Her exterior is partly due to her somewhat removed standing in the town, as all the gossipy housewives believe she is a smut peddler - encouraging the teenagers to read authors such as Chaucer and Balzac - and mistakenly believe that she got her position as librarian through less-than-scrupulous means. What Harold does not know is that one way to Marian is through her young adolescent brother, Winthrop Paroo, a sullen boy who has withdrawn from life since their father's death two years before, when he started to lisp. Harold starts to fall for Marian, something that never happened with any of the other music teachers. Further complications may ensue if any of those traveling salesmen who have been following his route through the territory catch up with and expose him. ( )