The Music Man [Blu-ray]

Ahhhhh, widescreen! And lots of additional goodies!
Looking for the musical that beat WEST SIDE STORY for the Tony Award? You've found it here, in Meredith Willson's THE MUSIC MAN -- and its appearance on DVD, in widescreen format and with all the bells and whistles, is long overdue.

Pop the disc in, and you'll immediately be taken to the "Right Here In River City" documentary (you'll have to press the MENU button on your DVD controls to get to the main menu so you can actually view the movie -- why the disc goes immediately to the documentary is rather odd). Hosted by Shirley Jones, who still looks great, the top-notch, too-short documentary is crammed with lots of good stories and bits of trivia, in the words of several of Those Who Were There. You'll find out, for instance, which segments were actually filmed first, how amazed Susan Luckey was at Robert Preston's ability to lip-synch "Trouble" during filming, and why Shirley Jones wore so many frills and flowers on her dress in the scene at the...

Use the think system! It really works!
I love this movie. As silly as it is -- a goofy plot, absurd over-the-top characters, the wacky "think system" -- it is just a whole lot of fun. Robert Preston sparkles as the fly-by-night con artist/salesman who just happens this time to get his foot caught in the door, and who better to catch that foot than Shirley Jones, who is as beautiful and talented a leading lady as has ever graced a big screen musical. Ron Howard is as funny as a kid can be in the movies, and the music will stay with you long after the movie is over.

The film also has a great cast of supporting character actors and comedians, not to mention the fabulous Buffalo Bills. I love the anvil salesman character (THAT'S a great line of merchandise for a traveling salesman!), and my favorite song has to be the pool hall song, "There's trouble in River City." The movie, funny as it is, also has its touching moments, especially when Professor Harold Hill, standing on the footbridge, confronts...

Blu-Ray - so good and yet so bad...
The previous DVD releases of The Music Man were basically OK in terms of sound, color, brightness, and contrast. But MY! Did they ever mess up the picture with edge enhancement! I don't mean just a little ghost line to the right, but also to the left. At times, the "enhancement" made it difficult to make out facial details on a large-screen TV. My guess is that it was transferred using a 19" monitor from a distance of a couple of feet, where the enhancement wouldn't be as noticeable.

Fortunately all this video gunk is corrected in the Blu-Ray edition. The colors are bright, the sound noticeably better, and the movie just comes more alive in blu-ray.

But - there always seems to be a flip side. In this case it's noticeable in the opening train scene, where blue matte artifacts around people, and slightly off masking at the windows clearly shows that it was shot against a blue screen. But, what you see is what people saw in the theaters when it was released. If the...

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