Revealing mistake: During the July 4th festivities at Madison Park, Professor Harold Hill prompts four school board members (the Buffalo Bills quartet) into performing the song "Sincere," allowing Hill to slip away into the crowd. As they complete the last verse, the singers stroll into a wide shot with a fireworks display in the background. However, the skybursts are oddly magnified and erratically shift positions against the background, revealing that the fireworks display is a large but clumsily-edited rear-screen projection.
The Music Man (1962)
1 video
Directed by: Morton DaCosta
Starring: Shirley Jones, Robert Preston, Buddy Hackett, Hermione Gingold
Revealing mistake: At a certain point we see the arid, dry Santa Monica Mountains of Los Angeles in the upper left of the picture with a huge high-tension electrical tower at the summit. The film is set in 1912 in Iowa, a green, rainy state which is also completely flat, with no mountains. Then again, we see the arid, dry Santa Monica Mountains in the upper right. (00:08:27)
Mayor Shinn: It's as clear as a buttonhook in the well water.
Trivia: Shirley Jones was pregnant during the movie. She wore a special corset to conceal this. Director Morton DaCosta did not want anyone else involved in the movie to be aware of her pregnancy. He was so successful, that it was not until the kissing scene on the bridge that Robert Preston (Harold Hill) found out, when he was shocked to feel Jones' baby kicking him in the stomach.
Question: If the movie was supposedly taking place in Indiana, why then during town meeting to runoff the band director did Marian tell the town folks to "put aside your Iowa stubbornness"?
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Answer: The movie doesn't take place in Indiana. It takes place in River City, Iowa, which is established multiple times throughout the movie.