"The Music Man is pure corn. But it is high-grade Iowa corn.... The hero is a fast-talking traveling confidence man, who persuades the dour but simple people of River City, Iowa, to buy his instruments and uniforms for a brass band which will keep the town boys out of trouble. Actually he does not know a note of music, but he expects to be well on his way before this interesting fact leaks out. The story of his redemption by the love of a lady librarian, and his eventual triumph, contains no surprises. What is astonishing is that as the dénouement draws nearer one finds oneself enthusiastically cheering for the bogus musician. The credit must go first to Meredith Willson, writer of the original book, music and lyrics, and himself an Iowa man who was a flautist with Sousa in the twenties. He uses the popular tunes and folk humor of the period with an affectionate nostalgia, while DaCosta, steering closely by theatrical convention and never attempting realism, still gives the film plenty of pace.... But the film owes its punch essentially to the Music Man himself, a once-in-a-lifetime performance by Robert Preston, who played the part on Broadway. Not a natural singer or dancer, he has mastered the art of appearing to be both; and his handling of the rabble-rousing, talking-to-music number 'Trouble' is a brilliant piece of timing and inflection, equaled in effect by the elaborate set-piece 'Marian the Librarian'. The supporting cast is augmented by Hermione Gingold, magnificently absurd as the mayor's wife, Paul Ford as her husband, and Shirley Jones as the singing librarian. But Preston's performance is a triumph of sheer professionalism: it is his film from start to finish, all two and a half hours of it." Brenda Davies, Sight & Sound, 1962