The Music Man

Con man Professor Harold Hill (Robert Preston) arrives in fictional River City, Iowa, posing as a boys' bandleader to swindle the citizens. A few traveling salesmen in the area have heard about Hill, who is known for a ploy in which he gets townspeople to pay to create boys' marching bands, with Hill faking his musical expertise and skipping town once he has their money. Hill discovers that River City is the home of his former associate Marcellus Washburn; with Marcellus's help, Hill incites a moral panic among River City's parents that their boys are being seduced into sin by the town's new pool table. He suggests that a marching band will keep young boys out of trouble. Anticipating that Marian Paroo, the town's librarian and piano teacher, is suspicious of his motives, Hill sets out to seduce her.