Somewhat personal
This film changed my life - literally. When I was in the 1st grade, my parents wanted me to take piano lessons. For some reason, I thought that music was "sissy", REAL men didn't do music. My brother and I went to the movie every Saturday, and this movie was on. It changed my mind. Here, in this movie, were US Marines playing music. I no longer thought of music as "sissy". I took 7 years of piano, and have been in bands since 1955. Here, at age 61, I'm still in a community band, church choir, cantor, director of a small band at church and a girl scout band. None of this would have happened without this movie coming to town at just the right moment.Now, for the negative part. The character played by Robert Wagner was an invention - he didn't exist in real life. The Sousaphone, or marching tuba, was jointly invented by Sousa and an instrument manufacturer. There are several historical inaccuracies, so many that, according to the official J.P. Sousa web site, the family will have nothing to do with the movie.
But this doesn't diminish my admiration. This is my favorite musical, and I think was extremely well done. I recommend this film to everybody.
score 8/10
judson-jones-1 27 March 2006
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1326813/35196
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