Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)
I didn’t know how talented Howard Keel (from TV’s Dallas) was until I saw this essential Musical a sleeper hit for MGM (the studio had thought their Gene Kelly-Van Johnson-Cyd Charisse production of Brigadoon (1954) would be their big hit that year causing the production qualities of this one to suffer).
The story is about a family of mountain men the Pontipee’s whose eldest son Adam (Keel) determines that what they need is a woman to cook clean etc. while they work the farm (felling trees clearing and fencing the land etc.). So he goes into the nearby town to find a wife (Keel sings "Bless Your Beautiful Hide") and does in Milly (Jane Powell). Ian Wolfe plays Reverend Elcott her surrogate father who reluctantly marries them. The brothers are played by Russ Tamblyn Tommy Rall and others each named from the Bible starting with Adam then Benjamin (Jeff Richards) Caleb (Matt Mattox) Daniel (Marc Platt) Ephraim (Jacques d’Amboise) ‘Frank’ for Frankincense (Rall) and Gideon (Tamblyn). After learning that the situation she’s gotten herself into is not the romantic one she’d dreamed it would be Milly decides that she’s going to tame these men by teaching them manners etc.; she quickly befriends them and then helps them to find women of their own. One of these women is played by Julie Newmar. Great COLORFUL dancing sequences (a widescreen letterbox must) beautifully choreographed (by Michael Kidd) especially during the barn raising sequence (a hoot!) which brings tears to Milly’s eyes. The ‘boys’ had quickly forgotten how she’d taught them to court the ladies (Powell sings "Goin’ Co’tin’" going courting). However after listening to Adam the six single Pontipee brothers find a ‘caveman-wild west’ way complete with an avalanche. In the end I challenge you not to ‘laugh out loud’ at their ‘solution’.
It earned Academy Award nominations for Best Picture Screenplay (Albert Hackett-Frances Goodrich Father of the Bride (1950) and Dorothy Kingsley her only Academy recognition) George Folsey’s Color Cinematography and Ralph Winters’s (King Solomon’s Mine (1950)) Editing it won for Best Musical Score and was added to the National Film Registry in 2004. Directed by Stanley Donen and based on Stephen Vincent Benet’s story (The Sobbin’ Women). #21 on AFI’s 25 Greatest Movie Musicals list.
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