Movie Review: Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (1954)

A frontier western musical, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers bursts with colour and song. Humour and boorishness collide in a mostly enjoyable romp, with some lingering rough spots.

In the Oregon Territories of the mid 1800s, backwoodsman Adam Pontipee (Howard Keel) comes to town in search of supplies and a wife. He scours the town for a suitable bride, and settles on Milly (Jane Powell), the resourceful attendant at the local eatery. Milly is happy to be swept off her feet by the burly stranger and they get married immediately. But Milly is shocked to discover that Adam shares his mountain cabin with six younger brothers. Benjamin, Caleb, Daniel, Ephraim, Frank and Gideon (Russ Tamblyn) are hairy, dirty, loud and uncouth, and expect Milly to be their servant.

Milly recovers from the shock and sets about to turn the brothers into respectable men capable of attracting brides of their own. They are surprisingly receptive, and gradually learn what it means to be civilized. But Adam wants to hang on to more barbarous traditions of behaviour, setting the brothers on a collision course with the townsfolk when it comes time to find brides for all of the Pontipees.

Directed by Stanley Donen, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers was considered the lesser of two MGM CinemaScope musicals being readied for 1954, the other being the Vincente Minnelli directed Brigadoon with stars Gene Kelly, Van Johnson and Cyd Charisse. In comparison, Seven Brides offered up the supposedly less marketable Howard Keel and Jane Powell in the lead roles, plus a bunch of unknown professional dancers with limited to no big screen experience.

Proving that outcomes can fully ignore expectations, Brigadoon bombed and Seven Brides was a smash hit, and over time has become one of the most beloved MGM musicals. The simple story summarized by the title, energetic dancing, phenomenal staging and several hit songs propelled the film into hearts and fond memories. Keel's deep voice, Powell's indomitable spirit, Donen's eye for capturing dynamic symmetry in motion, the gymnastic talents on display and the Michael Kidd choreography combine to create a celebration of mating at its most basic level.

Man wants woman, man gets woman, man keeps woman, and woman likes it because she loves to be wanted by man. Seven Brides For Seven Brothers does not win any awards for portraying enlightened relationships between the sexes, and indeed much of the film's second half comes across as misogynist and demeaning to women. The brides are forcibly kidnapped, separated from their families, and held against their will, but somehow they anyway fall in love with the brothers, and this is all supposed to be cause for great fun and happiness. The screenplay attempts to paper over the medieval attitudes with some hints of irony and vague expressions of remorse close to the film's resolution, but it's too little and too late.

Setting aside the suspect attitude, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers resonates thanks to numbers like Bless Your Beautiful Hide (Adam looking for a wife), Goin' Courtin' (Milly and the brothers as they learn how to woo a woman), and the melancholy Lonesome Polecat (the brothers yearning for female companionship, filmed in one haunting take amidst the snow). Good as these scenes are, they are all eclipsed by the classic Barn Dance sequence, an explosion of dancing with acrobatics and a competitive edge, the scene brimming with vivid costumes and unbridled energy while taking full advantage of CinemaScope's potential.

Seven Brides For Seven Brothers gets its gender politics wrong, but keeps on stomping the dance floor with a contagious and carefree spirit.

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Movie Review: Royal Wedding (1951)

A Fred Astaire musical set mostly in London on the eve of Princess Elizabeth's wedding in 1947, Royal Wedding offers breezy fun and plenty of comic romance, but the musical numbers rarely rise above average.

Popular brother-and-sister Broadway musical act Tom and Ellen Bowen (Astaire and Jane Powell) are both happily not married. Tom is dedicated to his craft and has no time for romance, while Ellen toys with men for a matter of days at a time and leaves a trail of broken hearts in her wake. When their agent Irving (Keenan Wynn) arranges for the Bowens to star in a London show in the lead-up to Princess Elizabeth's royal wedding, Tom and Ellen jump at the chance.

On the boat to London, Ellen meets Lord John Brindale (Peter Lawford), a British man who shares her love for quick affairs and no commitments. But Ellen and John start to seriously care for each other, and once in London, Tom meets and falls in love with back-up dancer Anne (Sarah Churchill), although she tells him that she is engaged to a man based in Chicago. With the London show a big success, Tom and Ellen find their new romantic relationships complicating their previously straightforward lives.

Royal Wedding has a few drawbacks that prevent it from joining the absolute top ranks of 1950s musicals. Jane Powell was at least third choice for the role of Ellen. June Allyson (pregnancy) and then Judy Garland (absenteeism) both dropped out. Plucked from the obscurity of MGM's low-budget second tier musicals, the 21 year old Powell is ironically more watchable as an actress with a deft comic turn than as a musical performer. Her singing is unremarkable despite a good range, while her dancing is passable without ever being memorable.

Sarah Churchill is another drag on Royal Wedding. Winston's daughter, labouring under the misconception that she has a future in acting, is a wooden, unconvincing presence, and there is never a threat of chemistry with Astaire. Her casting must have surely been a stunt to trade on her father's name in the British market.

With Peter Lawford his usual anonymous self, the most passionate relationship in the film is between Tom and Ellen. As siblings singing and dancing together often in vignettes with romantic undercurrents, there is a scratchy discomfort in the physical and emotional closeness on display between brother and sister.

But there are also several positives to enjoy. Deprived of a stellar partner, Astaire delivers two brilliant solo dances. In Sunday Jumps he dances with props in the gym of the cross-Atlantic ship, turning a hatstand into an elegant companion. And in You're All the World to Me, Astaire seamlessly dances on the walls and ceilings of his hotel room. It is one of Astaire's most famous on-screen highlights, an eye-popping technical achievement delivered with aplomb by director Stanley Donen. In the best of the Astaire/Powell dances, they slide with the waves as the Atlantic high seas turn their dance floor into a tilting surface.

Keenan Wynn is a delight in the dual role of New York-based Irving and his twin brother London-based Edgar, and he gets to enjoy a couple of humorous telephone conversations with himself. Overall, Royal Wedding enjoys a steady current of wry comedy that makes up for the more creaky elements of the production.

A polished and colourful event despite suffering from some unruly moments, this wedding is still well worth attending.

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