Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (DVD)

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Revisiting old friends can sometimes be an iffy business, particularly if you haven't seen them in a very long time. Will they really hold up to memory? In the case of the 1954 MGM musical "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers," I hadn't seen it since the time of its initial release in my childhood. I remembered liking it then. Would I now? Yes, mostly, it's still fun, still cheerful and pleasing to the eye and ear, but it didn't quite match the many musicals I have seen since and with which it must now compete for favor. Worthwhile? Of course. The greatest musical of all time? Not really.

The plot, based on a story by Stephen Vincent Benet, is slight, to say the least. Maybe it should have stayed a short story or the characters been better developed. But who am I to complain about a film that has become a musical classic? Anyway, you remember Benet; his most famous short story was "The Devil and Daniel Webster," which also had a hard time filling out an entire motion picture. You DO remember "The Devil and Daniel Webster," don't you? You read it in high school. If you didn't, sue your high school.

Anyway, "Seven Brides" is based on Benet's "Sobbin' Women," a takeoff on Plutarch's story of the carrying off, or rape, of the Sabine women of ancient Rome, so you get some idea of the film's plot. No, not rape, carrying off. A backwoodsman in the Oregon Territory of 1850 decides to come down out of the mountains and find himself a wife in town. He does so and takes her home, where he lives with his six younger brothers. They are all of marriageable age, and when they see their older brother's new situation, they decide that they, too, should get married. Finding their brides-to-be in town, they kidnap them and carry them off to their cabin. Before long everyone falls in love, and after a good deal of singing and dancing, everything ends happily. Actually, it ends on one of the cutest notes possible.

Howard Keel and Jane Powell star as the mountain man, Adam Pontipee, and the town gal, Milly, who get hitched without even knowing one another. Keel and Powell were already veterans of these kinds of things when they did "Seven Brides" and their professionalism shows. They sparkle as the newlyweds whose troubles they never anticipate. Adam wants only a housekeeper and never expects to fall in love with his wife. Milly is a dreamer who is shocked to learn that maybe her marriage was "love at first sight" on her part only, but the spunky lass is determined to make it work, in any case. She sets out first to teach her new husband and his brothers some manners. "What do I need manners for?" asks Adam. "I already got me a wife."

The six other brothers are played by Jeff Richards, Russ Tamblyn, Tommy Rall, Marc Platt, Matt Maddox, and Jacques d'Amboise. The six women they court are played by Julie Newmeyer (later Julie Newmar), Nancy Kilgas, Betty Carr, Virginia Gibson, Ruta Kilmonis (later Ruta Lee), and Norma Doggett. Some of them were chosen for their acting ability, some for their singing ability, some for their dancing or acrobatic ability, and all of them for their attractive appearance.

I cannot say I liked the songs and music of famed Hollywood hit makers Johnny Mercer and Gene de Paul much in my youth, and I cannot say I liked them much better this second time around, finding them much too routine and unmemorable. Yet, combined with the zestful story line and the terrific dance numbers, the film became popular enough to inspire a Broadway show and a television series. Again, who am I to argue? The songs include "Bless Yore Beautiful Hide," "Wonderful Wonderful Day," "When You're in Love," "Goin' Co'tin" (one of the best and most tuneful of the numbers), "Lonesome Polecat," "Sobbin' Women" (another cute one), "June Bride," "Spring, Spring, Spring," and various reprises of the tunes, along with several purely orchestral interludes.

The barn-raising sequence is a highlight of the picture, where the brothers outdance everyone in sight, and it's probably the only moment of the film I remember vividly from my childhood. The dancing, in fact, holds up remarkably well, thanks to the inspired choreography of Michael Kidd ("Guys and Dolls," "Li'l Abner," "Hello, Dolly!").

The only other thing I found a trifle off-putting this time around, but something I hadn't noticed when I was a kid, is the fact that most of the film was shot on an MGM soundstage. Except for a few transitional shots made on location (or at least outdoors), everything else is done inside. It's like "The Wizard of Oz." When you're little and you see it, you don't notice that it's all backdrops and painted scenery. When you get older, you notice such things, although they don't always matter anymore. In the case of "Seven Brides," the action can appear more than a bit stagey at times, especially when the actors are supposed to be in the great outdoors, and it's clear they're not.