Brigadoon ***½ (1954, Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse, Van Johnson) – Classic Movie Review 4690

Director Vincente Minnelli’s sweet 1954 musical stars winsome Gene Kelly and Van Johnson, who play two American tourists who get lost in the Scottish woodlands and stumble across Brigadoon, a mysterious Scottish village that comes to life just once for only a day each hundred years. Kelly plays Tommy, who falls in love with Fiona, a Brigadoon bonnie wee lassie, charmingly played by beautiful Cyd Charisse (replacing Kathryn Grayson).

The stagey MGM studio sets over-emphasise this whimsical fantasy musical’s Broadway origins, and both the CinemaScope and the odd, washed-out colour in single-strip Metrocolor seem to bring their problems for director Minnelli. But the Alan Jay Lerner (lyrics) and Frederick Loewe (music) songs  – particularly the glorious ‘Almost Like Being in Love’ – are appealing and attractive, without as a whole being in the class of their My Fair Lady songs.

Other highlights include ‘The Heather on the Hill’ duet, the ‘I’ll Go Home with Bonnie Jean’ tap dance and the finale ‘From this Day On’. It is not a great film musical, but it isc ertainly a good, solidly entertaining one.

Also in the class are Jimmy Thompson, Elaine Stewart, Barry Jones, Eddie Quillan, Hugh Laing, Albert Sharpe, Virginia Bosier, Tudor Owen, Owen McGivney, Dee Turnell, Dodie Heath and Eddie Quillan.

It is written by Alan Jay Lerner, shot in widescreen by Joseph Ruttenberg, produced by Arthur Freed, scored by Johnny Green, choreographed by Gene Kelly, and designed by Cedric Gibbons and Preston Ames.

The original stage production opened on Broadway in 1947 and ran for 581 performances, starring David Brooks, Marion Bell and Pamela Britton.

Four of the stage show’s numbers (“Come to Me, Bend to Me”, “There But For You Go I”, “From This Day On”, and “The Sword Dance”) were cut. US censorship prevented the use of the two songs the Meg Brockie character sang in the stage version (“The Love of My Life” and “My Mother’s Wedding Day”), as the lyrics were considered too risqué. Complete footage of three deleted numbers is included on the DVD.

Scotland’s unreliable weather and the high production costs involved stopped Minnelli and Kelly’s wish to shoot the film on location, much to the delight of MGM President Dore Schary. Kelly said: ‘The weather was so bad that we had to agree with the studio. So we came back to the United States and started looking for locations here. We found some highlands above Monterey that looked like Scotland. But then the studio had an economy wave, and they clamped the lid on that idea.’

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4690

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