Brigadoon

Rating:
Summary: A Musical That Grows On You!
Review: If you would of asked me three years ago what I thought of the musical "Brigadoon", I would of said YUCK! I am a big fan of musicals, but I am not the wild about period pieces (ie..."Yolanda And The Thief" and "The Pirate). However, my stepfather was watching "Brigadoon" one day, and the movie transformed my views about it.

With songs written by Lerner and Lowe, it is definitely one of their most catchy scores. The cinematography is breathtaking, and it one of MGM's most colorful musicals. (Directed by Vincente Minnelli, it is reported that he supervised everything, down to the flower arrangements). The icing on the cake is the cast. I think this was the best pairing of Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse, and with choreography by Kelly himself, the dance numbers are breathtaking as well. Van Johnson rounds out the cast as Gene's wisecracking best friend. He doesn't have much of a musical background, but he's one of my favorite things about the movie.

Take a chance and watch "Brigadoon". It will transform you to another world...

Rating:
Summary: A Musical That Grows On You!
Review: If you would of asked me three years ago what I thought of the musical "Brigadoon", I would of said YUCK! I am a big fan of musicals, but I am not the wild about period pieces (ie..."Yolanda And The Thief" and "The Pirate). However, my stepfather was watching "Brigadoon" one day, and the movie transformed my views about it.

With songs written by Lerner and Lowe, it is definitely one of their most catchy scores. The cinematography is breathtaking, and it one of MGM's most colorful musicals. (Directed by Vincente Minnelli, it is reported that he supervised everything, down to the flower arrangements). The icing on the cake is the cast. I think this was the best pairing of Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse, and with choreography by Kelly himself, the dance numbers are breathtaking as well. Van Johnson rounds out the cast as Gene's wisecracking best friend. He doesn't have much of a musical background, but he's one of my favorite things about the movie.

Take a chance and watch "Brigadoon". It will transform you to another world...

Rating:
Summary: Brigadoon in widescreen format is a must-have.
Review: If you're a true movie "purist", you owe it to yourself to own the widescreen version of ANY of the great musicals. The beauty and choreography of Brigadoon is only half as effective in any less a format. I enjoy watching this movie so much because it is very apparent that they had an absolutely joyous time making this film.

Rating:
Summary: Scottish Fantasy with Singin' and Dancin'
Review: It must be said that "Brigadoon" falls short of the classic Hollywood musicals. This is no "Singing in the Rain," "On the Town," "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" or "My Fair Lady." Several disappointing choices and compromises were made when adapting the play to the screen, and the film suffers for it. The original idea to film on location with a Scottish cast would have lent a needed air of authenticity to this Hollywood fairy tale. Having seen the musical performed live, I sorely miss the Sword Dance.

With that out of the way, I really enjoy "Brigadoon." Gene Kelly and Van Johnson are great together, with Van Johnson providing the most memorable moments. His sharp wit is on display, and his cynicisms is refreshing amongst Gene Kelly and Cyd Charis's wide-eyed instant love. (Gene and Cyd are great as well, they just are allowed less character development time.)

Not all of the songs are memorable, but some are outstanding. I love "Go Home to Bonnie Jean" and "Waiting for my Dearie." "The Wedding Dance" segment is great cinema, with the clans gathering by torchlight for the Wedding, along with some traditional Scottish dancing.

It is definitely a musical that grows on you over time. I enjoy it much more now than the first time I watched it. I am pleased to own it.

Rating:
Summary: Scottish Fantasy with Singin' and Dancin'
Review: It must be said that "Brigadoon" falls short of the classic Hollywood musicals. This is no "Singing in the Rain," "On the Town," "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" or "My Fair Lady." Several disappointing choices and compromises were made when adapting the play to the screen, and the film suffers for it. The original idea to film on location with a Scottish cast would have lent a needed air of authenticity to this Hollywood fairy tale. Having seen the musical performed live, I sorely miss the Sword Dance.

With that out of the way, I really enjoy "Brigadoon." Gene Kelly and Van Johnson are great together, with Van Johnson providing the most memorable moments. His sharp wit is on display, and his cynicisms is refreshing amongst Gene Kelly and Cyd Charis's wide-eyed instant love. (Gene and Cyd are great as well, they just are allowed less character development time.)

Not all of the songs are memorable, but some are outstanding. I love "Go Home to Bonnie Jean" and "Waiting for my Dearie." "The Wedding Dance" segment is great cinema, with the clans gathering by torchlight for the Wedding, along with some traditional Scottish dancing.

It is definitely a musical that grows on you over time. I enjoy it much more now than the first time I watched it. I am pleased to own it.

Rating:
Summary: Okay, but...
Review: It's not that I didn't enjoy Brigadoon, it's just that I was very familiar with the play before I saw the movie. The whole time I kept waiting for some of my favorite songs (listen to a recording of "Come to Me, Bend to Me." It's incredible.) But, alas, most of the songs never came. The others that were cut were "The Love of My Life," "Jeannie's Packin'Up," "The Sword Dance and Reel," the last half of "The Chase," "There But for You Go I," "My Mother's Wedding Day," Harry Beaton's funeral scene, and "From This Day On." So you can see how much was missing and how dissapointed I was. I was for the most part pleased with the faithful rendition of the script and what songs they actually did put in, but what was up with the two leads and the part where Tommy leaves Brigadoon? In the play this was extremely emotional. In the movie, Gene Kelly is walking away with a dopey smile on his face. If you want to actually enjoy the movie, see it before the play. That way you won't be constantly comparing the two, which are unfortunately musically different.

Rating:
Summary: Scotland the Bland
Review: MGM expected BRIGADOON to be their box-office musical smash of 1954--and for good reason: the film was based on an early play by Broadway's Learner and Lowe and includes some captivating music in a winsome tale of two 20th Century hunters who stumble into a Scottish village that magically appears for one day once every hundred years. But MGM hadn't reckoned that film audiences would respond to the movie precisely as Broadway audiences had several years earlier: they stayed away.

BRIGADOON is not a bad film. It is well-crafted in true MGM fashion. The score, which includes such favorites as "Almost Like Being In Love," is quite fine. The cast--which includes Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse, and Van Johnson--is superior, the musical numbers are enjoyably staged, and although not one of his finest efforts the film bears the imprint of director Vincent Minnelli's famous touch. On the other hand, BRIGADOON is not a particularly enjoyable , exciting, or memorable film and the fanciful story is so sweetly presented that it quickly becomes off-putting. While individual songs in the score are brilliant, when heard collectively they have a sameness of tone that creates a repetitive feel. Most musical fans will enjoy seeing the film once--after all, Kelly and Charisse are a handsome pair and they dance extremely well together. But only those who like their musicals bland, extra-sweet, and with sugar on the side will care for a second helping.

Rating:
Summary: awesome
Review: My Life, and a great song called Come to Me Bend to Me. Almost Like Being In Love is in the Campbell house, and Waitin' for My Deary isn't. Tommy and Jeff aren't in Bonnie Jean and there's more to Meg Brockie than what they have in the movie. And the Campbell family is actually the McLaren family. There's a sword dance before the reel and Tommy and Fiona don't do as much dancing as they did.
But enough of the differences between stage and movie. It is an awesome movie, full or great, catchy songs and great dancing. My friends and I who were in it always got Bonnie Jean stuck in everybody'shead and who couldn't like Gene Kelly singing "Almost Like Being in Love"? If you just watch the movie and not the play, then it is awesome. It shows true love is out there, you just don't know where you'll find it. And that "the hardest part in life is giving up everything, but that's the only way you'll get everything."

Rating:
Summary: A Supurb Adaptation Of An Original German Fable
Review: Originally, Brigadoon was a german short story called "Germelshausen". Frederick Loewe (Fritz to his friends) told Alan Lerner the story of a young artist, Arnold, who was sketching woodland scenes, when he meets a pretty girl, Gertrud, is struck by her beauty and curiously antiqued dress, and sketches her. She invites him to dine at home in the village of Gremelshausen, where she lives with her father (the local mayor), her step mother, and siblings. She has been waiting for her sweetheart but is resigned to the fact that he will not come. During the meal there is singing and dancing by the family membery, all interrupted by the sight on the street outside of a somber funeral procession.

After lunch, Arnold and Gertrud stroll through the village with its ancient buildings and strangley dressed residents. They finally arrive at a cemetery, where the girl begins to weep at the grave of her mother. When Arnold notices that the death date on the stone reads 1224, he questions Gerturd, who is evasive about this anomaly.

Attracted to each other, the couple return to her house to change clothing for a festive dance to be held that evening at the inn. Though a stranger, Arnold is welcomed by all the young people. One man, sensing that Arnold might want to remain in the village, mentions cryptically that the intervals pass fast enough, a point of curiosity to the visitor.

There is much dancing and merriment, broken each time the town bell tolls the hour. At eleven, Arnold begins to think longingly of his faraway mother and raises a glass to toast her. When Gertrud see this, she realizes how much he misses his mother and escorts the young man out of the inn, back to her home, where she hands him his traveling bag, and brings him to a nearby hilltop. She tells him to wait until the church bell strikes midnight and then come to the back door of the inn, where she will be waiting to leave the village with him. She runs off toward the village and disappears in a dense for that has suddenly risen.

As the bell tolls midnight, all sounds and lights from Gremelshausen vaporize. Arnold walks to its former site but can find no trace of the village. He searches until the first light of dawn but to no avail. An older hunter appears and informs Arnold, who asks of Gremelshausen, that according to legend such a village once stood centuries ago in that nearby swamp, but was cursed and sank beneath the earth, supposedly to reappear just one day every hundred years. Arnold slowly leaves, carrying his traveling sack with the sketch of Gertrud.

This poignant fable of fantasy and lost love fascinated Lerner, who promptly embraced it as the inspiration for his next show. With WWII having just ended, the locale was shifted from Germany to Scotland, Home of Sir James M. Barrie, a favorite writer of Alan's. The new show was dubbed Brigadoon.

Rating:
Summary: a great escape...
Review: Overall, a great escape. Get lost in the highlands of Scotland with Gene Kelly and Van Johnson. My favorite scene is back in New York in their regular haunt where Van Johnson is trying to retain space for himself at the crowded bar by placing full drinks and lit cigarettes in the ashtrays to either side of him. Someone mentions the weather while jostling him and Van replies, "It's not the heat, it's the humanity!"