Brigadoon (film)

Brigadoon is a 1954 American Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical film made in CinemaScope and Metrocolor based on the 1947 Broadway musical of the same name by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. The film was directed by Vincente Minnelli and stars Gene Kelly, Van Johnson, and Cyd Charisse. "Brigadoon" has been broadcast on American television and is available in VHS, DVD and Blu Ray formats.
Plot.
Americans Tommy Albright (Gene Kelly) and Jeff Douglas (Van Johnson) are on a hunting trip in Scotland and become lost in the woodlands. They happen upon Brigadoon, a miraculously blessed village that rises out of the mists every hundred years for only a day. (This was done so that the village would never be changed or destroyed by the outside world.) Tommy falls in love with village lass Fiona Campbell (Cyd Charisse), whose younger sister Jean (Virginia Bosler), is about to be married to Charlie Dalrymple (Jimmy Thompson). When Tommy and Jeff happen upon clues about the village and its people that make no sense, Fiona takes them to see Mr. Lundie (Barry Jones), the village schoolmaster, who tells them the story of Brigadoon and the miracle. If any villager ever leaves Brigadoon, the spell will be broken and the village will vanish forever. Furthermore, Lundie tells them, any outsider who wishes to stay must love someone in the village strongly enough to accept the loss of everything he or she knew in the outside world. That evening, Mr. Lundie officiates at the wedding of Jean and Charlie, which Tommy and Fiona attend. Interrupting the wedding, the jealous Harry Beaton (Hugh Laing) announces he is leaving Brigadoon to make everything disappear, since the girl he loves, Jean, is marrying another man. Harry's words cause mass chaos among the townspeople and they all rush to stop him. Harry almost crosses the bridge but is stopped short by Tommy. They scuffle and Tommy is knocked unconscious. With men closing in on him, Harry climbs up a tree to hide but is accidentally gunned down by Jeff, who skipped the wedding to go hunting. Harry falls dead to the ground and is soon found by the men. Fiona frantically searches for and finds Tommy. Confessing their love for each other, they decide to marry, allowing Tommy to stay in Brigadoon for good. But while Fiona goes off to find Mr. Lundie, Tommy tells Jeff about his plan. Jeff, drunk and remorseful of accidentally killing Harry, tells Tommy he can't just leave everything in the real world behind for this girl he's only known a day. Fiona returns with Mr. Lundie, but Tommy confesses that he cannot stay. Fiona says she understands but is heartbroken and they say good-bye before Brigadoon completely disappears. Tommy and Jeff cross the bridge and walk away.
Back in New York City, Tommy can think only of Fiona. Unable even to talk with his fiancée, Tommy ends his relationship with her and calls Jeff, telling him to get the first flight back to Scotland. He and Jeff return to the same spot where they were lost, though Jeff reminds him again the village will not be there. But suddenly Tommy sees lights start to appear through the mist and runs toward them. Brigadoon reappears and Tommy gets to the foot of the bridge to see Mr. Lundie half-awake on the other side saying: "Tommy, lad, you! My, my, you must really love her. You woke me up." Tommy seems stunned that Brigadoon has been brought back, but Mr. Lundie reminds him: "I told ye, if you love someone deeply enough, anything is possible ... even miracles."
Tommy then runs across the bridge and reunites with Fiona as the village fades back into the mist.
Production.
Producer J. Arthur Rank acquired the rights of the official play in February 1951. According to the press, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer "paid a fortune" for the rights, and Gene Kelly and Kathryn Grayson were named in the leads a month later. By the time they were cast, a script was not written yet, although it was reported that Alan Jay Lerner was expected to start on the script a week later. Furthermore, Alec Guinness was also set for a role and David Wayne, Moira Shearer and Donald O'Connor were under consideration for one.
According to the film's director, Vincente Minnelli, O'Connor competed with Steve Allen and Bill Hayes for the role of 'Jeff'. Cyd Charisse replaced Grayson in March 1953. Elaine Stewart was cast in the fourth lead in November 1953, and it was reported that she was more enthusiastic about working with Minnelli than with Kelly.
Because of Kelly's commitments to other film projects, production was delayed for a while, and it did not begin until 1953. Initially, Minnelli and Kelly wanted to film on location in Scotland. Unfortunately, an unpredictable climate and higher location production costs (the latter not compatible with MGM President Dore Schary's thriftiness), forced them to change course. Kelly and producer Arthur Freed traveled to Scotland to confirm for themselves if the weather was too unreliable, and they agreed with the studio. In Kelly's biography it was stated that "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 [in Big Sur] that looked like Scotland. But then the studio had an economy wave, and they clamped the lid on that idea." Much to the disappointment of the cast and crew and the delight of Dore Schary, filming had to take place on the sound stages at MGM instead.
Dancer-actor James Mitchell had originated the part of Harry Beaton in the original 1947 Broadway production of "Brigadoon" and scored a great success. When the film began shooting in 1953, Mitchell was already under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and had just completed work on the Fred Astaire musical film "The Band Wagon" which was directed by Vincente Minnelli and co-starred Cyd Charisse. However, rather than have Mitchell reprise his stage role, the studio instead cast New York City Ballet dancer Hugh Laing as Harry Beaton. In December 1954, a few months after the release of "Brigadoon", Mitchell and Charisse made a cameo appearance dancing with each other to the song "One Alone" in the M-G-M Sigmund Romberg musical biography film "Deep in My Heart".
In addition, rather than being filmed in the expensive original three-strip Technicolor process with the 1.33:1 square-frame aspect ratio, the film was shot in single-strip Metrocolor and utilized CinemaScope, the newly patented 20th Century Fox 2.55:1 anamorphic widescreen process.
Musical numbers.
Four of the stage show's musical numbers ("Come to Me, Bend to Me", "There But For You Go I", "From This Day On", and "The Sword Dance") were cut prior to the film's release. The Breen office refused to allow 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 for general audiences. With the omission of these songs, the supporting role of Meg Brockie was reduced in the film to scarcely more than a bit part. The minor song "Jeannie's Packin' Up" was also omitted. Some of this was done because, after listening to Gene Kelly's pre-recordings of "There But For You Go I" and "From This Day On", the makers of the film felt that the results did not show his voice to its best advantage, but some was done because producer Arthur Freed wanted to shape the two-and-a-half hour stage musical into a film that ran 108 minutes.
Complete sound and picture footage of three of the deleted musical numbers has survived, and it is included in the latest DVD release of the film.
The 1954 original motion picture soundtrack was originally incomplete, but was re-released with deleted songs, alternative takes, and undubbed vocals.
Reception.
Bosley Crowther in "The New York Times" of September 17, 1954, described the film as "curiously flat and out-of-joint, rambling all over creation and seldom generating warmth or charm." Crowther admired the costumes, sets, and decor but deplored the omission of several musical numbers. He found fault with the film's two stars and its director: "the personable Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse have the lead dancing roles. Even so, their several individual numbers are done too slickly, too mechanistically. What should be wistful and lyric smack strongly of trickery and style ... Mr. Kelly's [performance] is as thin and metallic as a nail; Miss Charisse's is solemn and posey ... Vincente Minnelli's direction lacks his usual vitality and flow." He concluded by noting the film was "pretty weak synthetic Scotch." "Variety" posted a lukewarm review, calling the dance staging "not particularly arresting, although a few of the numbers will have a desired effect on the audience, and the vocals fail to give the tunes the tonal impact needed to put them over." "Harrison's Reports" wrote of the film: "It has much to recommend it from the viewpoint of the production values, and there are individual musical sequences that are nimble, gay, and cheery, but some of the other production numbers are long drawn out and tedious, and on the whole the picture's fantasy theme misses fire." John McCarten of "The New Yorker" wrote: "There are times in this version of 'Brigadoon' when one is seized by the wild hope that the exposition of the town's dilemma will be quickly boiled down to an essence, so that Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse can get on with their dancing. The problems of the community are always getting in the way though ... I rather regretted that they weren't able to cut loose with their musical paces more often." "The Monthly Film Bulletin" called the film "a sizeable disappointment. Overloaded with Hollywood-Scottish trappings, with tartans, bagpipes and a wedding celebration preceded by a miniature sort of gathering of the clans, the tenuous romantic fantasy is slackly developed ... and the whimsical dream-world it creates holds no compelling attractions."
Leonard Maltin in his reappraisal feels this adaptation was unfairly overlooked when it first appeared and particularly praises the "lovely" score, orchestrated mainly by Conrad Salinger, and the performance of Van Johnson as Jeff Douglas.
Box office.
According to MGM records the film earned $1,982,000 in the US and Canada and $1,293,000 and resulted in a loss of $1,555,000.
Awards and honors.
The film was nominated for three Academy Awards in 1955:
The film won a 1955 Golden Globe:
Also, the film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists: