Underplayed Gems

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers poster
Directed by
Stanley Donen
Genre
musical film, romantic comedy
Country
United States
Runtime
1h 44m
Rated
G
Rating
7.1 of 10 from 574 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

In 1850 Oregon, a backwoodsman marries a woman from town and brings her to his remote cabin, where she meets his six rowdy brothers. She decides to civilize the brothers so they can win brides of their own, leading to a series of comedic and musical adventures.

livelywhimsicalfeel-goodenergeticplayfulromanticfolksylighthearted

What happens

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is a 1954 American musical film, directed by Stanley Donen, with music by Gene de Paul, lyrics by Johnny Mercer, and choreography by Michael Kidd. The screenplay, by Albert Hackett, Frances Goodrich, and Dorothy Kingsley, is based on the short story "The Sobbin' Women" by Stephen Vincent Benét, which was based in turn on the ancient Roman legend of the Rape of the Sabine women. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, which is set in Oregon in 1850, is famous for Kidd's unusual choreography, which makes dance numbers out of such mundane frontier pursuits as chopping wood and barn raising. Film critic Stephanie Zacharek has called the barn-raising sequence in Seven Brides "one of the most rousing dance numbers ever put on screen." The film was photographed in Ansco Color in the CinemaScope format. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers won the Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture and was nominated for four additional awards, including Best Picture. In 2006, American Film Institute named Seven Brides for Seven Brothers as one of the best American musical films ever made. In late 2004, the same year Howard Keel died, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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