Movies - Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

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	Movies - Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is a musical film released in 1954. It was directed by Stanley Donen, with music by Saul Chaplin and Gene de Paul, and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. The script (by Albert Hackett, Frances Goodrich, and Dorothy Kingsley) is based on the short story The Sobbin' Women, by Stephen Vincent Benet.

The film is particularly known for the unusual choreography by Michael Kidd, which makes dance numbers out of such mundane frontier pursuits as chopping wood and (most famously) raising a barn. Four of the actors who played the younger brothers were dancers, while another of the younger brothers was played by a champion gymnast and the remaining younger brother was played by a former professional baseball player.

Howard Keel appeared as "Adam", Jeff Richards as "Benjamin", Matt Mattox as "Caleb", Marc Platt as "Daniel", Jacques d'Amboise as "Ephraim", Tommy Rall as "Frank", and Russ Tamblyn as "Gideon". (Morton Downey Jr. almost had Russ Tamblyn's part as "Gideon" in this musical.)

All of the brides were played by dancers. Jane Powell appeared as "Milly", Julie Newmar as "Dorcas", Ruta Lee as "Ruth", Norma Doggett as "Martha", Virginia Gibson as "Liza", Betty Carr as "Sarah", and Nancy Kilgas as "Alice".

Plot summary

The film's story is about a backwoodsman named Adam and his new bride Milly, who marries him after knowing him for only a few hours. On returning with him to his cabin in the mountains, Milly is surprised to learn that Adam is one of seven brothers living in the same cabin. The brothers have been named alphabetically with names from the Bible: Adam, Benjamin, Caleb, Daniel, Ephraim, Frank (short for Frankincense, the Bible having no names beginning with F) and Gideon.

Milly teaches Adam's younger brothers manners and social mores, including how to dance. They are able to test their new manners at a barn-raising, where they meet six girls they like -- Dorcas, Ruth, Martha, Liza, Sarah and Alice -- and, fortunately, the girls like the brothers too. However, the girls already have suitors who jealously taunt the brothers into fighting during the barn-raising, and, although the brothers did not start the fight, they are banished from the town by the townspeople because of it.

Winter arrives, and the six younger brothers mope for their girls. Adam inspires his brothers to kidnap the girls of their choice (so the boys can marry the girls), following which the brothers cause an avalanche so that they can't be followed by the townspeople. The girls are upset at being kidnapped, and Milly is furious. She consigns the brothers to the barn while the girls are living in the house. Adam, who is also furious, leaves for the family's cabin to live out the winter by himself.

Months pass, and eventually it is spring. The girls have now fallen in love with the brothers, who are now allowed to court the girls. Milly gives birth to a daughter, Hannah (picking up the Biblical-alphabetical pattern). Gideon rides to the cabin to inform Adam about his daughter's arrival and asks Adam to come home, but Adam refuses to do so, saying that he would return home when the pass was open once more to traffic.

Adam, who has had time to think about his baby daughter, returns home. As a newly responsible father, he has become aware of how worried the townspeople would be about what has happened to the girls. Adam intends that the girls be taken back to their homes in the town by his brothers, but his brothers don't want to do so. The girls don't want to return to their homes, either - they all want to stay at the farm with their boyfriends. When Milly discovers that the girls are not in the house, she mentions this to Adam, and he tells his brothers to go after the girls and bring them back. Meanwhile, the townspeople arrive, with the intention of taking vengeance against the brothers for the kidnappings. Then Alice's father, who is a Preacher, hears a baby cry in the distance, and worries that the baby might belong to one of the girls. When he asks the girls whose baby it is, they all decide, simultaneously, to claim the baby as their own, with this misinformation giving the girls and the brothers their greatest wish - the townspeople insisting that all six couples marry immediately in a shotgun wedding.

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