Slideshow
SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS
U.S., 1954
Directed by Stanley Donen
Starring Jane Powell, Howard Keel, Russ Tamblyn, Tommy Rall
Screenplay by Albert Hackett, Frances Goodrich, Dorothy Kingsley
Approx. 102 min. 35mm.
When one brother ties the knot, his six other brothers decide they want to get married too… now just about finding those wives. Set in Oregon in the 1850s, Howard Keel and Jane Powell star in Stanley Donen’s extravagant musical, featuring show-stopping dance numbers choreographed by Michael Kidd. Nominated for 5 Oscars, including Best Picture, winning just one for Best Music. “In many shots in SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS, [director Donen] includes seven figures within the same frame, while in a few scenes in which the brothers and their romantic partners commingle as many as fourteen characters vie for the viewer’s attention. Reveling in the fundamental democracy of group shots in CinemaScope, Michael Kidd’s full-to-the-brim choreography for a muscular, acrobatic barn-raising dance is a movie-musical set piece second to none. Despite the unsavory and politically incorrect aspects of its problematic story—based on the old Roman tale of the rape of the Sabine women—about the abduction of a group of young maidens by raucous young men, SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS is an early wide-screen triumph.” – Foster Hirsch
Reviews
“Includes some of the most thrillingly energetic dances ever put on film!”
– CommonSenseMedia.org
“A happy, hand-clapping, foot-stomping country type of musical with all the slickness of a Broadway show.”
– Variety