atlasmb Many musicals take place in exotic locales, but few as exotic as Brigadoon--a quaint village frozen in time, unknown to the outside world. A good place to set a fantastic story about love and its power.Brigadoon has not always been a favorite of mine. But on further watching, I have come to enjoy this dream-like tale about a man, a woman, and a village.First of all, there are the sets--with the hillsides of heather so fanatically tended by Vincente Minelli's crew--and the set design itself. Add to that the costuming, the Lerner & Loewe songs, great orchestration, and the balletic beauty of Cyd Charisse partnered by Gene Kelly.I don't think this film should be dismissed due to its fantastical premise (that a town like Brigadoon exists). Otherwise, we must dismiss Peter Pan, Groundhog Day, Carousel, Heaven Can Wait, Camelot, and any number of other films which ask us to suspend disbelief in the name of love or beauty. Such films fan the fires of the imagination and use their premises to isolate issues or concepts, like the power of love. Or the importance of living each day like it's your last. Or preserving the childlike part of your personality.This is a beautifully rendered film and it reaches out to all the true romantics and asks what would you give up for a quiet, simpler life and a pure, passionate love?

Seattle10 Well, I watched this about 6 years ago, then again last week, and I must say how everyone's reviews here, influenced me to alter my opinions...The premises is fantastic: a sincere man (Kelly), and a goof of a friend, go to Scotland on a trip. They discover Brigadoon, etc., we all know the story. Finding one's dreams, dance, and a good city or environment, are all great truths to explore in film.First and foremost, without any question ever, the sets look terrible. No matter what rationale, this film, more than most, should have been filmed either on location- perhaps in the summer- or somewhere similar, such as Seattle, which has topography and forests, like Scotland.That being said, though, the costumes, for which an Oscar was nominated, are enough for anyone to enjoy the entire movie. The dance numbers here, are quite good. And the color and cinematography, are excellent. Cyd Charisse seems entirely disinterested in this role, and shows this in a few ways, such as lack of eye contact.I gather from other people, that the accents here, are very bad. I now have to conclude, that this is correct, yet should not affect your appreciation of this film.Van Johnson, of course, is silly. And Gene Kelly has done better.But the mystical, yet real, values, portrayed here, make this a fine work. It needs a lot of improvement, and to be re-made soon, obviously.

Steffi_P The fairy tale has never gone out of fashion. In an era looked back on as one in which Hollywood was maturing and story lines were becoming more serious, the Arthur Freed unit at MGM could still see its way to producing a work of such dreamy make-believe as Brigadoon. Brigadoon is far more than a syrupy love story, and even goes beyond the light fantasy elements of It's a Wonderful Life. With its story of a "blessed" village that only appears once ever hundred years, it is more in the line of an old world folk tale, and as such it's bound to come across as slightly silly when realised in a modern medium acted out by real people. In anticipation of this writer Alan Jay Lerner created the character of Jeff Douglas, a world-weary cynic who could pre-empt any audience objections in the form of comic relief. And yet even a shameless sentimentalist like me has enough of a mischievous streak to find herself wondering how the inhabitants of Brigadoon will react when they wake up in 2054 to find Scotland has been covered in tarmac or flooded by global warming.So what is there to defend the credibility of Brigadoon? Well, for a start the music happens to be rather good. The original stage production was the one of the first collaborations between celebrated duo Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. As he often did, Loewe shows his ability to take up the musical style of another culture and come up with some authentic-sounding yet catchy tunes. Here he takes Celtic folk music as his basis, but with a little hint of Broadway brass in the arrangements, yet never enough to sound discordant or inappropriate. Lerner shows touches of the wit that would later become his trademark, for example rhyming "knows'll" with "proposal" mid-line in "Waiting for My Dearie". The music is not quite geared as much to emphasise his lyrics as would be their later and better-known scores, which is a shame, and yet it doesn't matter much as it still contains many of Loewe's most beautiful musical moments.Then there is the direction of Vincente Minnelli, shooting his first picture in cinemascope. He shows no awkwardness with new aspect ratio, probably because he was always adept at balancing lots elements on the screen. His staging of musical numbers is incredibly sensitive as always, using bits of background business to match the subtleties of the orchestral arrangements. In the first chorus of "Waiting for My Dearie" Cyd Charisse is relatively still, but there is just a little bit of movement from another lass glimpsed through a doorway, which is not enough to distract attention from Charisse but just enough to give the song some life visually. It's an effective cross between realistic activity and dancing. You can see examples of it in every number, from the massive complexity of "Down on MacConnachy Square", where hundreds of actions are all part of one meticulously arranged dance, to the simplicity of "The Heather on the Hill" where the only extra movement is the occasional twitching of branches in the breeze.As the Freed unit's hottest young male lead, it was more or less inevitable that Gene Kelly would get cast in the lead role for Brigadoon. However this picture makes far less use of his dancing skills than do the more worldly musicals he was used to starring in. Still, he was always a decent actor and competent singer, and his breezy personality seems apt for the desperate romanticism of Brigadoon's story. As his grouchy sidekick Van Johnson seems to have found a niche in the sort of role that usually went to Oscar Levant, and he's in fact so likable despite his cynicism it's a shame his character's arc doesn't really get finished off. While not a great actress Cyd Charisse brings a balletic gracefulness to the role of the leading lady, and she certainly does a better job of being Scottish than she does of being Russian in Silk Stockings. And though many in the supporting cast vie for the title of Worst Scots Accent, there is a clear winner in Jimmy Thompson. Thompson had been a bit player in a couple of previous MGM musicals, and it's a mystery why we have to endure him bumbling his way through a major role here. Still, given that the whole picture is steeped in such an atmosphere of cheery innocence, it's perhaps better that the acting performances don't get too earnest.Perhaps the most phoney thing of all about Brigadoon is its scenery. Shot on sound stages, complete with painted backdrops of mountains and gloomy skies, billows of piped mist and the occasional goat wondering where it can get some fresh air, this is Scotland as you see it on a souvenir shortbread tin. But this is again something that works in the movie's favour. If the story is like something out of those early Disney features, then perhaps so too should be its presentation. In an animated picture the artists have complete control over every element on the screen, and it's almost the same for Minnelli and Freed with this artificial outdoor landscape and those worthy but stilted acting performances, making everything more like paints on a palette than players on a stage. It somehow makes the plot more acceptable because the world it takes place in is never allowed to become too real in the first place. It is ultimately the utter and obvious fakery of Brigadoon that bridges the gap between its cinematic realisation and its fairytale roots.

funkyfry Superficically, "Brigadoon" is a very promising entertainment package. Gene Kelly and Vincente Minnelli, the team behind "An American in Paris", are reunited with a lot of the great craftsmen and women behind their previous collaborations. Gene's leading lady is Cyd Charisse, one of the best dancers of 40s/50s cinema, and unlike the generally superior "It's Always Fair Weather" this film gave them the chance for not only one but two dances. Lerner and Loewe were the rising team behind such future hits as "My Fair Lady" and Minnelli's musical masterpiece "Gigi"; Lerner and Minnelli had already demonstrated their sanguine collaborative juices on the excellent "American in Paris."What happened along the way? Why is the movie itself such a stupid bore? Minnelli himself didn't want to do the movie, despite his previous warm artistic and personal relationship with Lerner. Maybe it was because the movie's innate conservatism was just a bit too much of two steps forward for MGM and one step backward for Vincente Minnelli. But once trapped in this assignment like the denizens of Brigadoon are trapped within its city limits, Minnelli strove to turn it into something that would be entertaining in a specifically distracting, if not liberating way. The ultimate result is truly horrific to behold.While aiming for the naive charm of previous Minnelli hits like "Cabin in the Sky" and "Meet Me in St. Louis", the plaid-tights wearing inhabitants of Brigadoon can conjure up none of the illusive nostalgia of those never-have-been locales. Its whimsy doesn't even match up to the glossy luster of "Yolanda and the Thief" or "The Pirate" because the highlands settings seem at the same time too specific for such an exotic fantasy and too generic for real human emotions. The only people in Brigadoon who I at least can relate to are the malcontented man who tries to escape and the unfortunate fellow-traveler played by Van Johnson who accidentally shoots him. The general proceedings in the township of Brigadoon itself are too arcane and provincial even to be attributed to a backwards form of Christianity: they seem positively pagan in their aspect. For example, in exchange for Brigadoon's immortality, the honorable and most generally "good" pastor of the town has sacrificed his own place in the supposedly blessed refuge.At one point we're assured that "everybody's looking for their own Brigadoon." Suffice it to say the box office for this picture confirms my own suspicion that most of us aren't looking for this kind of quasi-queasy paradise. The premise itself is ridiculous and almost insultingly patronizing, but could work if the players were perfect. But Kelly himself is the most patronizing thing about the movie, and Charisse is horribly miscast as a virginal optimist in much the same way as Lucille Bremer was miscast in "Yolanda and the Thief." Van Johnson does his best version of the classic Oscar Levant sidekick to Kelly (even lighting 3 cigarettes at one point like Levant in "AIP"), and he provides a lot of amusing moments. But it says something in itself if the best part of a big budget extravaganza with all the best talents of MGM is a tossed-off Van Johnson performance.