Brigadoon

The New Yorkers Tommy Albright (Gene Kelly) and Jeff Douglas (Van Johnson) travel in a hunting trip to the highlands of Scotland. Tommy and Jeff are best friends and Tommy is taking a break from his engagement with his fiancée Jane Ashton (Elaine Stewart).

Tommy and Jeff get lost on the hills and out of the blue, they see a small town that is out of the map. When they arrive in town, Tommy meets the local Fiona Campbell (Cyd Charisse) and they learn that the place is called Brigadoon. Further, it is the wedding day of her younger sister and they are invited to stay to the party. Meanwhile Tommy and Fiona fall in love with each other.

Later Tommy and the skeptical Jeff discover that a local preacher had prayed to God on the Eighteenth Century asking for a miracle to protect Brigadoon from witches that lived in Scotland. From that day on, when the locals go to sleep in the night, they wake up 100 years later. However, if a dweller leaves Brigadoon, the town and the citizens would all disappear forever. But an outsider could stay forever in Brigadoon provided he or she loves someone in the enchanted town.

"Brigadoon" is a fairy tale that combines "Lost Horizon" with "The Sleeping Beauty". The plot is silly and the songs are dated, but the romantic story and Cyd Charisse are delightful and the final message ("when you love someone, everything is possible, even a miracle") is very beautiful. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Lenda dos Beijos Perdidos" ("The Legend of the Lost Kisses")

And that is exactly the story BRIGADOON tries to tell. Two urbanites from New York, Tommy (Gene Kelly) and Jeff (Van Johnson), are grouse-hunting in Scotland--yes, they've come all the way to Scotland to shoot grouse, if you can believe that to begin with!--when they happen upon the tiny magical little Scottish village of Brigadoon, a (very literal) throwback to the mid-18th century in customs, livelihood and people. The Campbells are holding a wedding for their daughter Jean, whose sister Fiona (Cyd Charisse) is the first person who doesn't treat the strangers like... well, strangers. It doesn't take long, just a walk through 'The Heather On The Hill', for Tommy and Fiona to fall deeply in love. The only problem is that Brigadoon, thanks (or not) to their eager chaplain Mr. Forsythe, surfaces once every hundred years--it's been two hundred since Mr. Forsythe made his 'contract with God', and only two days have passed for the villagefolk in that same year in 1754. The question becomes one of love, of whether one is able to give up everything for a miracle: just as Mr. Forsythe has to give up his beloved Brigadoon to bring it its miracle, Tommy and Fiona, because 'if you love someone deeply enough, anything is possible', get their miracle as well.

There is certainly charm aplenty in BRIGADOON: the morning fair 'Down On MacConnachy Square' is lively and bustling; the beautiful dance between Kelly and Charisse as they gather 'The Heather On The Hill' is tender and beautiful, with more balletic romance than any choreography of Kelly's to date; even the forward girl who tries to turn Jeff's head (only to disappear from the movie thereafter) is cute in her way and her fervent belief that she might actually have a romance like that of her parents. BRIGADOON most certainly sets out to charm--even the general dodginess of the Scottish accents does not really detract from the rest of the film.

However, there is an element of uneasiness in BRIGADOON, perhaps conscious, perhaps not, that somewhat undermines its message. It wants us to believe that it really is the humanity, the *kind* of humanity that one gets in Brigadoon and in New York that makes one place preferable to the other. This is quite unsubtly displayed in the merry dreaminess that surrounds Brigadoon, in contrast with the almost *too* loud chattering that goes on in the New York bar teeming with humanity. Yet one is never quite sure whether Brigadoon is really the utopia it appears to be: this is underscored by the fact that (despite Kelly's pleas for on-location filming in Scotland) the scenery is obviously constructed on a set. It's still eerily beautiful in a fake way, and this is the trouble with the village portrayed in the film. Everything *seems* perfect, idyllic--happy and charming and easy and light. But then you learn the real history of the village, and the aura surrounding it doesn't look so much as magic but as *black* magic. Mr. Forsythe sounds more like an authoritarian dictator obsessed with his Brigadoon than a benign sweet old chaplain, and when Harry Beaton (Hugh Laing) tries to make a break for it, the hunt for him and the subsequent covering up of his death has such sinister undertones that one really starts to feel uncomfortable about what the people have become in the two short days (for them) that they have known about their village's uniqueness.

Of course, the film itself actually states this uneasiness that the audience will feel, not merely suggests it. This is evident in how Tommy performs a gentle reprise of his courtship dance with Fiona and rushes off, full of glee and love, to tell Jeff that he is staying in Brigadoon... only to be persuaded by a few curt sentences from Jeff that he should really give up the love of his lifetime to return to reality, to return to New York. Jeff plays the cynical, hard-headed pragmatist in all of us, and is then immediately depicted as a drunkard who spends all his days lounging in a bar, broken by his own inability to have faith in a 'miracle'. It's fitting for this film full of contradictions that the person who saved Brigadoon was the one who refused to believe it, and that the people of Brigadoon were saved by the death of one of its number.

Perhaps this is far too much analysis than BRIGADOON can bear. If one doesn't poke beyond its shiny, lavish MGM surface (and there really is no need to), then it is merely a star vehicle for Kelly, not a particularly good one, but one that is moderately entertaining and does allow him to showcase his talents (though again, not too effectively). The best number is probably the most famous song in it, 'Almost Like Being In Love', sung by a heart-light and foot-merry Kelly as he dances through a Scottish farm. The runner-up would be the beautiful 'Heather On The Hill' couples ballet--Kelly's ballet training really comes to the fore in BRIGADOON, his other films having been more influenced by tap dancing.

All in all, a charming package with a sinister underside, if one can believe that this shadowy underside to BRIGADOON--both village and film--could exist. 7/10.

The story is one that is very fanciful and enjoyable. Two incongruous friends, Tommy and Jeff (Gene Kelly and Van Johnson) are hunting in Scotland when they come upon a town not on any map. Brigadoon is a lovely village but it soon becomes obvious it's a town out of time. Actually, it's a magical town that is stuck in the 18th century and it appears and then disappears every 100 years--which is a serious problem as Tommy has fallen in love with one of the residents (Cyd Charisse).

I liked this film quite a bit, though it did have two flaws. The sound stage was too often an obvious sound stage--with obviously painted mountains as a backdrop. Also, I think it might have benefited if they'd made Jeff less of a completely cynical jerk. It was odd seeing a nice-guy actor like Van Johnson playing a nasty little alcoholic and they part could have been better without the crabby aspects of the character. However, the music is lovely, the story sweet and there is still a lot to admire in this film.

I happened to watch the 1966 made for TV version of "Brigadoon" a week ago--and I enjoyed it enough that I sought out the original theatrical version from 1954. Both, naturally, are very similar though there are a few differences. First, because Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse were in this Hollywood production, naturally there would be more dancing than singing. Second, oddly, the story of how Brigadoon came to be was changed for the 1954 version. I have no idea why. And, finally, the 1954 version was made to look like a typical Hollywood production that was, as I mentioned above, made in a sound stage--and the 1966 version had a few actual outdoor scenes and much of the rest looked like it was on a theater stage. Both are very watchable, though I prefer the 1954 film. If you would like to see the 1966 version (starring Robert Goulet), it is available to watch free at archive.org.

I think this movie is one of the better musicals to come out of the '50s. Gene Kelley and Van Johnson make such a great team, it's a shame they didn't do more movies together. Johnson's timing and sarcastic remarks are truly funny. Cyd Charrise is also enjoyable in her Scottish role. This movie is very enjoyable for the whole family.

This Vincent Minelli musical is usually considered a flop, which is unfair. Gene Kelly wanted to shoot it on site in Scotland (where Brigadoon is set), but it was vetoed as too expensive. So Minelli had to create a magical, 18th Century Scottish village on a studio set. He also was using cinema scope for the first time, and felt it lacked the compositional unity and beauty of the regular film he had been using. It is apparent it's a set, but the story and music is so superior (despite the lack of two songs, including my favorite - "My Mother's Wedding Day") that one can actually forget the artificiality of the set. Moreover, the actual issue of artificial sets seems ridiculous when considering the story. If the set was actually realistic, the film would have had to be shot in one day, because the set would have vanished for a century at the end of the day (as the village does in the story)!! Except for one five minute sequence at the end of the film, set in a noisy New York City nightspot, most of the film is set in the Scottish highlands. Tommy (Gene Kelly) and Jeff (Van Johnson) are vacationing in Scotland, when they stumble into a village that is not on their maps. The village is Brigadoon. It is later explained by the village elder, Mr Lundie (Barry Johns) that the village was granted a special wish of it's very religious minister to preserve it forever by having it only reappear once a century, so the people in it would never be hurt. There is, however, another side to the deal: the citizens have to remain (as well as their livestock) within the boundaries of the town by sundown, because they go to bed early, and awake one hundred years later the next day. If any decides to leave the town's boundaries, that person will cause the wish and blessing to dissipate, and the town will be destroyed and it's citizens destroyed. BRIGADOON is a very colorful and tuneful show, and a nice blend of humor and tragedy. It also asks what people require for happiness: simplicity or sophisticated modern life. Jeff would opt for the latter (and he does quite strenuously up to the conclusion of the movie), but he is a confirmed alcoholic - some advertisement for modern civilization and it's benefits! Tommy is more inquisitive and easier - and he finds he is not so happy with modern life. But the search for happiness is not an easy one, and it takes a tragedy and much soul searching for Tommy to reach his conclusion. And there is the music, especially Learner and Lowe's "The Heather On the Hill" (attractively sung and danced by Kelly and Charisse), and "It's Almost Like Being In Love." A failure by Minelli? Well it's not MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, or GIGI, or THE PIRATE but it is far better than many other musicals.