buzz_swanson

For years I was not interested in this movie because I considered the score ordinary and unmemorable. Where is the great hit? And for me the music of a musical is EVERYTHING. If I don't care for the music, I won't bother with it no matter how good the story might be or how captivating the stars might be.

From listening to the scores of many musicals, I've long since learned that some great songs just jump out at you from the beginning, while other songs are more subtle and need to grow on you. Some of the movie scores and Broadway songs that I now find the most enchanting are those I prematurely dismissed after their first, second, or third hearing. Such is the case with "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers."

Upon learning that this was President Eisenhower's favorite movie, I gave this film a second chance, and there are three songs I have come to adore - the tuneful and exuberant "Spring, Spring, Spring," the charming and wistful "June Bride," and the gorgeous and moving "Wonderful Day."

As for the movie as a whole, the dancing is brilliant, and the story holds your interest throughout. Both Howard Keel and Jane Powell have beautiful voices. And you just have to see the clever ending. The way the scriptwriter resolves the conflict over rights to the nubile girls is perfect.

I only wish that MGM hadn't trimmed the budget in deference to "Brigadoon," which was filmed around the same time. The producers had to find savings somewhere, and they unfortunately chose to give short shrift to the scenery. This movie could have been even more beautiful had it been filmed out of doors on location and minus the fake background mountains.

But it is chiefly the music that will bring me back for more and more viewings.

"Summer Holiday" is a summer treat that has become an annual ritual at our house. I never fail to slip the video tape into the VCR as May morphs into June and the last days of school are rolling into summer vacation.

Mickey Rooney is exuberant as Richard, and Gloria DeHaven is cute and charming as his timorous girlfriend Muriel. Walter Huston is at his reassuring best as Richard's wise and rock-steady father, while Frank Morgan plays the likable, avuncular family drunk who can never quite overcome his dependence on the bottle.

The scenery is gorgeous, particularly in the opening scene as protagonists Richard and Muriel sing "Afraid to Fall in Love" to one other then go dancing off into a summery green field together - and also in the celebratory Fourth of July number "Independence Day," shot at the lush Busch Gardens in Pasadena.

My one complaint is that the extended barroom scene in which Richard is lured into a night of drunkenness by the temptress bar-girl (Marilyn Maxwell) doesn't seen to match the wholesome tone of the rest of the movie.

But it is the Harry Warren/Ralph Bane music that compels me to return for more and more re-viewings. (I must have watched this movie over twenty times since I first spotted it - then taped it - on TNT in the late eighties.) Honestly, I cannot fathom what drives certain reviewers to term the score as "uninspired" or a "dud" except perhaps that they have not listened to the songs enough times or with sufficient earnestness.

A disappointing score? Quite the contrary. The Warren/Blane music is extraordinary - even those songs that meddling MGM executives chose to delete from the final version of the film. As it turned out, gorgeous numbers such as "Never Again," in which the rueful but determined Morgan character sadly recounts his battles with alcohol; the exquisitely haunting "Omar and the Princess"; Muriel's lovely confessional, "I Wish I Had a Braver Heart"; and Huston's wistful "Spring Isn't Everything" were inexplicably cut. (One needs to buy the CD soundtrack to hear those and other excised numbers.) Mere disappointment turned into artistic tragedy when a nitrate-vault fire in the mid-fifties destroyed the musical outtakes, rendering impossible any possible restoration of the film to the version envisioned by Warren and Blane. That huge chunks of the score were slashed from the film left Warren so embittered he refused to view the film for over thirty years.

Perhaps, the critics should listen to the score a second, third, or fourth time, for a few of the melodies may strike some ears as somewhat subtle and may require repeated hearings. I remember being unimpressed the first time I saw the film and heard the score but have since come to adore the music. I'd categorize the uniquely delightful "Afraid to Fall in Love" as one of the songs that needs to be heard more than once to be fully appreciated.

Despite the meat-cleaver cuts, what remains of the score makes for luscious listening. From the brief but tuneful overture while credits are rolling, to the winsome "Our Home Town" - extended opening-scene dialog set to music, to the rousing anthem "Dan-Dan Danville High," to the gloriously catchy "The Stanley Steamer," the music lilts. One of my personal favorites is "While the Men Are All Drinking," a brief number sung by the ladies as they organize their picnic food in the park while their men are off competing in an Independence Day beer-drinking contest and the children are off diving into a nearby pond.

To my ears, the music is stunning beautiful and the reason I place "Summer Holiday" in my top ten, all-time-favorite movie list and why I consider Warren one of the top seven or eight composers of popular music that ever lived. He considered this score his best, and I enthusiastically concur.