JANE POWELL HOWARD KEEL JEFF RICHARDS RUSS TAMBLYN
and TOMMY RALL
star in
A Film by Stanley Donen
SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS
VHS - PAL - NEW and SEALED - NEVER PLAYED!! - VERY RARE!! - G-rated - 104-minutes - Colour - Comedy, Musical, Romance - 1954-release - Small Sell-Through Box
In 1850, in the Oregon Territory, the provincial farmer Adam Pontipee comes to the town to trade supplies and find a wife.
When he meets the strong hard worker Milly working in a bar, he proposes to her.
Milly has a crush on Adam and marries him, expecting to have her own place with her husband.
However, when they arrive in the distant farm, she leans that Adam is the eldest of seven unsophisticated and rude brothers.
Milly educates the brothers, teaching them hygiene, good manners and how to win somebody's heart.
In the annual town picnic, Milly, Adam and his six brothers go to the party and each of his brothers fall in love for a girl.
However, they have to return to the loneliness of their farm.
In the winter, Adam reads Plutarch and tells his brothers about "The Rape of the Sabine Women", when the Roman men had abducted wives for themselves from the Sabine families.
He travels with his brothers to the town and they kidnap their beloved girls.
When they cross a gorge, they provoke a snow avalanche and block the narrow passage.
However, Milly keeps the girls in the house and sends Adam and his brothers to the barn.
But until the spring, when the passage will be open again, many things happen in the farm with Milly, Adam, his brothers and their "brides".
Well, I wanted to show a musical to my critical viewing class but knew it would be difficult since the boys were the most unlikely candidates for liking musicals that I'd ever seen.
I chose this because of the outstanding dance sequences.
It was wonderful to realize at the end of things that they totally got into it, even confessing that they were predisposed against it when I made my intentions known.
They found the action funny, the dancing riveting and found lots to comment on in the growth of the relationship between Adam and Millie.
One of my reluctant students even confessed to me that he'd found himself singing "Bless Your Beautiful Hide" in the shower one morning!
This is a wonderful film for teens today and has the ability to draw them in.
While they are totally aware of the sound stage sets and how "stagey" it looks, they also realize why it was filmed that way and manage to get past it. I showed this film only weeks after Howard Keel had died and was so glad.