Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

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?

Some parts were slow. Things just seemed to drag on and on.Van Johnson didn't have much of a story, or much to do. He was being chased by one of the local man-hungry females, and he was mightily offended.Of course, Gene Kelly had the romantic lead part. Dancing with Cyd Charisse in the Heather on the Hill segment, collecting heather for the wedding, was just too smarmy IMO. They were getting too sensually/sexually close for having just met. I realize all the village single women were starved for affection, but this was a bit much. Fiona Campbell was just too pretty not to have tons of the local single men chasing her, BTW.The wedding dance was lovely, with the bride and groom leading off. Hugh Laing as the ticked off ex-suitor of Bonnie Jean was way too smoldering, with a hell-bent strange behavior and so self-destructive. That he jumped into the big dance scene and started almost manhandling Jean was weird, yet I was almost cheering him on to sweep her away out of there. I did feel sorry for Harry Beaton, and wish I could have seen more dancing from the great Hugh Laing.Gene Kelly's pants were way too tight. Ugh.

Well, the show is over because I reached the last DVD on this box set. I saved "Brigadoon" for the end because I was appalled by this folk theme: a romance in Scotland.Now, that I have seen it, I am a bit disappointed: the sets are too make-believe and it's look like a show on stage. This time, at least at the beginning, the songs stop the story and are quite boring. It took time for the fairy tale to take you but it happens with the help of the Celtics enchantment (patchwork colors everywhere, a "shire" atmosphere) and the talent of Minelli and Kelly. The first is very close to Lynch, being able to shoot fantasy in real / dreamy way and the latter is always convincing in spite of the void of any decent partner here...As I left for the moment Kelly's cinematography, I tell one more time how great and talented he was: actor, dancer, singer, director, choreographer and above all, a decent man! I think he has bring the best to his passion, the dance and stories like "Billy Elliot" are silly to deconstruct his legacy. Dance isn't for girls only, and boys who dance aren't effeminate. Look at him! Dance is a way of expressing yourself as writing, painting or sporting. That's why I was stunned when I see that Kelly would link sports and dance together because I have always considered my basketball practicing as "my" dance.Thanks Gene, I will remember for a long time this summer 2010 and I miss you very much!

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.