Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Rijndri Load of rubbish!!

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Brett Chandler (Thunderbuck) I adore Brigadoon.Won't quibble about the authenticity of the story, the sets, or the choreography. However inauthentic the movie may be, it WORKS. For me, it works better than any of MGM's other classics.The production is beautiful. The sets (however artificial) are beautiful. Kelly's choreography is beautiful. Cyd Charisse is BEAUTIFUL (honestly, my favorite woman in any musical, ever--masterful dance if I've ever seen it)."Heather on the Hill" is a highlight of musical cinema, period. Lovely song, spectacular dancing and choreography.The ending, however preposterous, still ranks among my favorites.

Spikeopath Out of MGM, Brigadoon is a CinemaScope production filmed in Ansco Color. It's directed by Vincente Minnelli and adapted to screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner from the Broadway play of the same name. It stars Gene Kelly, Van Johnson and Cyd Charise. Musical numbers are by Lerner and Frederick Loewe, with orchestration by Conrad Salinger, and cinematography is by Joseph Ruttenberg. Plot has Kelly and Johnson as two Americans on a hunting trip in Scotland, who after becoming lost in the woods happen upon a village called Brigadoon. A strange place that's not on any map of Scotland……… Kicked by the critics and receiving moderate funds at the box office, Brigadoon is evidently one of the lesser lights from the musicals branch of MGM. Genuine complaints about no outdoor location work and scrimping on the songs from the play hold up under scrutiny. As does the charge that it is in fact a bit lifeless in direction and acting performances. But it's far from the dreary flop it has often been painted as. As colourful entertainment the film has enough about it to not waste the viewers time. The central idea is lovely, a mystical place inhabited by ebullient Scots that pops up once every hundred years, existing as a social comment that other parts of the world have gotten themselves into one big noise laden hurry, while a sweet finale provides the notion that love can indeed conquer all. The songs and routines, too, are enjoyable, notably Kelly doing deft harmony for "Almost Like Being In Love", the foot tapping delight of Celtic strong "The Wedding Dance" (danced by Jimmy Thompson & Virginia Bosler) and the heartily sang "The Chase" (various men during the pursuit of rebel Hugh Laing). While Ruttenberg's Scope/Color photography is most pleasing, putting vim and vigour into the very standard painted sets that form the back drops to the story.However, it's impossible not to yearn for more from Minnelli and MGM. Producing it all on the sound stage means it lacks air, vitality, and they must have known this would be the case because the film was originally going to be filmed on location in Scotland. The nasty weather and eventual cost cutting exercises meant the production would ultimately be surrounded by false countryside and billowing mist machines. A shame, because if ever a story called for vibrant snatches of Mother Natures Earth to realise the whimsy, then this is it. The cast are also a mixed bag, with Charise and Kelly going thru the motions and a host of iffy accents puncturing the air. Johnson is an odd casting choice, but I'm in the minority that doesn't mind his performance. He's the sarcastic cynic to Kelly's dreamy optimist, with Johnson content to rightly play in Kelly's shadow. His scenes back in the bar in New York are good value. Kelly and Minnelli were not singing from the same page, this would be common knowledge further down the line, as would the revelation that Minnelli was never a fan of the play anyway! It does show, but in spite of the obvious flaws there's enough warmth and hummable whimsy to lift it comfortably above average in the pantheon of MGM musicals. 6.5/10

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.

Karl Self This movie is phoniness incarnate, a straight 11 / 10 on the phoniness scale. The fakeness of the accents as well as the tightness of the cardigan spandex pants are just staggering. Yanks, although the real Scotland may be just as colourful, if you ever go there don't expect to be given much of a the chance to "dance out" controversies with the locals. Also, don't attempt to sway local opinion through the otherwise fine art of tapdancing.There are a couple of infectious singing-and-dancing scenes, but the plot is far too cheesy and linear, and the dialogue is often too weak. I also doubt whether anyone would want to be stuck in a timewarped 18.th-century Scottish village in the boondocks rather than gay New York City. Maybe it wasn't such a big sacrifice for that priest to have left Brigadoon, maybe he was just trying to get the hell out of that dump.Watch it for the fine alternative-reality view of what a Christopher Streed Day-parade in Scotland would look like on LSD. Other than that I'd only recommend it to Hollywood muscial completists.