Jane Powell was 89 years old in April 2018, and Julie Newmar will be 85 years old in August 2018. Together with other girls and guys, they have made a lively film. Howard Keel is a pleasant presence, but not as enjoyable as in "Kismet", made the next year. Anyway, it's a classic directed by the same immortal Stanley Donen (just completed 94 years in April 2018).

Songs: "When You're In Love" (sung by Keel, Powell), "Spring, Spring, Spring" (sung by Powell, Brothers, Brides), "Sobbin' Women" (sung by Keel, Brothers), "Bless Your Beautiful Hide" (sung by Keel), "Goin' Courtin'" "Wonderful, Wonderful Day" (both sung by Powell), "June Bride" (sung by Gibson, Brides), "Lonesome Polecat Lament" (sung and danced by Brothers).Copyright 15 June 1954 by Loew's Inc. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture. New York opening at the Radio City Music Hall: 22 June 1954. U.S. release: August 1954. U.K. release: December 1954. Australian release: 27 September 1954. Sydney opening at the St James. 9,180 feet. 102 minutes.SYNOPSIS: For Milly (Jane Powell) it's love at first sight. So when big Adam Pontipee (Howard Keel) up and asks her to marry him, she can only sigh yes. Naturally, it's a shock when she learns that her husband has six giant brothers, the rarin'est, fightin'est men in the Oregon backwoods. But it's a bigger shock when she learns that she is to keep house and cook for all of them. Deciding the only way out of her predicament is to marry off the boys, Milly cleans them up and teaches 'em the rudiments of courtin'. When the barn raisin' is held, it's the Pontipees who have the gals a'twitter. The town boys don't take to this shift in affection and provoke a bloody brawl. Victorious but bowed, the Pontipee boys return home without their ladies. Adam hits upon the solution. In one of Milly's books he read about the ancient Romans abducting the Sabine women.NOTES: Prestigious Hollywood award to Adolph Deutsch and Saul Chaplin for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture. Also nominated for Best Picture, losing to "On the Waterfront"; Best Screenplay, won by George Seaton for "The Country Girl"; color Cinematography, won by Milton Krasner for "3 Coins in the Fountain"; Film Editing, won by Gene Milford for "On the Waterfront".With a domestic rental gross of $5.6 million, the film made 9th spot on the Top Ten American Box-office Champions for 1954. The film took 14th position in Australia. In the U.K. it did even better, coming in 5th for 1955, a fair way behind "The Dam Busters", "White Christmas" and "Doctor at Sea" but pretty close to number 4, "The Colditz Story".COMMENT: Many picturegoers regard this one as the ultimate in CinemaScope musicals. Certainly the barn-raising dance is one of the most vigorously arresting ever put on celluloid. But the movie meanders on after this great show-stopper for quite some time. Despite the efforts of the players, one has the feeling of anti- climax.Until recently, another problem was that there was no way you could fit "Seven Brides (let alone Seven Brothers") on to a standard TV screen. In fact the whole idea of having seven of each instead of three, was to take advantage of the elongated dimensions of CinemaScope. But we now have a superb DVD from Warner Home Video which is actually far superior to the original theatrical 35mm release print. I didn't enjoy seeing the movie on its first release because the sound level was so deafening. Here's my original review:COMMENT: Distressingly noisy musical. Only one or two of the songs are in any way ear-catching, the others are just loud, as if the makers decided to bury their mediocrity under an impenetrable din. The color is disgracefully patchy, the film editing sloppy, special effects are poorly executed and backgrounds are obviously phony. Donen's direction is surprisingly indifferent.

Spoilers. Observations. Opinions. Great. Highlight: Great barn raising dance scene. Good guys wearing bright crayon box colors, bad (boring) guys wearing dark colors (and didn't have bright red hair). Dancing women (only one set of them, however) wore light pastel-colored dance dresses. Terrible: Adam wanted house slave, not a wife. Milly was now working for no wages, after she got majorly coerced into the sham wedding with Adam. Maybe he bought her the beautiful red and white dress and hat outfit that she wore to the barn raising dance, or at least maybe she earned those clothes by making that stew that could stand on its head (er, feet). The outfit was beautiful, but didn't look like correct period; at least the hat didn't. 1850: Oregon Territory, not a U.S. state until some years later. Wonder if any of these filthy brothers would have ended up serving in the American Civil War?Marc Platt a great dancer. They made him look clumsy in places, here. He shone in 1940s musical films opposite that great dancer Rita Hayworth, and his clothes and hairstyle were a heck of a lot better, too. Russ Tamblyn went on to make my fave, TOM THUMB, not to mention that old other people's fave West Side Story. Jacques d'Amboise would go on to later kill it (in a good way), in another fave film of mine, CAROUSEL. Where is the Technicolor? I know, they couldn't afford it. The Ansco tends to ruin the film, somewhat. The money was obviously spent on CinemaScope, TV competition of the day encouraging film budgeting toward this new, expensive and gargantuan process. I am a degreed historian, actress, singer, dancer, film critic, movie reviewer and stage makeup artist. Overall, I enjoyed this film.

Howard Keel plays Adam Pontipee, he goes out to get him a wife, He gets one, it is so refreshing to see a perfect musical centered around men behaving like men, dancing fighting and at the end steal 6 girls to life with his brothers in the mountains. Their fathers and brothers chase the young men but Adam and his Brs organized an avalanche to close of the valley for the winter. When spring arrived, the girls did not want to go back and instead were forced to get married to the Brs with guns held by the girl's Fathers. Very Hilarious, really worth seeing it. I rate it 8/10. At the end they lived happily ever after. If you have not seen this version, go see it, it is truly worth watching.