Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - Brigadoon

BRIGADOON is a movie that has strengths and weaknesses that stem from the same elements. Here is a movie that takes place in Scottish highlands, but was shot entirely on soundstages. A modern movie like this, and even some movies contemporary to this one, would have taken full advantage of location shooting, with lots of scenic cinematography and local color.

So, on one hand, BRIGADOON seems like a missed opportunity. On the other hand, the sets for this film are magnificent and the matte backgrounds are amazing examples of a lost art, and they do provide breath taking scenery. No matter where it was shot, the movie is beautiful to look at.

The studio sets do help to provide the fairy tale atmosphere, however, which is appropriate for the magical tale of BRIGADOON, a small Scottish village that only appears once every 100 hears for 1 day. Gene Kelly and Van Johnson star as two American hunters on vacation in Scotland who stumble upon the village and become involved with the locals as they prepare for a big wedding.

It isn’t long before Kelly is in love with the sister of the bride, Cyd Charisse, and the two of them dance around the countryside collecting heather before Kelly even fully understands what’s going on. Of course, when he learns that the village is due to disappear and that he’ll need to decide whether he wants to stay or not, he realizes the gravity of the problem.

BRIGADOON as a vehicle for Kelly is an interesting choice. The dance numbers aren’t particularly spectacular, though they’re nice enough, and Kelly seems a little too savvy to buy into this fantasy world. Johnson fares better, however, getting all the best lines as a cynic who finds himself face to face with magic. There’s a great scene in which he sets up three lit cigarettes in three ash trays at the bar, just to keep people from sitting next to him.

Despite the fact that BRIGADOON is a fairly lighthearted fairy tale romance, the magical village has kind of a dark undercurrent to it. If any villager leaves the boundary of the village, all the other villagers and the village itself ceases to exist. Meanwhile, every 100 years, the villagers age only 1 day, the rest of the world changing around them. Most of the villagers view this as a blessing -- they’ve been saved from the ravages of the modern world by this miracle. But, it could also be viewed as a curse, as the villagers are doomed to never leave their small town and stand apart from the rest of the world for all eternity.

This magical device does work as a nice metaphor for the problems of time and place that interrupt relationships in the real world. As usual, a fantastical device actually works better at illustrating mundane everyday problems than a more literal approach might, and Kelly’s ultimate decision at the end of the movie is that much more touching because of it.