Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

For other uses, see Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (disambiguation).
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Theatrical release poster
Directed byStanley Donen
Screenplay by
Based on"The Sobbin' Women"
1938 story in Argosy
by Stephen Vincent Benét
Produced byJack Cummings
Starring
CinematographyGeorge Folsey
Edited byRalph E. Winters
Music byGene de Paul
Johnny Mercer (lyrics)
Adolph Deutsch
(musical direction)
Saul Chaplin
(musical supervision)
Production
company
Distributed byLoew's, Inc.
Release dates
  • July 15, 1954 (1954-07-15) (Houston, Texas)[1]
  • July 22, 1954 (1954-07-22) (New York)
  • December 20, 1954 (1954-12-20) (United States)
Running time
102 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$2,540,000[2]
Box office$9,403,000[2][3]

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is a 1954 American musical film, directed by Stanley Donen, with music by Gene de Paul, lyrics by Johnny Mercer, and choreography by Michael Kidd. The screenplay, by Albert Hackett, Frances Goodrich, and Dorothy Kingsley, is based on the short story "The Sobbin' Women", by Stephen Vincent Benét, which was based in turn on the ancient Roman legend of the Rape of the Sabine Women. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, which is set in Oregon in 1850, is particularly known for Kidd's unusual choreography, which makes dance numbers out of such mundane frontier pursuits as chopping wood and raising a barn. Film critic Stephanie Zacharek has called the barn-raising sequence in Seven Brides "one of the most rousing dance numbers ever put on screen."[4] The film was photographed in Ansco Color in the CinemaScope format.[5]

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers won the Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture and was nominated for four additional awards, including Best Picture. In 2006, American Film Institute named Seven Brides for Seven Brothers as one of the best American musical films ever made. In 2004, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

  1. ^ "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers – Details". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Retrieved July 30, 2018.
  2. ^ a b The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
  3. ^ For domestic figures see "All Time Domestic Champs", Variety, 6 January 1960 p 34
  4. ^ Gold, Sylviane (March 2008). "DEATHS: Michael Kidd (1915–2007)". Dance Magazine. 82 (3): 88–89.
  5. ^ Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) - IMDb, retrieved 2022-03-09