DVDs: Once in the Highlands

When Brigadoon opened at New York's Ziegfeld Theater in 1947, it marked the third collaboration between lyricist-librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe, following What's Up and The Day Before Spring. Brigadoon was directed by Robert Lewis, a founder of the Group Theater in the '30s and later a founder of the Actors Studio, and featured choreography by Agnes de Mille, following her recent triumphs with Oklahoma!, Carousel, One Touch of Venus, and Bloomer Girl.

Brigadoon had been turned down by several managements. The Theatre Guild, which had produced Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! and Carousel, suggested shifting the action from Scotland to America. Lerner and Loewe were unable to accept the terms of prospective producer Billy Rose, who wanted to do the show but insisted on having the final say on everything. For a relatively inexpensive $175,000, Brigadoon was ultimately produced by Cheryl Crawford, who had mounted One Touch of Venus along with an acclaimed revival of Porgy and Bess.

With no stars in the cast, the musical story of what happens when a pair of American travelers encounter a Scottish town that comes to life for only one day every 100 years was an immediate success during three tryout runs. From New Haven, Variety told its readers, "The next crash to hit Gotham will not be on Wall Street---it will be on Broadway, when Brigadoon smashes its way into the hit column with a resounding bang."

Variety was correct, and Brigadoon opened on Broadway two months after the arrival of another Gaelic fantasy, Finian's Rainbow to unanimous raves. In The New York Times, Brooks Atkinson wrote that "It has fulfilled an old theatre ideal of weaving music, dancing and story into a single fabric of brightness and enchantment. It transmutes the assorted materials of theatre into a vibrant work of art" and offers "additional proof that the musical stage is the most creative branch of the American commercial theatre."

Brigadoon became an immediate smash, returning its investment in just over three months and inspiring a line of Brigadoon-plaid shoes, bathrobes, dresses, coats, hats, scarves, and wallpaper. Although Lerner stated that his inspiration for the show was the work of Peter Pan's James M. Barrie, more than one critic pointed out Brigadoon's plot similarities to a nineteenth-century German story called Germelshausen. There were also parallels to James Hilton's Lost Horizon.

Billed as "a new musical play," Brigadoon was a noteworthy offspring of the Rodgers and Hammerstein collaborations on Oklahoma! and Carousel, a mature musical play with a central romantic plot and a secondary couple for comic relief, integrated songs, and dance an integral part of the action. But Brigadoon and its score also bear traces of operetta Loewe was the son of a Viennese operetta tenor. The theme of bringing something dead back to life had particular resonance for the show's post-war audiences.

Brigadoon became the first musical to win the Drama Critics prize, the citation reading: "Because it is an altogether original and inventive blending of words, music and dance; because its taste, discretion and thoughtful beauty mark a high note in any season; and because it finds the lyric theatre at its best." De Mille won a Tony in the first year of the awards in 1947. Leading lady Marion Bell became Lerner's second wife during the run, which lasted only 581 performances at a time when hits didn't have to have very long runs. After the show opened, Lerner and Loewe had their first of several breakups, although they would reunite for Paint Your Wagon then My Fair Lady.

A 1949 London Brigadoon ran longer than the Broadway production. City Center revived Brigadoon six times, the 1957 run transferring to Broadway. In 1966, Robert Goulet, Sally Ann Howes, and Peter Falk co-starred in a television version. There was a Broadway revival in 1980 at the Majestic Theatre, and a West End revival in 1988. In 1986, Brigadoon had its New York City Opera premiere, and the company brought it back a couple of times thereafter.

De Mille's choreography, her most dominant contribution to any Broadway musical, was reproduced in all six City Center productions, as well as the Broadway, London, and City Opera revivals. But with the assistance of a sharp new creative team, an effective stage-revival re-imagining of Brigadoon should be possible.

Produced by Arthur Freed for MGM, directed by Vincente Minnelli, and with a screenplay by Lerner, the 1954 film version of Brigadoon, although a box-office success, is generally considered a disappointment. While the picture was originally set to be shot in the Scottish highlands, a reduced budget and uncertain weather conditions caused it to be filmed entirely at MGM. This proved to be unfortunate, as the picture fails to transcend the artificial-looking backlot sets.

While the stage Brigadoon had a great deal of dancing, the two romantic leads were singers who were not involved in the choreography. For the film, however, dancing stars Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse were hired to play the romantic leads, with Kelly also contributing the choreography. According to Hugh Fordin's book on the Freed unit, "Kelly envisioned Brigadoon as an outdoor picture, a Scottish Western, while Minnelli saw it as theatrical artifice."

The 108-minute film was shot simultaneously in CinemaScope and wide screen. The somewhat miscast Charisse's vocals were dubbed by Carol Richards, and Van Johnson was effective as the leading man's sardonic traveling companion. Virginia Bosler repeated her Broadway role of bonnie bride Jean.

Two moderately risque numbers from the stage show, "The Love of My Life" and "My Mother's Wedding Day," were ruled unusable in the film, thereby reducing the role of Meg Brockie to a cameo. "Come to Me, Bend to Me," "From This Day On," and "There But for You Go I" were likewise cut, while numbers like "The Heather on the Hill" and "Almost Like Being in Love" were extended into dance sequences to accommodate the two stars.

Warner Home Video's new DVD of the Brigadoon film marks the film's second release on DVD, and it offers some notable outtakes, including the complete "Come to Me, Bend to Me," "From This Day On," and Sword Dance, and, as an audio-only track, Kelly's pre-recorded "There But for You Go I."