ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Derry Herrera Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

calvinnme Revisiting this film, I was immediately pulled in by Howard Keel's opening song Bless Your Beautiful Hide. Audacious even in it's day, there's a tenderness in Mercer's lyrics that makes it somewhat forgivable-remember suspending your reality for a musical? Handsome Howard Keel's virility doesn't hurt. Instead of recoiling over the idea of "finding a wife" I just rolled with it as a silly plot idea. Once I had put myself in the same fantasy mode as when watching a Busby Berkeley musical, I started enjoying it. I really paid attention to the musical numbers, most notably the Barn Dance & Lonesome Polecat. Amazing. Not too many dances in movies were designed to actually TELL a story, showing what the characters were feeling so eloquently. The Barn Dance scene is the best example I've ever seen of this. The dancing styles of townies vs mountaineers, the girl's being hoisted up in the air, the colors, the acrobatics all contribute to a very coherent "story" in dance.Lonesome Polecat is also just extraordinary. It has a low base line of something like 3/4 but the lyrics are sung in some odd time signature like 5/9. (help me here music experts) The choreography too, is just excellent- the men really stand out as athletic, as is typical in many cultures such as Indian & Hawaiian dances.I was again struck by how awful crazy the story line is, but how easily it's vindicated by Keel's character explaining how tough life is for mountain settlers. And Janie Powell was so perfect as the sweet young pretty girl who makes lemonade out of a bunch of sour lemons. The entire story is really about how she orchestrates a success out of her bad situation. I like that she's physically tiny but controls the fate of everyone in the story, not with weak conniving but with strong confident guidance.At first you think this is a terribly sexist story, but it's truly a pioneering and feminist story.

lisgmendes One of the greatest musicals of all time! Seven brides for seven brothers is a landmark of the Hollywood's golden age of musicals abs deserve to be seen again and again.

boblipton Why do I date the decline of the MGM musical from this movie? There are some historical issues with it -- it was not kept in repertory and even when you could see it on TV, it was in pan-and-scan, which wrecked its compositions.For me, the real problem is its exquisite choreography by Michael Kidd. featuring the younger Potiphee brothers. This is not the choreography of the movies, showing people who know how to dance for the camera, like Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire and Gene Nelson. Kidd's choreography is not made for a camera that can move and a pace that includes cuts, and the brothers are not terribly adept at playing to that camera's unblinking eye. You can see it in "Lonesome Polecat", as they pose on the sound stage, carefully and unmovingly; and the Barn Raising sequence is far too formal and mannered in its Agnes-Demille way. Even the story itself, like the dancing, is formal. It's the work of people who are out to reform the movie musical, like Christian missionaries out to convert the heathen Catholics in a William S. Hart movie.I don't mean to say that the movie doesn't have its strengths nor that I don't enjoy it. Jane Powell is great and Howard Keel plays his usual singing slab of beef. I love the barn-raising sequence for its stage choreography, the songs are pretty good and there are a lot of pretty young women in their skivvies, including Julie Newmar and Ruta Lee.

mark.waltz I'm sure that in 1954, any thought of this being misogynistic was only noticed by the most extreme of early feminists, granddaughters of suffragettes who wanted to toss a fly in the ointment of the real message of this macho musical. This gives no denial to the fact that they knew that the Howard Keel character was a male chauvinist pig, unapologetically so, and in the mountains of North America, why would he be any other way? He's searching for a wife, and finds her in the willing Jane Powell. He likes her spunk, and basically, it seems at first that his only sin is not telling her that there are six more just like him back at home. Powell, of course, has her initial hopes dashed, realizing that she's stuck after having been received. But the lovely Jane is no pushover, and gives them all what for. They slowly learn how to be gentlemen, but more often than not, turn back to their he-man ways as they pursue six of the lovely ladies back in civilization, eventually taking drastic measures that results with the women getting revenge and the marriage of Keel and Powell in danger of ending even before it's begun.The handsome six find their beautiful six, and a dance number between the uneducated young men and more civilized ladies ends up being the highlight of the film. Acting honors go to Jane Powell who gives even more toughness than she gets, and Russ Tamblyn as the youngest brother who ends up having a smarter head on his shoulders even than Keel.A great musical score adds to the cinematic look of this lesson in how to (and how not to) treat a lady, so anybody who sees this through misogynistic eyes is not seeing the point of the film clearly. Audiences of the 1950's were clearly smarter than today's in seeing what the brothers did as wrong, but quickly realizing that they would pay for their sins, even with a happy ending.This is one of those movie musicals that tried but failed to work on stage, and in it's 1980's re-conceptualization, I can see why it didn't work. It's fantastic on a big screen with beautiful sets capturing the wonders of nature. The fact that all six ladies end up falling for the brothers may disturb some progressive audiences, but in the context of a different time and a simpler world, it makes much more sense.