Okay, anyway, this is the soundtrack for Brigadoon, a musical about a very unusual town in Scotland: it only exists on earth once every hundred years. Two American hunters, Tommy (Gene Kelly) and Jeff (Van Johnson), stumble into the town on that one day, and Gene's character quickly falls in love with a Brigadoon woman, Fiona (Cyd Charisse). Most of the movie takes place during that one day they have together.
"Once in the Highlands" is a lovely, haunting song that tells you the basics of the story before the movie even begins. I guess the show's writers audiences to have extra help wrapping their heads around this kind of odd story. "And this is what happened... the strange thing that happened... to two weary hunters who lost their way..." I like the use of chorus here because it ends up sounding sombre and eerie, and really setting the mood for the story.
"The Heather on the Hill" is the big romance number. Tommy is fascinated by Fiona, mostly because she's not trying to get him to marry her, but also because she's quiet and intelligent and sincere. He's got a girl back in America who is loud and bossy and wants to marry him, you see, and the contrast kind of hooks him. So here, he asks if he can join her in gathering flowers.
After that song, they dance this dance, which I love, partly because it's very different from Gene Kelly's typical jaunty, peppy dancing. Fiona hasn't told Tommy yet that Brigadoon is magical, and in the dance, she's trying to keep herself from liking him because she knows it can't last, but gradually she finds she can't help falling for him. (Her dress has the weirdest neckline ever, though -- it's always bugged me.)
And after dancing together, she leaves, and he sings my favorite song from the whole movie, "Almost Like Being in Love." And dances a much more typical dance, for him. He says "almost," but we can all tell there's no "almost" about him being in love by this point. I'm just going ahead and including the movie clip for this song, partly because I love watching Gene Kelly dance and partly because Van Johnson is so grumpy and fed up through the whole thing that he makes me chuckle. But if you'd rather just listen to the music, you can do that too -- you don't *have* to watch it if you're not all that into musicals or whatever.
That's all for today! But if you want a gently haunting movie to watch this Halloween, I definitely recommend trying Brigadoon for yourself.
(This review originally appeared here at J and J Productions on October 28, 2015.)
LOL! Yes, I remember 486s. My first computer was a 488, though it did not have a CD player. Just a floppy disc drive!! Ahhh, the good ol' days.
ReplyDeleteI love Brigadoon, though I haven't watched it in ages. I used to be annoyed at Van Johnson when I was young, but now I love him throughout. When I was a kid, "go home with Bonnie Jean" was my favorite song.
DKoren, yes, we were Very Special because our 486 had a floppy disc drive AND a CD drive. We wouldn't have had the computer at all except that a friend of ours got a Pentium and gave us his old computer. That 486 is what I took to college with me, and it lasted all 4 years even though it was probably close to 10 years old by the time I graduated! Man, even computers lasted longer back then.
DeleteI haven't seen Brigadoon in a while either. Been trying to watch it with my kids, but it hasn't happened yet. And that's so funny that Van Johnson used to annoy you in it... because he did me too!!! I was always like, "You are a fool, and I can't believe we're wasting screentime on you when we could be watching Gene Kelly!!!" But he kinda grows on you.
The first time I saw this, I was probably 11 or 12, and I got kinda obsessed with "Go Home with Bonnie Jean." Did not have access to the soundtrack, and we'd just borrowed the movie (possibly from my aunt while on vacation, so literally did not have access to it the rest of the year), so I just made up random words to the tune and drove my mom crazy until she said I had to quit singing it, lol.