Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

In 1850 Oregon, when a backwoodsman brings a wife home to his farm, his six brothers decide that they want to get married too.

• Director: Stanley Donen
• Genre:Adventure / Comedy / Drama / Family / Musical / Romance / Western
• Runtime:102 minutes

Cast

Howard Keel : Adam Pontipee
Jeff Richards : Benjamin Pontipee
Russ Tamblyn : Gideon Pontipee
Tommy Rall : Frankincense (Frank) Pontipee
Marc Platt : Daniel (Dan) Pontipee

The film’s story is about a backwoodsman named Adam Pontipee and his new bride Milly, who marries him after knowing him for only a few hours. On returning with him to his cabin in the mountains, Milly is surprised to learn that Adam is one of seven lumberjack brothers living in the same cabin. The brothers have been named alphabetically from the Old Testament: Adam, Benjamin, Caleb, Daniel, Ephraim, Frank (short for Frankincense, the Old Testament having no names beginning with F), and Gideon. All of the brothers have red hair and are well over six feet tall, except Gideon, who is younger and shorter than his brothers.

Milly teaches Adam’s rowdy, ill-behaved younger brothers manners and social mores, including how to dance. At first, the brothers have a hard time changing from their “mountain man” ways, but eventually they come to see that the only way they will get a girl of their own is if they do things Milly’s way. They are able to test their new manners at a barn-raising, where they meet six girls they like—Dorcas, Ruth, Martha, Liza, Sarah and Alice—and, fortunately, the girls like the brothers too. However, the girls already have suitors from the town, who jealously taunt the brothers into fighting during the barn-raising, and, although the brothers do not start the fight, they are banished from the town by the townspeople because of it.

Winter arrives, and the six younger brothers mope for their girls. Adam reads his brothers the story of “Sobbin’ Women” and tells them that they should stop moping around and go get their girls. The brothers kidnap the girls, and then cause an avalanche so that they can’t be followed by the townspeople. They have, however, forgotten to kidnap a preacher. Milly is furious at Adam, and as the girls are upset at having been kidnapped, it is unlikely they would consent to marriage anyhow. Milly consigns the brothers to the barn while the girls are living in the house. Adam, somewhat put out by Milly’s reaction, leaves for the family’s cabin to live out the winter by himself. Read more