BRIGADOON (1954)

Although initially dismissed by critics because of its use of studio sets to tell a story set in the Scottish Highlands, this Gene Kelly-Vincente Minnelli collaboration has been re-evaluated more recently. What once were considered failings are now viewed as assets in the use of cinematic magic to create a world of make believe. More recent critics have also found much to like in Gene Kelly’s inventive choreography, Joseph Ruttenberg’s creative use of Ansco Color and Cinemascope, and Van Johnson’s cynical performance. Kelly and Johnson are a pair of hunters who stumble upon a magical Scottish village that only appears once every hundred years. While Johnson longs to get back to civilization, Kelly falls for local beauty Cyd Charisse and joins her in a lyrical pas de deux to one of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s best songs, “The Heather on the Hill.”

d. Vincente Minnelli, 108m, 35mm

Courtesy of Park Circus and Warner Brothers Classics.