Much has been made of the fact that Vincente Minnelli didn't want to direct the film version of the stage hit "Kismet" in 1955 but was forced to by mean, nasty MGM (in order for him to take on "Lust for Life"). The film he should have skipped, one year earlier, was this miserable desecration of one of the crowned jewels of Broadway musicals. All of the gossimer magic (and nearly all of the songs) were lost during the transition from stage to screen. Instead, this flat-footed bore might as well be entitled "The Gene Kelly Show." Even the few grand songs remaining are butchered into tiresome dance routines by the camera-swallowing, egomaniacal Kelly. "Almost Like Being in Love" was a soaring romantic duet on stage. Here, Kelly sings it solo, then breaks into a dance routine. Cyd Charisse is perfectly adequate as his romantic lead, but she too is shortchanged (allowed only one song--the best in the film--"Waiting for My Dearie" with her voice dubbed; dancewise, she gets short shrift from Kelly and Minnelli). Kelly & Minnelli groused because MGM's budget cutbacks prevented them from filming on-location in Scotland; thus "Brigadoon" had to be created on MGM's vast soundstages (with some of the ugliest, tackiest production design in the studio's history). That same limitation didn't hurt "Seven Bridges for Seven Brothers," MGM's modestly-budgeted "ugly step-sister" to "Brigadoon." "Brides" went on to become a box office smash and an enduring classic. "Brigadoon" (on which MGM pinned its hopes) was a deserved critical and box office dud. Any highschool (much less professionally mounted) production of "Brigadoon" is certain to be superior to the distinctively unenchanting film version. And I beg to differ with all the other IMDb commentators that MGM initially purchased the screen rights as a vehicle for Kathryn Grayson & Howard Keel--and what a disaster that would have been. Not so. At least, the classic score would have survived virtually intact, and Grayson & Keel would have sung it to absolute perfection! Fortunately, 12 years later, a glorious production of "Brigadoon" was telecast as a TV special; the deleted songs were restored and sung to perfection by the perfectly-cast Robert Goulet and Sally Ann Howes, who also recreated the wistful magic totally absent from MGM's expensive dud. "Brigadoon" should be seen, and this is the version to see!
