Brigadoon

Two Americans, Tommy and Jeff, are hunting in Scotland and walk into a village that is not on the map: Brigadoon. It wakes for one day every hundred years, sleeps again when that day ends, and from outside looks as though it never existed. Tommy falls in love with Fiona, who lives there. The only way to stay is to give up his life outside entirely. Vincente Minnelli directs. Gene Kelly plays Tommy, Van Johnson plays Jeff, Cyd Charisse plays Fiona. The source is the Lerner and Loewe Broadway musical. What is argued about most is the location. Kelly and Minnelli wanted to shoot in Scotland; MGM refused on cost and the village was built entirely on a stage. The result is artificial and the film was criticised for it, while its defenders argued the artifice suits a story about a place that is not real anyway. The production falls at the end of MGM's musical era. The budget was cut, the number of sets reduced, and songs were dropped from the score; the studio's power in that field was collapsing quickly. The dance sequences between Kelly and Charisse are the strongest material, and the one in the mist is the most cited. Who it is for: viewers who like classic MGM musicals and Gene Kelly. Who it is not for: the sets are plainly false, the story is slow, and the portrayal of Scotland is entirely cliché.