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''Seven Brides for Seven Brothers'' (1954), is a musical film, photographed in Ansco Color in the CinemaScope format. The film was directed by Stanley Donen, with music by Saul Chaplin and Gene de Paul and lyrics by Johnny Mercer, and choreography by Michael Kidd. The screenplay, by Albert Hackett, Frances Goodrich, and Dorothy Kingsley, is based on the short story "The Sobbin' Women", by Stephen Vincent Benét, which was based in turn on the Ancient Roman legend of The Rape of the Sabine Women. ''Seven Brides for Seven Brothers'', which is set in Oregon in 1850, is particularly known for Kidd's unusual choreography, which makes dance numbers out of such mundane frontier pursuits as chopping wood and raising a barn. Film critic Stephanie Zacharek has called the barn-raising sequence in ''Seven Brides'' "one of the most rousing dance numbers ever put on screen." ''Seven Brides for Seven Brothers'' won the Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture and was nominated for four additional awards, including Best Picture of the Year (where it lost the award to Elia Kazan's ''On the Waterfront''). In 2006, American Film Institute named ''Seven Brides for Seven Brothers'' as one of the best American musical films ever made. ==Plot== A backwoodsman named Adam Pontipee comes into town to search for a bride. After being laughed at by the owners of the town's feedlot store he goes out in search of a wife. He comes upon the local tavern where he meets Milly. He and Milly agree to marry despite knowing each other for only a few hours. On the journey home Milly talks about how she is excited to be cooking and taking care of only one man, visibly upsetting Adam. On returning to his cabin in the mountains, Milly is surprised to learn that Adam is one of seven brothers living under the same roof. The brothers have been named alphabetically from the Old Testament and in chronological order are: 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. She also shows them how to dance. At first, the brothers have a hard time changing from their "mountain man" ways, but eventually each comes to see that the only way he will get a woman of his own is to do things Milly's way. They are able to test their new manners at a barn-raising, where they meet six women they like — Dorcas, Ruth, Martha, Liza, Sarah and Alice — and the women take a fancy to the brothers as well. The women, however, already have suitors from the town, who jealously taunt the brothers into fighting during the barn-raising. At first the brothers try to resist and remember Milly's teaching, but Adam refuses to let himself be pushed around by the rival suitors, and calls his younger brothers cowards for letting them get away with their behavior. The rival suitors finally go too far when they attack Adam, which provokes Gideon into fighting back. A fierce brawl ensues in which the brothers dominate their physically weaker rivals. Although the brothers do not start the fight, they are banished from the town after destroying the barn in the process of fighting. Winter arrives, with the six younger brothers pining for the women. After Milly asks Adam to talk to the brothers as she fears they will want to leave because of missing the girls, Adam reads his brothers the story of "Sobbin' Women" (taken from Plutarch's story of the Sabine Women) and tells them that they should stop moping around and take whatever action is necessary to get the women back. Aided by Adam, the brothers kidnap the women, then cause an avalanche so that they cannot be followed by the townspeople. They have, however, forgotten to kidnap a preacher. Milly is furious at Adam, as are the women because of being kidnapped. Milly consigns the brothers to the barn "with the rest of the livestock" while the women live in the house. Adam, feeling betrayed by Milly's reaction, leaves for the trapping cabin further up the mountain to live out the winter by himself, unknowingly hurting Milly's feelings. Soon after, Milly realizes that she is pregnant with Adam's child. Months pass, and the women vent their frustration and resentment by playing pranks on the brothers, such as hitting them with rock-filled snowballs. By spring, the women have forgiven and fallen in love with the brothers, who are now allowed to court them. Milly gives birth to a daughter, Hannah. Gideon rides to the cabin to inform Adam of his daughter's arrival and asks him to come home. Adam refuses, saying that he had said he would return home only when the snow had melted enough and the pass was open once more to traffic. Having time to think about his baby daughter, Adam returns home in the spring just as the pass is opening and reconciles with Milly. As a newly responsible father, he has become aware of how worried the townspeople would be about what has happened to the women. Adam realizes he was wrong to tell his brothers to kidnap the women. He tells his brothers they need to take the women back to their homes in the town, but his brothers are unwilling. The women also do not want to return to their homes; they all want to stay at the farm with their new suitors and thus hide so they will not be taken back home. When Milly discovers that the women are not in the house, Adam tells his brothers to go after them and bring them back. The townspeople arrive, with the intention of taking vengeance against the brothers for the kidnappings. Upon finding the brothers trying to force the women to return, the fathers believe their daughters are being assaulted, and charge to their rescue. Alice's father (Ian Wolfe), a preacher, hears baby Hannah cry in the distance, and worries that the baby might belong to one of the women. The fighting is finally sorted out and the fathers, and other townsmen, round up the brothers and announce that they intend to hang them. Alice's father asks the women whose baby he heard. They all decide, simultaneously, to claim the baby as their own. This misinformation gives the women and the brothers their wish: the townspeople insist that all six couples marry immediately in a shotgun wedding. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Seven Brides for Seven Brothers」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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