Trivia / Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

• The Cast Showoff: Brothers C-F were played by professional dancers. All the brides were as well, which gave us "June Bride". Russ Tamblyn, playing Gideon, was not a trained dancer but the dance numbers incorporated his training as a gymnast and his work as an acrobat. Averted by Jeff Richards, who played Benjamin; he was a former baseball player but had no singing or dancing experience, meaning he stays firmly in the back of the shot or set piece whenever the music starts up, although weirdly enough, his singing voice wasn't dubbed.
• Dawson Casting: Marc Platt, who plays Daniel Pontipee, brother #4 of 7, is six to nine years older than the actors playing brothers A-C.
• Executive Meddling:
  • The film was originally going to be titled "The Sobbin' Women", but MGM executives thought that audiences would not be interested in seeing a film with this title. It was first retitled "A Bride for Seven Brothers", but the censors thought it sounded too risqué, so it was altered to "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers".
  • MGM did not have high financial expectations for the film and chose to allocate its resources to Brigadoon instead. For this reason, the studio slashed the budget on Seven Brides, forcing such things as the director having to use painted backdrops instead of filming on location, making the costume designer go to the Salvation Army and buy old quilts to turn them into the dresses for the wives, and the use of Ansco color film because it was cheaper than Technicolor. This movie turned out to be MGM's smash hit for 1954, while Brigadoon turned out to be a flop.
  • Stanley Donen wanted to film in CinemaScope as he felt the wide frame would be perfectly suited to such a large cast. MGM were concerned that cinemas would not be able to support the CinemaScope format. As a result Donen had to shoot every scene twice, once in CinemaScope and once in the standard 1.77:1 Aspect Ratio. Most sources claim that the CinemaScope version was the only one released theatrically, but the second version has occasionally popped up in TV airings. The 2004 DVD includes both versions.
• Foreign Remake: It got two!
  • Bollywood's Satte Pe Satta from 1982, starring Amitabh Bachchan and Hema Malini, althought it has action elements not in the original.
  • Loosely remade by the Brazilian comic group Os Trapalhões in 1988 as the film O Casamento dos Trapalhões ("The Bumbling ones' Wedding or Tramps' Wedding"). Instead of seven, are four brothers, (the members of Os Trapalhões) and midway through the movie, they are visited by their four nephews, all members of the Brazilian band Dominó.
• Magnum Opus Dissonance: As mentioned above, this was intended as a low-budget throwaway project while the real money was being spent on Brigadoon. To put in perspective, Brigadoon lost money domestically while Seven Brides for Seven Brothers not only made its budget back and then some in the US alone, but also won an Oscar ^note  Best Scoring of a Musical Picture in 1954. and was nominated for Best Picture.
• Non-Singing Voice: Matt Mattox's (Caleb) singing lines were all sung by Bill Lee, a professional playback singer.
• Recycled: The Series: There was a TV series which lasted for only one full season in 1982-1983, consisting of 22 episodes. The one musical number that appears with each episode is the only notable connection to the film as the series on other aspects resembled a typical '80s drama like others that were on TV at the time. Notable actors include Richard Dean Anderson (MacGyver (1985) & Stargate SG-1), Drake Hogestyn (Days of Our Lives), Peter Horton (thirtysomething & Brimstone) & the late River Phoenix. One notable writer is the late Sue Grafton, before she wrote her series of alphabetical mysteries.
• Star-Making Role: Russ Tamblyn was the Breakout Character of the film (Howard Keel called him "the most effective Pontipee"), getting a major career boost that led to bigger roles in films like West Side Story. Ironically, he wasn't even originally supposed to dance in it, being one of two MGM contract actors without dance training (along with Jeff Richards) who were assigned to the creators; but after Michael Kidd found out he was a gymnast, he incorporated his acrobatic stunts into the barn dance, and to Tamblyn's surprise, he found that he was in demand as a dancer.

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