Retrospective Film Review

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) • 70 Years Later — misogyny and abductions in controversial classic musical

When a backwoodsman in 1850s Oregon brings a wife home to his farm, his six brothers decide that they want to get married too.

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is one of the best classic musicals — but it’s also a feminist nightmare. It’s a film dripping with misogyny — yet the songs are feverishly catchy, and the dance routines are beautifully choreographed. Stanley Donen’s musical is probably like that one uncle you only see at Christmas: problematically sexist, yet somehow, still lovable.

It’s 1850 and Adam Pontipee (Howard Keel) decides he needs a wife. When this backwoodsman makes his way into town, he encounters Milly (Jane Powell) — it’s love at first sight. After a gruff proposal, Adam and Milly are soon married, and she travels back with him to his cabin in the Oregon woods. Though excited to start life with her new husband, Adam reveals he hasn’t been entirely honest: she’ll also be starting life with…