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 Bent, 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 Kidds 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 barnraising sequence in Seven Brides one of the most rousing dance numbers ever put on screen.
The year is 1850. The location is the Oregon Territory. A backwoodsman named Adam Pontipee comes into town to search for a bride. After being laughed at by the owners of the towns general store he goes out in search of a wife. He comes upon the local tavern where he meets Milly. Convinced of her worth by the quality of her cooking and her insistence on finishing her chores before she would leave with him, he proposes and she accepts 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. When they arrive at 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. ........
Source: Wikipedia