Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)

by Nathaniel R

Jane Powell is no Julie Andrews but she does take a spin on a hilltop while singing in MGM's "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers"

Our film title this week on Hit Me With Your Best Shot is Seven Brides for Seven Brothers which is streaming on HBOMax. We knew we'd need to chase The Godfather with something lighter so we opted for a musical. So saddle up, and ride into this absurdly problematic but bouncy and colorful comedy after the jump...

Click to read more ...

13 Links

• Tom and Lorenzo Jessica Chastain goes full disco queen at the premiere of The Eyes of Tammy Faye
• Out Very sad about this. HBOMax has cancelled the excellent queer series that you aren't watching Genera+ion. We can only hope its ferociously talented leading man Justice Smith gets another role as good soon. Martha Plimpton the shows other MVP is never lacking for work so we don't worry about her
• Forbes why Chris Nolan chose Universal as he leaves his longtime Warner Bros home

Betty Boop, Simu Liu, Miriam Margolyes, Stephen Sondheim, The Bodyguard, and more after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Howard Keel Centennial: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)

We're celebrating music man Howard Keel's centennial this week. Here's Lynn Lee...

In many ways, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) marked the peak of Keel’s MGM career, coming after his breakout role in Annie, Get Your Gun and his star turns in Showboat and the less-successful but still-classic Kiss Me, Kate!  Keel’s film career would fade in the years that followed, although he continued to enjoy success on the stage and in later life would find TV fame with his role on “Dallas.”  It was Seven Brides, though, that captured Keel in his screen prime as an appealing and charismatic musical actor who managed to make a problematic character (to say the least) surprisingly compelling.

Full disclosure: Seven Brides was one of my favorite movies growing up, and remains one of my all-time favorite musicals.  As a young child I loved it even more than West Side Story and The Sound of Music because it felt like a happier movie than the other two...

Click to read more ...

On this day: Dietrich Ascends, Elvis Screen-Tests, and Leslie Cheung Dies

on this day in history as it relates to showbiz...

Lon Chaney as The Phantom of the Opera1776 Pioneering mathematician Sophie Germain born. She's mentioned in the movie Proof but where's her biopic? There are so many 'hidden figures' out there to tell stories about
1883 Silent film star and "Man of a Thousand Faces" Lon Chaney is born. Becomes legendary doing monstrous film roles with early horror makeup: clowns, phantoms, hunchbacks, you name it...

Click to read more ...