Perhaps it's a generational thing and my growing up in the afterglow of this film and others like it, or maybe it's that I'm right now listening to the lovely MGM film soundtrack, but I find Brigadoon a very charming and beautiful musical. Brigadoon might have shortcomings as a film, but it is not a dramatic film; it's a musical. Several of the elements panned on these boards should be taken easily in stride as part of the (literally) stagy replication typical of musicals of the period and as adding to the intended fantasy. (Yeah, yeah, it would have been nice to have filmed Brigadoon on location in Scotland, but so what? Studio filming still was a norm.)

Although not made up of perfect singers or linguists, the cast is exceptionally strong and just about right for the characters as written. So Gene Kelly isn't the best singer. That's fine. He still sounds better than I and he fits his part very well.

I associate the many beautiful Lerner & Loewe songs with the film ... some of the sweetest love songs imaginable, along with some fun, more rollicking numbers. Heather On the Hill; Almost Like Being in Love; There But for You Go I; From This Day On; Come to Me, Bend to Me [some in outtakes on the Turner 1996 edition soundtrack] ... these are wonderful songs and performances.

I would love to see an "updated" version, but mostly because I love the original so much, and the more the better. I'll take the grumbling of some on the posts to be, in its own way, clear recognition of the power of the story, the play, the songs and, yes, even of the film itself. Such attention, even if much of it is "glass half empty" based, reflects the continuing wonderful hold of this beautiful 54-year old film.