Brigadoon Soundtrack CD

The Rhino version of BRIGADOON is the first to feature the soundtrack in its entirety. It also includes four previously unreleased outtakes from the film.

Brigadoon, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's first successful musical, had a more problematic transition to the screen than one might expect, given that Lerner wrote the screenplay. Budgetary conditions prevented it from being shot on location in Scotland and, in widescreen CinemaScope, the MGM soundstage proved an artificial and limited backdrop for the dance sequences. Star Gene Kelly was more a dancer than a singer, and co-stars Cyd Charisse and Jimmy Thompson didn't sing at all; their songs were dubbed by Carol Richards and John Gustafsen. While all the songs were taken from the stage score, there were only six of them in the finished film. Amazingly, "Come to Me, Bend to Me," one of the most memorable songs from the show, was cut from the movie, along with "There But for You Go I," and the risqué numbers "My Mother's Weddin' Day" and "The Love of My Life." What was left may not have seemed like enough to justify a soundtrack album, but MGM Records included "Come to Me, Bend to Me" (sung by Gustafsen) and "There But for You Go I" (sung by Kelly), along with some orchestral music, to come up with a ten-track disc running under 28 minutes, long enough by the standards of 1954 LPs. The MGM studio orchestra expands the Broadway instrumentation, giving the music a bigger sound. Kelly is a limited but warm singer. The dubbers, Richards, affecting a brogue on "Waitin' for My Dearie," and Gustafsen, an airy tenor, are the real stars of the soundtrack album. The 1947 original Broadway cast album was not perfect, but it remained preferable to this rendition. [The soundtrack to Brigadoon was expanded twice for reissue in the 1990s. First Sony acquired the rights, and its Columbia Records label issued a version containing 16 tracks and running 60 minutes in 1990. Then, Rhino, as part of its deal with Turner Classic Movies, which had obtained the MGM film library, put out an even longer one, the initial 27-and-a-half-minute LP now inflated into a 69-minute CD. While the Columbia album added mainly instrumental scoring, the Rhino disc also included several reprises sung by Richards.] ~ William Ruhlmann

Includes liner notes by Will Friedwald and Didier Deutsch.

Principal cast includes: Gene Kelly, Van Johnson, Cyd Charisse.

Producers: Bradley Flanagan, George Feltenstein.