Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is a movie musical released in 1954. It was directed by Stanley Donen, with music by Saul Chaplin and Gene de Paul , and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. The script (by Albert Hackett, Frances Goodrich, and Dorothy Kingsley ) is based on the short story The Sobbin' Women, by Stephen Vincent Benet.

The film is particularly known for the unusual choreography by Michael Kidd, which makes dance numbers out of such mundane frontier pursuits as chopping wood and (most famously) raising a barn.

Morton Downey Jr. almost had Russ Tamblyn's part (as "Gideon," one of the dancing "brothers") in this musical. The film starred Jane Powell and Howard Keel and featured Julie Newmar (of Batman and Rhoda the Robot ) among the dancing "brides."

A TV series was made from the film in 1982, but it ran only a year.