Brigadoon

B is also for buff, film buff that is. That's me.

The movie Brigadoon came out in 1954 when I was a freshman in college. It was based on the Alan Jay Lerner Broadway musical of the same name and featured a fine cast and many of Lerner & Loew's best songs. Dated as the film is by today's standards I still have fond memories of the story and music.

This is a whimsical love story set in a misty version of a long ago time. It plays to our desire for the unattainable, to remain forever young and in love. No wonder it was so popular in that post-Korea era!

Because I studied German literature I noticed a similarity to the German story Germelshausen by Gerstacker. That, in turn, was based on the ancient tale of a town that falls under an evil enchantment and disappears, reappearing for just one day each century. Like the town, the story keeps resurfacing, so we must be due for a new version. I can't wait to see how it is treated in today's idiom!

The obvious and comforting point here (for some!) is that however much civilization may "improve" us over the centuries, in our hearts we humans remain the same.

Several of the Brigadoon songs were long-runing hits in the day. My favorite is sung here by Frank Sinatra. We girls were all in love with him, and our mothers were convinced that all that "swooning" and screaming was terribly unhealthy for us. (Adolescent females then were pretty much like today's.)