Seven Brides for Seven Brothers



Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is a Musical, based on a short story by Stephen Vincent Benet, that was made into a film in 1954 and staged on Broadway in 1984. The movie focuses on Adam Pontipee and his new bride Milly on the American frontier. Adam has six rowdy lumberjack brothers, who each are also looking for a wife. Milly tries to train them into being gentlemen, but they go against that and kidnap the women they are sweet on instead of properly courting. An avalanche traps the women with the men over the winter, and they warm up to each other. The musical was in part based off of (and namechecks) The Rape Of The Sabine Women.

While a classic musical, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers suffers from nearly-fatal Values Dissonance in the 21st century thanks to Society Marching On where male-female relationships are concerned.


 * Abduction Is Love: Former Trope Namer.
 * Adaptation Expansion
 * Alphabetical Theme Naming / Family Theme Naming: The brothers have been named alphabetically from the Old Testament: Adam, Benjamin, Caleb, Daniel, Ephraim, Frank (short for Frankincense, the Old Testament having no names beginning with F), and Gideon.
 * And
 * Altar the Speed: Millie and Adam get married after knowing each other only a few hours.
 * Angry Mob Song: The Townspeople's Lament in the stage version.
 * Babies Make Everything Better
 * Barn Raising
 * Berserk Button: Frank is incensed by people knowing the long form of his name.
 * Beta Couple: Gideon and Alice.
 * The Cast Showoff: Brothers C-F were played by professional dancers. All the brides were as well, which gave us "June Bride". And Russ Tamblyn, playing Gideon, had training as a gymnast.
 * Color Coded for Your Convenience: See Fiery Redhead.
 * Also, Gideon has a blue shirt in over half of the scenes.
 * Courtly Love: Described in Going Courting.
 * Deliver Us From Evil: A rare male example, since the birth of his daughter makes Adam stop being a Jerkass.
 * Embarrassing First Name: The brothers' parents named them after Biblical characters going down through the alphabet. They hit a snag when they came to the letter F, so they named their son Frankincense. Let's say he's not exactly fond of it.
 * Fiery Redhead: All seven Pontipee brothers.
 * Flipping the Table: Done by Millie when she sees the men's atrocious table manners.
 * Have a Gay Old Time
 * He Cleans Up Nicely: Millie remarks how handsome her new brother-in-laws are when she makes them all bathe and shave.
 * The Kindnapper: All of the six brothers who are bachelors in the beginning. They kidnap the women with the intention of marrying them, but they do state that they want to "make them Sobbin' women smile" and they intend for the kidnappings to result in happy marriages.
 * No Social Skills: The first time the brothers see a girl, they try to start a conversation by offering them tobacco to chew. Even after another man steps in and accuses them of insulting a lady, the brothers are still clueless.
 * One Head Taller: Adam and Millie in the movie.
 * Pair the Spares: All six of them!
 * Plank Gag: Frank is the victim of one of these during the barn-raising contest, except it was intention and was only (poorly) disguised as an accident.
 * Plucky Girl: Millie.
 * Religious and Mythological Theme Naming
 * Screen to Stage Adaptation
 * Shotgun Wedding: It ends with all of the title characters having this, although by then they had all fallen in love with each other.
 * Stockholm Syndrome
 * That Reminds Me of a Song
 * Weddings for Everyone
 * The Wild West
 * Yamato Nadeshiko / Silk Hiding Steel: Millie fits the first trope remarkably well despite being non-Japanese. She fits the second for living in the territorial United States.