We're celebrating music man Howard Keel's centennial this week. Here's Lynn Lee...
In many ways, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) marked the peak of Keel’s MGM career, coming after his breakout role in Annie, Get Your Gun and his star turns in Showboat and the less-successful but still-classic Kiss Me, Kate! Keel’s film career would fade in the years that followed, although he continued to enjoy success on the stage and in later life would find TV fame with his role on “Dallas.” It was Seven Brides, though, that captured Keel in his screen prime as an appealing and charismatic musical actor who managed to make a problematic character (to say the least) surprisingly compelling.
Full disclosure: Seven Brides was one of my favorite movies growing up, and remains one of my all-time favorite musicals. As a young child I loved it even more than West Side Story and The Sound of Music because it felt like a happier movie than the other two...
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