Production
Producer J. Arthur Rank acquired the rights of the official play in February 1951. According to the press, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer "paid a fortune" for the rights, and Gene Kelly and Kathryn Grayson were named in the leads a month later. By the time they were cast, a script was not written yet, although it was reported that Alan Jay Lerner was expected to start on the script a week later. Furthermore, Alec Guinness was also set for a role and David Wayne, Moira Shearer and Donald O'Connor were under consideration for one.
According to the film's director, Vincente Minnelli, O'Connor competed with Steve Allen and Bill Hayes for the role of 'Jeff'. Cyd Charisse replaced Grayson in March 1953. Elaine Stewart was cast in the fourth lead in November 1953, and it was reported that she was more enthusiastic about working with Minnelli than with Kelly.
Because of Kelly's commitments to other film projects, production was delayed for a while, and it did not begin until 1953. MGM considered shooting the film on location in Scotland, but due to its unpredictable climate and high production costs, the idea was canned. Kelly and producer Arthur Freed traveled to Scotland to confirm for themselves if the weather was too unreliable, and they agreed with the studio. In Kelly's biography it was stated that "the weather was so bad that we had to agree with the studio. So we came back to the United States and started looking for locations here. We found some highlands above Monterey that looked like Scotland. But then the studio had an economy wave, and they clamped the lid on that idea." Much to the disappointment of the cast and crew, filming had to take place on the sound stages at MGM instead.
In addition, rather than being filmed in the expensive original three-strip Technicolor process with the 1.33:1 square-frame aspect ratio, the film was shot in single-strip Metrocolor and utilized CinemaScope, the newly patented 20th Century Fox 2.55:1 anamorphic widescreen process to add clarity and presence to the picture.
Read more about this topic: Brigadoon (film)
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“The growing of food and the growing of children are both vital to the family’s survival.... Who would dare make the judgment that holding your youngest baby on your lap is less important than weeding a few more yards in the maize field? Yet this is the judgment our society makes constantly. Production of autos, canned soup, advertising copy is important. Housework—cleaning, feeding, and caring—is unimportant.”
—Debbie Taylor (20th century)
“By bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labor. By proletariat, the class of modern wage laborers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live.”
—Friedrich Engels (1820–1895)
“I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views; for lies are always detected, sooner or later.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)