Free Mark Griffin by A Hundred or More Hidden Things: The Life, Films of Vincente Minnelli Page A

. . . It’s highly probable. We see a lot of each other and she’s a wonderful girl.” 1

    All speculation ended on February 16, 1954, when Vincente and Georgette wed in a Riverside ceremony termed a “surprise marriage” by the press. For many in the Hollywood community, the phrasing could be interpreted in more than one way. Cyd Charisse changed out of her Brigadoon costume long enough to be Georgette’s matron of honor while dapper French actor Claude Dauphin served as Vincente’s best man. The couple’s honeymoon was postponed as production resumed on Minnelli’s latest musical extravaganza.

    BRIGADOON . THE VERY NAME was meant to conjure up images of rolling hills, sable skies, and, of course, the inescapable heather on the hill. If ever a movie cried out for open air, scenic vistas, and local color, it was Production #1645. Expectations were through the roof for MGM’s widescreen version of the triumphant Broadway musical about a pair of American malcontents who stumble upon a mythical Scottish village that springs to life for a single day every hundred years. When the original stage production opened at “the house of hits”—the Ziegfeld Theatre—in 1947, Brigadoon was showered with rapturous reviews (“All the arts of the theatre have been woven into a singing pattern of enchantment,” said the New York Times 2 ). The musical racked up 581 performances, netted the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and solidified the reputations of musical-comedy’s new dynamic duo, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. The talented team was now being touted as the best thing to happen to the American musical since Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein.
    It seemed a good omen when Lerner was tapped to adapt his own libretto for the screen. And given the fact that the property was a lush musical fantasy, Minnelli seemed a very natural choice as director. After all, Brigadoon ’s lovers-in-a-race-against-time scenario was essentially The Clock in kilts. If the saga of MacConnachy Square could succeed within the confines of a New York theater, surely the movies could make a good thing even better by souping it up with what the ads trumpeted as “Breathtaking CinemaScope” and “Gayest Color.” MGM was fully confident that its production of the musical would improve upon the stage show by featuring popular stars whom the paying customer out in Omaha had actually heard of.
    In March 1951, it was announced that Gene Kelly and Kathryn Grayson—the stars of Anchors Aweigh in 1945—would be reunited in Brigadoon . With Kelly in the lead, it became immediately apparent that Lerner and Loewe’s enchanting score (which included “The Heather on the Hill” and “Almost Like Being in Love”) would take a backseat to the star’s fancy footwork. “It
became a dancing show instead of a singing show,” says Lerner’s longtime assistant Stone Widney. Exit Kathryn Grayson. Enter Moira Shearer. The striking, flame-haired ballerina had delivered a star-making performance in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes . Whereas Grayson hailed from Winston Salem, North Carolina, Shearer was an authentic Scottish lass. As fate would have it, Shearer’s ballet company was reluctant to release its star for the length of the film’s shooting schedule, however, and Metro finally settled on someone closer to home: contract player and Freed Unit favorite Cyd Charisse.

    Vincente married his second wife, Georgette Magnani (“The Sister of Miss Universe”), in 1954. PHOTO COURTESY OF PHOTOFEST
    “I was excited about being in it, but it started off badly,” Charisse recalled. “That was because Kelly wanted to film it on location, in Scotland, while the studio said no, that was impractical because of the weather there, and insisted it be done in Hollywood. Minnelli preferred shooting inside a soundstage, so tons of earth were moved onto several soundstages and it was all shot inside.” 3 The heathered hills of