"How wondeful it would be to cook and care for one man" - Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Directed by Stanley Donen
Screenplay by Albert Hackett
Frances Goodrich
Dorothy Kingsley
Based on "The Sobbin' Women" 1938 story in Argosy by Stephen Vincent Benét
Produced by Jack Cummings
Starring: Jane Powell, Howard Keel, Jeff Richards, Russ Tamblyn, Tommy Rall
Cinematography: George Folsey
Edited by Ralph E. Winters
Music by Gene de Paul
Lyrics by Johnny Mercer
Musical direction by Adolph Deutsch
Musical supervision by Saul Chaplin
Production company: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Distributed by Loew's, Inc.
Release dates: July 15, 1954 (Houston, Texas), July 22, 1954 (New York), December 20, 1954 (United States)
Running time: 102 minutes
Country: United States
Language: English
Budget: $2,540,000
Box office: $9,403,000
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Seven Brides for Seven Brothers won the Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture and was nominated for four additional awards, including Best Picture. In 2004, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
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In 1850, backwoodsman Adam Pontipee arrives at an Oregon Territory town to look for a bride. He eventually meets Milly and proposes to her after seeing the quality of her cooking and her insistence on finishing her chores before she leaves with him. Despite not knowing him well, she accepts under the belief she is taking care of only him.

When they arrive at his mountain cabin however, she is surprised to learn that he has six brothers – Benjamin, Caleb, Daniel, Ephraim, Frank, and Gideon. An angered Milly accuses Adam of manipulating her into becoming his servant, but he acknowledges that he needs her help due to how difficult living in the backwoods is and plans on sleeping outside to avoid losing face with his brothers, after Milly throws him out of the room. She eventually lets Adam sleep inside upon seeing him crawl up to sleep in a tree, explaining she had high hopes regarding marriage and love.

The next morning, Milly teaches the Pontipees cleanliness and proper manners. She is later shocked to learn Adam's brothers are unmarried as they rarely see girls and never learned how to communicate with them. Despite initial difficulties in changing their "mountain man" ways, they eventually realize they can only get brides by following Milly's example. At a barn-raising social-gathering, the brothers meet Dorcas, Ruth, Martha, Liza, Sarah, and Alice, all of whom take a fancy to each other despite the women already having suitors, who taunt the Pontipees. The brothers resist the urge to fight at Milly's request, but the suitors attack Adam, provoking Gideon to retaliate. A brawl ensues, in which the physically superior Pontipees overpower the suitors, but are expelled from town.

As winter comes and the brothers pine for the women they fell in love with, Milly asks Adam to help them. He reads his brothers "The Sobbin' Women" and Milly's Bible, telling them they should do whatever it takes to get their loves.

With Adam's aid, the brothers kidnap the six women before causing an avalanche in Echo Pass to stop the townspeople pursuing them. However, the Pontipees realize they forgot to kidnap a parson to conduct their weddings. Furious at the Pontipees' actions, Milly forces the men to live in the barn while the women stay in the house with her, sleeping in the brothers' beds. In response, a similarly furious Adam leaves for the Pontipees' trapping cabin further up the mountain to spend the winter alone. Gideon tells Milly, but she refuses to stop him.

Over the winter, the women vent their frustrations by pranking the remaining Pontipees and musing upon their slowly softening feelings towards marriage. Spring arrives and the women and the Pontipees are paired off and happy in each other's company until Milly announces she is having Adam's baby. She gives birth to a baby girl named Hannah in the spring and Gideon leaves to tell Adam. Adam still refuses to return, despite learning he has a daughter, so Gideon berates him for his selfishness and punches him before leaving. After the snow in Echo Pass melts, Adam returns. Upon meeting his daughter, he realizes how worried the townspeople must be over the missing women and tells his brothers they should return them; but having fallen in love the six couples are unwilling to part and the women run and hide rather than go back to town. Milly tells the brothers, who track them down only to encounter the angry townspeople, who have come through the pass intending to hang them for kidnapping the girls.

Alice's father, Reverend Elcott, hears Hannah crying as the townspeople sneak up onto the farm. Worried the baby might belong to one of the six women, he asks the women whose child Hannah is. After they all answer "mine", the fathers agree to give the six brothers and the six women a collective shotgun wedding.