The 'Seven Brothers' were French Cdn. Catholics not liked by Protestants
The "Seven Brothers" were French Cdn. Catholics not liked by Protestants who settled in Oregon.
The movie does not present the story as a battle between different, rival religious groups (Catholics vs. Protestants), but a re-write of the script to emphasize the Catholic identity of the Pontepee brothers would be interesting (the script doesn't need re-writing, I realize....it justifiably won the movie's only Academy Award for best screenplay).
If the movie presented a musical comedy (with dancing) about competing Catholic and Protestant groups in 1850 Oregon (!), viewers might have seen the following......
When "Millie" (Jane Powell) arrives for the first time at her new home, she probably would have seen the leave behinds from Adam Pontepee's Catholic parents, including traditional Roman Catholic religious household decoration items such as crucifix type "Catholic" version crosses, which show the body of Jesus on the cross (Protestant crosses are most often simply plain crosses...no hanging, agonized body seen), candles everywhere, and grottoes with Catholic saints in statue form outside the farmhouse.
Millie might have been asked to welcome and hostess itinerant, mendicant Catholic missionaries (Jesuits and Franciscans and others), always welcomed at the few frontier Catholic households.
The same story told differently might have depicted the conversion of Millie (Jane Powell) and the 6 kidnapped girls from town into zealous, religious Catholic girls crossing themselves at every excuse, and lighting candles to honor favorite saints.
This theme can be made very comic......overly religious Catholic women.
The movie titled "Lovers And Other Strangers" (1970) includes a wonderful character played by Beatrice Arthur who plays the Catholic "religious nut" mother of two Italian boys in the movie, one about to be married, one about to get a divorce (which the mother....Beatrice Arthur...objects to hilariously!).
The issue of rivalry and problems between Catholics and Protestants during the 19th century in the USA was very important, yet not much emphasized in present day history books and depictions of the period, or in Hollywood movies, which show 19th century frontier Catholics mostly as unlettered Hispanics only. East coast type Catholics from French, English, or German backgrounds are seldom seen, and Irish Catholics are mostly charactures....gangsters and/or comic types.
But the "Pontepee" brothers were Catholics.....maybe Millie had a second wedding later on before a Caholic priest........who knows?
The "Seven Brides" (1954) movie showed none of this, and made no reference to religious differences as the reason the "Pontepee" brothers were scorned by the (rural Protestant) community.
But inclusion of the Catholic vs. Protestant rivalries, cultural differences, prejudices, etc. would have made an interesting and certainly different movie.
Catholics are traditionally more artistic than Protestants (Lord Kenneth Clark states in the famous "Civilisatiion" 1968 BBC documentary that there is no such thing as specifically Protestant religious art or architecture, also that Catholics are "not afraid of the human body"....and images of it....but that is not true of Protestants).
The contrast of the way the Pontepee brothers dance in contrast to town boys during the famous "Barn Building Ballet" dance emphasizes this, and so does the way the Seven Brothers are dressed....in bright, attractive colors, quite a contrast to the drab, dull clothes of the Protestant town boys.
"Seven Brides, etc." was based on a Stephen Vincent Benet short story titled "The Sobbin' Women" about prejudice against French Canadians (the "Pontepee" brothers were French Canadian Catholics, and thus not welcome in rural Protestant Oregon as they also weren't welcome in rural Protestant New England where Benet was raised with other French Canadians).
Benet himself was a minority person who attended Yale U., had a famous writing career, then died at an early age in the early WWII years.
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Tex Allen is an accredited SAG-AFTRA union Middle Atlantic States movie actor. (Visit WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen for a detailed list of SAG movie credits since 2004....includes 15 major Hollywood studio feature movies and 8 major national TV drama projects).
Prior to full time actor work, Tex Allen worked in 2 other careers, one career as a public relations manager for major Hollywood USA movie studios, major USA and Canadian corporations, and major non-profit organizations (Blue Cross/ Blue Shield and others); the second career as a professional library manager for major USA federal and local government libraries (library work details below).........
(Details of library work....Intern at Library of Congress Manuscripts Div., Mgr. at U.S. Treasury Dept. Bur./Engraving/Printing Research Library, Reference librarian at Balto. County MD USA Public Libraries, at one time the USA's busiest suburban public library system), also school and private libraries.)
Email: [email protected].