Metacritic-Rezensionen

With its lilting Lerner-Loewe score and great Kelly dance numbers, this is almost a Hollywood musical masterpiece. But it's sabotaged by the airless "outdoor" studio sets mandated by MGM. [13 Mar 1998, p.L]

A classic - if not the classic - Minnelli musical, Brigadoon is an explicit statement about (and partial criticism of) the notion that an artist only lives through his art, preferring its reality to the world's.

The opening and closing passages of this 1954 adaptation of Lerner and Loewe rank with Vincente Minnelli’s finest, most purely cinematic work—magnificent orchestrations of textures, colors, and movements. What comes between is soggy: a stiff and literal interpretation of the book, filmed on obvious sound stages with a “natural splendor” you could put your fist through.

At least the dancing is good, and Vincente Minnelli’s restless camera gooses a plodding story into liveliness.

In transferring Brigadoon, a click as a [1947] Broadway musical play, to the screen, Metro has medium success. It's a fairly entertaining tunefilm of mixed appeal.

Overdone and not particularly tasteful musical stuff and nonsense.

Vincente Minnelli's direction lacks his usual vitality and flow. Brigadoon on the screen, we must say, is pretty weak synthetic Scotch.

Possibly Minnelli's worst screen musical.

Vincente Minnelli's fantasy musical is completely barmy and not one of his best. The songs are a mixed bag, but it's fun all the same. [11 Sep 2010, p.30]

Probably the material was too precious and fake-lyrical to have worked in natural surroundings, either, but the way it has been done it's hopelessly stagey.