Brigadoon

Brigadoon (1954)

3 mistakes

(1 vote)

Factual error: After Gene Kelly sings "The Heather on the Hill", he sees more heather on the other side of the bridge. He starts across but Cyd Charisse freezes in horror, since to cross the bridge would break the spell over the village of Brigadoon. She then drops some of her heather in the middle of the path and runs back to the village. The camera cuts to Gene Kelly chasing after her, but the heather dropped on the path has disappeared.

Continuity mistake: When Van Johnson sneaks away from the girl in the rocking chair, she is sleeping with his hat in her lap. In the next scene, he has his hat back.

Continuity mistake: When Tommy is back in the city in the bar, zoning out and hearing songs in his memory, he hears Fiona sing "Waitin' for M'Dearie." Unless there were speakers in Fiona's home, turned up and pointed across the bridge, he never could have heard that song.

Mr. Lundie: Two hundred years ago, the highlands of Scotland were plagued with witches, wicked sorcerers that were taking the Scottish people away from the teachings of God and putting the Devil into their souls. They were indeed horrible destructive women. I dinna suppose you have such women in your country?
Tommy Albright: Witches?
Jeff Douglas: Oh we have 'em. We pronounce it differently.

More quotes from Brigadoon

Question: Can someone explain to me how the enchantment over the village works? I haven't seen the movie for a while, but when Fiona takes Tommy and Jeff to see the teacher who tells them the story of how the place became magical, he says something about the village waking up every hundred years. So is every day a hundred years later in the real world and only a day to them? It just seems strange that Charlie and Jean would wait hundreds of years to get married, and after Harry dies, Fiona's dad says that everyone can find out in the next morning (which would be a hundred years later). Also when Tommy comes back at the end, the village comes to life again even though it disappeared into the mist when him and Jeff were leaving to go back to New York.

Answer: The way it works is, the village comes to life for one day once every one hundred years. It is not the same day over and over. It is always one day forward. For example if the one full day that the village came alive was on June 1st, then after one hundred years, the next day would be June 2nd, then another one hundred years, June 3rd, and so on. Each time the villagers awaken, the passage of time to them is always like only one day had passed.

raywest Premium member

More questions & answers from Brigadoon

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.