Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

In 1850 Oregon Territory, backwoodsman Adam Pontipee goes to town for supplies and to find a bride. He meets Milly, the pretty young cook at the town bar. Seeing her strength, hardworking attitude, and culinary skills, he proposes. She accepts and they immediately marry, but upon arriving at the Pontipee mountain homestead, Milly discovers that Adam has six younger brothers—Benjamin, Caleb, Daniel, Ephraim, Frank, and Gideon—who are uncouth and expect Milly to clean and cook for them. Milly angrily ruins dinner and retreats to the bedroom, where she bans Adam from their bed. Adam, unwilling to go back downstairs and face his brothers' mockery, crawls out the window to sleep in a nearby tree; eventually, Milly and Adam reconcile, with Milly regretting her high hopes concerning marriage. Milly begins teaching Adam's brothers hygiene and manners; eventually, this extends to advice on romance and courtship. At a town barn-raising event, the Pontipees display their newly acquired social graces as they meet Dorcas, Ruth, Martha, Liza, Sarah, and Alice, who are immediately attracted to the brothers. The women's initial suitors, overcome with jealousy, attack the Pontipees during the barn-raising. Although they keep their tempers initially, they fight back when Adam is attacked unprovoked. In the ensuing brawl, the barn is destroyed. As winter sets in, the brothers pine for their loves back in town. To console them, Adam reads from Milly's copy of Plutarch's Parallel Lives about the Sabine women, whom the ancient Romans kidnapped to be their wives. Adam then claims his brothers should do the same to get their prospective brides. The Pontipees sneak into town at night and kidnap the women. As they race back to the homestead, the brothers trigger an avalanche that blocks the mountain pass, stopping their pursuers. However, the Pontipees realize they neglected to procure a parson to conduct the wedding ceremonies and are snowed in until spring. Milly is furious with Adam and the brothers and exiles them to the barn while the women stay in the house. Humiliated and angered by Milly's rebuke, Adam leaves for the Pontipees' trapping cabin to spend the winter alone. Over the winter, the women vent their anger by pranking the brothers, but their feelings gradually soften towards them. Meanwhile, Milly reveals she is expecting a baby. By springtime, the women and the Pontipees have happily paired off. When Milly has a baby girl, Gideon goes to inform Adam, who refuses to return. Gideon chastises Adam over his selfishness and behavior towards Milly. Adam returns after the snow melts and meets his daughter. He and Milly reconcile. Adam admits that being a father, he now understands how families feel about their daughters and tells his brothers they must return the women. The heartbroken brothers agree to take them home. However, the women hide and refuse to go back. As the brothers search, the women's angry families reach the Pontipees' homestead. As the townsmen sneak up to the farm, Alice's father, Reverend Elcott, hears a baby crying. Fearing the worst, he asks the women whose baby it is. They immediately conspire together and simultaneously answer "mine!" The fathers begrudgingly allow their daughters to marry the brothers in a collective shotgun wedding.