Bathing Beauty (1944) | Esther Williams, Red Skelton

Bathing Beauty (1944) | Esther Williams, Red Skelton | Everybody into the pool... and stay on camera!

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My Listmania May 2009 Choose Ava Gardner Rebecca De Mornay Bathing Beauty (1944)

	Bathing Beauty (1944) Esther Williams, Red Skelton MGM/UA Home Video average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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Hoping to win back his estranged swimming-coach wife (Esther Williams), a lovestruck songwriter (Red Skelton) enrolls in a women's college, and graduates "summa cum laude" in Comedy! Red's in rare form and Esther's in form-fitting swimsuite in this delighfully dizzy musical farce. BATHING BEAUTY begins with a splash: Xavier Cugat plays, Red clowns and Esther plunges into a pool. From there, things go, well... swimmingly. The college is loaded with pretty MGM starlets. Cugie shakes up more hot South American rhythms. A fine cast, including Basil Rathbone, Donald Meek, Janis Paige, and Groucho Marx's favorite foil, Margaret Dumont, gives expert support. The finale is a wowser of a water ballet featuring the movies' favoring bathing beauty swimming gracefully along alternating jets of water and falme. But Esther isn't the only artistic lovely. Red dons a pink tutu for a college ballet class and reduces Tchaikovsky to chopped liver. Dive in!

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Where's the DVD?

A genuine 'morale movie' from WWII, this movie is genuine entertainment! Dancing, swimming, Technicolor, and good, clean fun! It's amazing that more people don't know about this movie; it seems to be more well-known in China than the U.S. Where's the DVD?

Everybody into the pool... and stay on camera!

After she appeared in 1942 as Mickey Rooney's love interest in ANDY HARDY'S DOUBLE LIFE (VHS only), MGM created the sub-genre of "aqua musical" for up-and-comer Esther Williams. BATHING BEAUTY was the initial offering in this popular Technicolor series and the first dip in the cinematic pool for "America's Mermaid."

Williams and Red Skelton headline a solid cast that includes an even stronger musical lineup: The Guadalajara Trio (doing a delightful version of "Bim, Bam, Bum"), the Xavier Cugat and Harry James outfits, plus virtuoso organist Ethel Smith. (Cameos: Mickey Rooney's dad, Joe Yule portrays a bartender. Buster Keaton's wife swims. Janis Paige, who starred on Broadway in "The Pajama Game" in 1954, debuts here as "Janis.")

SYNOPSIS--
Swim instructor Caroline Brooks (Williams) angrily returns to her teaching job at a New Jersey girls school when her brand new marriage to songwriter Steve Elliott (Skelton) is disrupted by scheming show producer George Adams (Rathbone). In order to speak with his estranged bride, Steve forces admission to the college, which has never been legally declared "all female."

To rid the campus of this pushy interloping tunesmith, Dean Clinton (Bryant) places Steve on two weeks' probation, during which time she plans to hit him with 100 demerits and mandatory expulsion. Steve also encounters heavy resistance from faculty, students AND a distant Caroline, who wants their marriage annulled.

"Bathing Beauty" is available on DVD (along with four other musicals) in TCM SPOTLIGHT - ESTHER WILLIAMS, VOL. 1.

Skelton and Williams followed this picture up with minor roles in the 1946 extravaganza, ZIEGFELD FOLLIES. (VHS) (DVD)

Parenthetical number preceding title is a 1 to 10 viewer poll rating found at a film resource website.

(7.2) Bathing Beauty (1944) - Red Skelton/Esther Williams/Basil Rathbone/Bill Goodwin/Ethel Smith/Donald Meek/Margaret Dumont/Janis Paige (uncredited: Russell Hicks/Eleanor Keaton/Joe Yule Sr.)

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