Bathing Beauty (1944)

Load of rubbish!!

Instant Favorite.

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Red Skelton as the pink-tutu ballerina is always hilarious and heartwarming. Esther Williams looks stunning, as always. The dog is a riot, and I love the part where Red calls him 'Lassie', lol. Basil Rathbone as a funny guy is so different from that droll type of part he usually plays. The "I'll Take the High Note" scene was brilliant. Red Skelton as more of the straight man, romantic type, is different and refreshing. That he could dance as well as sing was surprising, and he looked so professional, showing up that music professor. The lady playing the organ was fantastic, and those beautifully-designed shoes she wore were so excellent to look at. Good to see the famous Harry James and Xavier Cugat in this movie.

I referred to this film, without naming it, in a review of PARLOR, BEDROOM, AND BATH the other day.Red Skelton is a successful composer, and he is smitten when he meets swimming champ Esther Williams. He intends to marry her, and this puts a crimp in the plans of Skelton's producer "friend" Basil Rathbone. Rathbone manages to sabotage Skelton's wedding, causing a furious Williams to toss him aside and return to her old female college to resume her job as an athletics instructor. Skelton finds he is not allowed (by the rules of the college) to visit Williams, and that she won't meet him outside. So, he signs up as a student. The rest of the plot follows the course as Skelton tries to win back Williams, complicated by her anger at him, the machinations of Rathbone to prevent this reconciliation, and the desires of the college President and Board of Trustees to force Skelton out (hopefully by a violation of the strict rules of the college).Let's face it, like many musical comedies it is a silly plot. It is interesting that in 1944 they would tackle the issue of single sex colleges (like Mount Holyoke or Bryn Mawr) in America - but tackle it with one of the female schools, instead of looking at the issue of the male dominated colleges. However, the plot dictated a female school.Esther Williams has several fine displays of her swimming abilities in the movie, and Skelton is wisely out of these until the clincher shot in the end (when she rescues him, but he finds the water a perfect shield for some last minute privacy). I should add that the Technicolor stock of the film is high grade, and a pleasure to look at.Rathbone had played comedy well before this. Usually he could show a cynical sense of humor (in IF I WERE KING, for example, his King Louis XI of France - the historical "Spider King" - has some nice zingers, courtesy of screenplay writer Preston Sturges). In the Bing Crosby film RHYTHM ON THE RIVER, Rathbone had a very funny role as a self-deluded composer who lost his abilities to compose when he lost his girlfriend (his sidekick Oscar Levant keeps undercutting this self-pity by reminding Rathbone the girlfriend he mourns married a Pasta manufacturer and got fat!). Unfortunately here Basil has only one or two brief funny moments of dialog with Skelton, and he is fleeing an angry Skelton at the conclusion, but it is not enough. He was better served as Danny Kaye's partner in THE COURT JESTER.Skelton does nicely in his role, and I recall that one scene that is in this film that reminded me of the scene in PARLOR, BEDROOM, AND BATH. The powers that be at the university (and Rathbone) realize that they can expel Skelton if he violates curfew. He has been trapped inside someone's home, and there is a dog watching the outside that won't let Skelton out. So he stands a good chance of violating curfew.Buster Keaton, aside from an occasional film part, was mostly a gag writer at this time, and he used a variant of the BEDROOM, PARLOR, AND BATH, gag regarding the door of the closet that briefly conceals Charlotte Greenwood in that film. Here, Skelton notices the hinges of the front door can be lifted out. He removes the hinges and then lifts the door so that an opening on one side allows the dog to come in, while an opening on the other side allows Skelton to go out. Then he slides the door back so the dog can't follow him. The scene ends with the confused dog barking at the closed door, while a happy Skelton heads back to his dormitory.I'm not sure if this was the first time Keaton was assigned to work with Skelton, but they would have a very fruitful and successful collaboration into the early 1950s (far better than Keaton's nightmare with Groucho Marx on GO WEST), with such films as A SOUTHERN YANKEE and WATCH THE BIRDIE (a remake of Keaton's last great film THE CAMERAMAN) to their joint credits.

One MGM musical of the time launched a career that flourished for the balance of the decade… A champion swimmer and a tall, strikingly pretty woman, Esther Williams had played small roles in two MGM films when she was starred in "Bathing Beauty." She played a swimming teacher at a girls' school whose husband (Red Skelton) enrolls at the school to be near her...The plot was merely an excuse for knockabout antics by Skelton and especially for Williams' aquacades… The pattern was fixed for the rest of the series of popular light musicals she starred in: Williams as a smiling mermaid moving balletically underwater to the strains of a pleasing melody… Bathing Beauty's finale is a lavish water spectacle with the star as the focal point of intricate underwater formations

I was fourteen-years-old when this film was released and naturally eager to see the fabulous Esther Williams. However, I was totally mesmerized by Harry James, premier trumpeter of his day. His playing was absolutely dynamite. I had never heard anything like it. I made up my mind then and there that I wanted to do that. I went on to a successful trumpet-playing career largely due to the initial influence of the great James. In those days (Mid 1940's) everyone wanted to be a trumpet player (unlike the deluge of guitars today)mainly due to the influence of Harry James. I am impressed to this day whenever the film is shown on TV. For those of you unfamiliar with the film or of Harry James, I strongly recommend it, especially for young budding trumpet players.