On Blu-ray: The Magnificent Esther Williams and Victor Mature in Million Dollar Mermaid (1952)

Before I saw Million Dollar Mermaid (1952) for the first time, I read the passage in Esther William’s juicy memoir about the hot after hours affair she had with co-star Victor Mature. For that reason, this film has always been extra spicy for me. I’ll never know how much of my enjoyment watching it has to do with me looking for sparks between those two.

It is a magnificent production though. This was a decade in which MGM reliably crafted boldly-colored, extravagant spectacles meticulously crafted to absorb the masses. While Esther Williams was hired for her abilities as a swimmer and performer in water extravaganzas, she was more than a pretty duck in a bathing cap. She didn’t have designs on being a great actress, but the camera loved her and she had charisma.

My favorite Williams flicks are the fluffiest: like Neptune’s Daughter (1949) and Dangerous When Wet (1953), where she flirts a bit on land, there’s a few musical numbers, and then she does her thing in the water. Million Dollar Mermaid is more ambitious than that; it’s a biopic of Williams’ sister in the water, Australian swimmer and vaudeville star Annette Kellerman. Of course it’s the glossy, MGM take on biography, with a light rendering of the contours of reality shined up with big romance and pretty production numbers.

While it doesn’t go down quite as easily as William’s lighter films, Million Dollar Mermaid works. It contains some of her most magnificently outrageous production numbers, designed with surreal flair by Busby Berkeley. The swimming star had great chemistry with Mature, and Walter Pidgeon is pleasantly avuncular as her father, so the rest of the film flows along nicely, but the unique magic of Williams in the water is timelessly fascinating and is what makes the film a must-see.

As far as Williams was concerned, this was her best work. There are photos of Kellerman visiting the set, posed happily with the star, so I am guessing she approved.

There's a a brief bio of Annette Kellerman and few clips from her films here in a post I wrote several years ago.


Many thanks to Warner Archive for providing a copy of the film for review. To order, visit The Warner Archive Collection.

On DVD: William Powell and a Land-Bound Esther Williams in The Hoodlum Saint (1946)

William Powell, Esther Williams and Angela Lansbury in a love triangle. Who thought up that one? I love all three of them, but I'd never put them together. It was this curious casting that led me to The Hoodlum Saint, now on DVD from Warner Archive.

Set in the years after World War I, Powell is Terry O'Neill, a veteran who returns home to find he has lost his job as a reporter. Barely missing a beat, he crashes a wedding, where with the help of socialite Kay Lorrison (Williams), he meets the right people and finds a job on another paper. Kay and Terry fall in love, but the socialite loses her beau when ambition leads him to work with an unsavory tycoon.

While Terry movies on to nightclub singer Dusty Millard (Lansbury), he never forgets Kay, much to the frustration of his chanteuse. He becomes wealthy, but not happy, and by discarding his old friends, he finds himself in more trouble.

The Hoodlum Saint is a pleasant enough experience, but it doesn't quite come together. There is never any real sense of peril. Problems are solved with relative ease, resulting in a lack of dramatic tension.

Part of the problem is a lack of unified tone. The movie starts like a comedy, and is even a little goofy , but then it makes an abrupt shift into drama. And it's not a very intense kind of drama; it just stops being lighthearted.

The leads aren't given much to work with, but they're enjoyable to watch. Powell is too old for his role, but once he starts talking in that familiar, jovial, cadence you start to feel at home. He's miscast, but not unwelcome.

While Williams could never have been a star if she'd stayed on land, she could act. That said, she's not particularly compelling here; I have to admit I made the mistake of thinking Carole Lombard would be good in her part as I watched those early comic scenes. Williams doesn't seem as happy in straight drama and that dims some of her charisma, though she is still an appealing presence.

Lansbury comes off best. I can't think of any time that she didn't. In these years she tended to play the gentle-hearted victim of love. Here she does get dumped, but rather than wilting away, she is dangerously icy in the way she'd be more often in later roles.

So about the curious casting? They're all fine together, but it never feels comfortable. I could never accept that these two women would get hot and bothered about Powell. He doesn't exude the power or sex appeal  that would inspire that reaction.

Still, it all works fine if you accept the movie on its own terms. Start comparing to other comedies and dramas and you might start to get restless. For fans of its stars though, it's worth the watch.

Many thanks to Warner Archive for providing a copy of the film for review. This is a Manufacture on Demand (MOD) DVD. To order, visit The Warner Archive Collection.

Quote of the Week

Wet, she was a star.

 -Joe Pasternak, about Esther Williams


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Before Esther Williams, There Was Annette Kellerman

While impatiently awaiting the release of volume two of the Esther Williams collection, I’ve been admiring the work of the first swimming star of the silver screen: Annette Kellerman. The Australian swimmer appeared in over twenty silent shorts, both as herself and in dramatic roles. Her movies were not as big a sensation as Williams’, but they were definitely more sensational: she is purported to be the first actress to appear nude in a major motion picture, in the 1916 silent, Daughter of the Gods.


However, movies are a small part of Kellerman’s rich legacy. A childhood cripple, she built up the strength to walk again by swimming. She kept training, and as a teenager she was a competitive swimmer. In 1905, she became famous for her three attempts to cross the English Channel, which, while unsuccessful, nevertheless brought her great admiration. She created another stir in on a Boston beach 1907 when, in a bathing suit that revealed more than the typical dress and bloomers combination of the day, she was arrested for public indecency. She contended that the billowy suits were dangerous and created this form-fitting, but less revealing wetsuit-type design as a compromise:

She eventually sold the suits, which would become the first modern women’s swimwear.

Though Esther Williams is often credited with creating the sport of synchronized swimming, Kellerman was equally, if not more influential. Her innovative water ballets, performed in a glass tank at the New York Hippodrome Theater, were enormously popular and helped to define performance swimming.

Kellerman visited Esther Williams at MGM when she was filming her life story, Million Dollar Mermaid (1952). In her autobiography, Williams wrote that Kellerman had been disappointed that an Australian had not been cast in the role. Williams reminded her that she was the only swimming movie star in Hollywood, let alone at MGM—a fact which Kellerman grudgingly accepted. In the end, Hollywood did recognize its first swimming star; Kellerman has a star on the Walk of Fame.

Here are a few clips of Annette Kellerman’s Hollywood films. The first is from Neptune’s Daughter (1914) (also the name of a 1949 Esther Williams movie, though the plot is entirely different):



This brief clip is from Annette Kellerman Performing Water Ballet (1925)



Here’s a lovely underwater scene from Venus of the South Seas (1924) (note the similarity to some of Esther Williams’ famous moves):



I never thought I'd write it on this blog, but this next shot is NSFW! Here's a link to a nude still from Kellerman's groundbreaking appearance in Daughter of the Gods

And here's another great page with more Kellerman shots.

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Four with Esther Williams

Tomorrow Esther Williams, MGM’s Technicolor mermaid of the studio age, will turn 88. What a fine opportunity to celebrate some of her best movies:

Bathing Beauty (1944)
This is the movie that truly made Esther Williams a star. Though the original title of this musical comedy had been Mr. Co-ed, sometime during production, studio executives realized that it was Williams, not her costar Red Skelton, who was grabbing attention. In addition to the name change, she was now featured in the advertising, wearing her swimsuit of course. She actually spends most of her time on dry land, but her two swimming scenes are each memorable in their own way. The first scene is rather low-key; Williams frolics happily in an outdoor pool, wearing a bright pink swimsuit and a glamorous smile. It’s a pleasant, but simple scene, totally unlike the grandeur of the finale, which included a jawdroppingly huge pool, dancing girls both dry and wet, shooting fountains of water. This amazing number would create the template for not only a new kind of dancing, but an Olympic sport. It was also the source of endless parodies, a true sign of success.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949)
There is a quote attributed to comedian Fanny Brice in which she says of Williams, “wet she’s a star, dry she ain’t.” I beg to differ. While she was not a legend on the level of Judy Garland, she had star power, and effective training from MGM helped her to build upon her natural presence. Unlike many actresses who were not primarily singers, she was able to record her own songs, and she had both dramatic and comedic skills that at least equaled many of the other musical ingénues and actresses on the lot. I think this movie is an excellent example of a successfully “dry” Esther Williams (there is only one brief scene in a pool and it isn’t a production number). She can’t dance, and she certainly isn’t going to steal the movie from Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra, but she has great comic flair and definitely holds her own against her more seasoned costars.

Million Dollar Mermaid (1952)
The amazing Busby Berkeley-choreographed swim ballets are reason enough to see this sometimes slow-moving biopic of Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman. Williams is beautifully matched with Victor Mature as her irresponsible, but charismatic love interest. Walter Pidgeon is warm and dignified as her father. But back to the swimming: these are the most glamorous, inventive and surreally beautiful routines Williams ever performed on the screen. They were also often very dangerous; Williams broke three vertebrae when she dove over fifty feet into the water from a tiny platform. She was in a body cast for months.

Dangerous When Wet (1953)
Co-starring with her future husband Lorenzo Lamas, Williams is at her most playful in this musical comedy with a touch of drama. Lamas had been a swimming champion in his native Argentina and Williams was pleased to be well-matched in the pool (on occasion, she had had to hold up other male costars while they swam). She also has another strong supporting cast, with William Frawley as her father and long-legged Charlotte Greenwood as her mother.

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Check out the official Esther Williams site. Among other interesting tidbits and several pictures of the Esther Williams swimsuit line, there's a great clip from Diane Sawyer’s 2007 Today show interview with a gorgeous 86-year-old Williams.


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