DVD Review: TCM Spotlight - Esther Williams, Vol. 1

By Frankie Dees Jul 24, 2007, 12:33 GMT

Laughs, romance, music--just add water! Get into the swim of Hollywood\'s Golden Era with musical number outtakes, classic shorts, cartoons, and more. Bathing Beauty: a big splash in her first starring role: Williams is a teacher at a women\'s college--and wacky Red Skelton enrolls to be near her. An astonishing flames-and-fountains aquatic finale. Easy to Wed: A spiffy remake of the screwball classic Libeled Lady, with Esther as the lady ...more

A teenage swimming champion, Esther Williams was summoned to Hollywood by MGM head-honcho Mayer himself to essentially create a genre: the aquatic musical. With a genre that she could call her own, it’s only fitting for WB to give her a boxset that she also could call her own.

Williams was born in Los Angeles in the early twenties and became a prominent swimming champion. Being bred for the Olympics in 1940, the appearance of WWII stopped short all that Williams worked for and she made a right turn into working at a department store. It wasn’t long, however, before her talent got her a gig with the ‘Aquacade’, basically a show that highlighted what Williams became known for, where she starred opposite fellow Hollywood star swimmer Johnny Weissmuller (who was a bit of a cad it seems).

With talent and looks, Mayer from MGM wanted to make Williams a star, but she refused for months due to a fierce independence and a knowing of what happens to contract stars at the time. Finally giving in, they stick her in a Andy Hardy picture with Mickey Rooney where her popularity in that pic led to her first starring role in 1940’s ‘Bathing Beauty’, the first film in our collection.

Not a natural singer, dancer or actor, Esther Williams was trained vigorously for stardom and while some of this training as opposed to natural talent shows through, especially in her acting, she still convinces in her lightweight, Technicolor rom-com musicals that were created as pure escapism for war weary audiences. With a twinkle in her eye and in her smile, and more often than not in a glamorous one-piece bathing suit cutting through refreshing, crystal blue waters…if you were a soldier overseas, would you care that she wasn’t Katy Hepburn in the acting department?

After the toe-in-the-water (pun intended) intro of Williams in the Andy Hardy pic, MGM made her a star right away giving her second billing in ‘Bathing Beauty’ after the comic antics of Red Skelton. The film was originally intended to be a sole vehicle for Red Skelton called ‘The Co-ed’ but decided the pic, with a little rewriting, could be the perfect film for Williams starring debut. Skelton still has some good slapstick comedy set-pieces though in the role of Steve Elliot, a songwriter who finds himself in California where he falls in love and proposes to swimming instructor Caroline Brooks (Williams), a proposal that convinces Brooks not to take a job at an all girls’ college on the East Coast.

But the conniving antics of George Adams (a wasted Basil Rathbone), a man hoping for a new musical from Elliott, plots with an old girlfriend to ruin Elliott’s wedding. Successful, Brooks rushes heartbroken to the East Coast to take that job after all. Elliott doesn’t quit without a fight, though, and is able to enroll into the all-girls’ college through a loophole to win Brooks heart back with a number of cross-dressing hijinks in tow.

A fairly routine screwball romance with Skelton getting a few laughs as he goes through the hardships of day to day life for a college gal – him dressing up for ballet class comes to mind, but it’s Williams first role that everybody will remember. What she lacked in acting talent, she made up for in charisma and a spectacular water finale that might still remain one of her best with towering fountains of water, bursts of flames and expert choreography. It was that big finale that led to ‘Bathing Beauty’ being MGM’s third highest grossing film at that time (only behind the original ‘Ben Hur’ and ‘Gone with the Wind’).

All pics in the set are presented in their original aspect ratio of 4:3 full frame. Special features for this disc include one of the best, the half hour 1996 TCM interview where host Robert Osborne chats with the always candid Esther Williams – some really good stuff there. We also have an Oscar-nominated short ‘Main Street Today’, a Tom & Jerry cartoon ‘Mouse Trouble’ and the films theatrical trailer.

Next is ‘Easy to Wed’ from 1946, a fairly tepid remake of ‘Libeled Lady’. While ‘Libeled…’ had the classic combination of Jean Harlow, Myrna Low, William Powell and Spencer Tracy, ‘Easy to Wed’, while looking decent on paper, comes up short on comedic chemistry. Warren Haggerty (Keenan Wynn), chief editor of the ‘New York Morning Star’, is forced to keep putting off his marriage to Gladys Benton (Lucille Ball) due to giving priority to his paper’s problems. When the mother of all problems appears from the result of snooty daddy’s girl Connie Allenbury (Wiliams) getting big papa (Cecil Kellaway) to sue the paper for 2-million dollars for libel, Warren has to come up with a plan and quick.

Forced to find his former newsman and woman charmer extraordinaire Bill Chandler (Van Johnson), Haggerty conspires to catch Connie in the act of infidelity with a fake marriage of Gladys and Bill. But, of course, all doesn’t go as planned as the woman charmer finds himself getting charmed.

An okay comedy taken by itself, despite the lack of any real water sequences that one would think would be par for the course for a Williams pic, the film suffers when compared to the original. Ball in the Harlow role, substitutes loudness for the subtle sexiness of Harlow, and mostly comes off as obnoxious. Johnson, who would always be better in dramatic roles like ‘The Caine Mutiny’ and ‘Miracle in the Rain’, never pleased me as a romantic-comedy leading man. His comedy always seemed forced and couldn’t touch the effortless charm that is William Powell.

Williams was also miscast in a role that required a little more skill. The rich, snooty girl was definitely not a role for ‘Neptune’s Daughter’, aka the wholesome Williams. Not bad per se, but at 110 minutes, it could push one’s patience, especially considering the lack of anything that would label this as an ‘Esther Williams movie’. I’m sure WB wanted to fit this in somewhere, but I would’ve rather seen this in a volume two or three of their “Classic Comedies” collections or even the “Lucille Ball” collection.

Special features include ‘Sure Cures, a Pete Specialty’ short, a cartoon ‘The Unwelcome Guest’ and theatrical trailers for ‘Easy to Wed’ and ‘Libeled Lady’.

‘On an Island with You’ from 1948 is the next film in our collection, which at least has the good sense to put Williams in bathing suits and make her the star, despite a more than lacking narrative. Rosalind Reynolds (Williams), a big movie star, is making her latest big film about a romance between a native Hawaiian gal and a U.S. Navy pilot. The pilot is the handsome Ricardo Montez (Ricardo Montalban), who falls in love with his co-star and proposes to her. Meanwhile, the film’s technical advisor, Lt. Lawrence Kinglsee (Peter Lawford) is also in love with Reynolds due to a past U.S.O. incident where Reynolds entertained the troops and personally brought Kinglsee on stage and kissed him.

Reynolds, of course, doesn’t remember this but that doesn’t stop Kingslee from trying to jog her memory by kidnapping Reynolds and flying her to a remote desert island. Found by the Navy and the films A.D. Jimmy Buckley (Jimmy Durante), Reynolds is at first furious but when Kingslee gets threatened by the Navy, some surprise emotions reveal themselves and maybe Reynolds doesn’t mind this Kinglsee after all…

First, the good: Esther Williams and the gorgeous Cyd Charisse, a supporting player in the pic secretly in love with Ricardo, have tan, toned bodies that look great set against the gorgeous Florida-filmed sets. There’s also a decent water ballet finale and some Jimmy Durante mugging that works if you’re a Durante fan. The Bad: The stolid male leads are more likely to put women to sleep than to make them swoon. Montalban and particularly Lawford are both about as exciting to watch as my toothless 14-year old cat as he’s gumming out food from a can (no, wait…my cat is much more exciting) and injected zero personality into the roles. The film seems to never quite get past this hiccup in casting.

Special Features consist of the short ‘Personalities’, a Barney Bear cartoon ‘The Bear and the Hare’ and the film’s theatrical trailer.

Next is one of the better films of the bunch, 1949’s ‘Neptune’s Daughter’ despite the inclusion of Ricardo snore Montalban as the romantic lead. Some misplaced narration throughout the film belongs to one Joe Backett (Keenan Wynn), a hustler of sorts that manages to convince swimming champion Eve Barrett (Esther Williams) to go into business with him to design swimwear. Joe, harboring a nice little crush on Eve, enjoys the success of the company while having Eve mostly to himself in a platonic relationship due to Eve constantly being on the wary concerning men.

The other part of our odd movie universe follows masseur Jack Spratt (Red Skelton), a man much in need of a good woman but who lacks the charm and know-how to do so. Enter the South American latin lover Jose O’ Rourke, a polo champion in America for a visit. Attempting to emulate Jose O’Rourke goes one further when Jack is mistaken for Jose by Betty Barrett (Betty Garrett, ha-ha), Eve’s sister, and he lets the façade contine.

Eve, hearing about Betty and “Jose’s” relationship, is none too convinced of this lothario’s motives, so she attempts to talk Jose out of it. This Jose, of course, being the real Jose. Jose becomes smitten with Eve and also goes along with the gag in a bid to take Eve out instead of Betty. Needless to say, romance is in the air for all four and mistaken identity complications and hijinks arise at a steady rate.

Skelton and Betty Garrett both make for a fun couple here, matching each other with a goofy slapstick charm – they add a much needed lightness to the pic. Motalban is better here, but is still a fairly lightweight romantic leading man, although the pace picks up with the first ever film performance of Frank Loesser’s Oscar-winning song ‘Baby, its cold outside’ with fun dual performances from Montalban and Williams intercut with Red Skelton and Betty Barrett - A particularly fun scene that has an energy that is peculiarly lacking for most films in this set.

There’s also the second best water finale in the set with a great establishing spotlight shot of Williams that opens up with her and Motalban swimming among choreographed, colored banners and ending with a variety of swimmers sliding and diving off an elaborate set. The finale seems a bit truncated and the main romance a little ho-hum, but this film mostly succeeds with nice comedic supporting talent and a few musical and water numbers that I may actually remember tomorrow.

Special Features for ‘Neptune’s Daughter’ include a Betty Garrett music outtake, a sequence from the 1951 film ‘Callaway Went Thataway’ that includes Esther Williams in a cameo, a ‘Pete Smith Specialty’ short, a Tom & Jerry cartoon ‘Hatch up your Troubles’, a radio show segment with Williams and trailers for ‘Neptune’s Daughter’ and ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame’. <!--page-->

Last but not least is 1953’s ‘Dangerous When Wet’ which is notable for a couple reasons - namely, an extended dream sequence where Esther Williams swims with an animated Tom & Jerry in front of animated backgrounds and it’s also notable for being the first film where she would star with future husband, Fernando Lamas (yep, he’s the father of Lorenzo ‘Renegade’ Lamas – Williams is not his mother, however).

The film starts off with Pa Higgins (William Demarest) leading his athletic family to the watering hole for a rigorous morning swim that includes his oldest daughter Katie Higgins (Esther Williams). A family of Arkansas dairy farmers that keep in shape, all is well until the entrance of Windy Weebe (Jack Carson), a traveling salesman hawking his miracle drink, “Liquapep”, a tonic that’ll make ya big and strong without one having to do anything. When Windy comes across Katie, he’s instantly smitten and is able to convince Katie, with Pa suggesting the whole family, to promote his drink by competing in an annual contest to swim across the English channel.

Things go awry when the Higgins family is disqualified from the contest except for Katie and Pa admits to buying a lot of improvements for the farm on credit. Katie needs to win the contest or the Higgins will lose the farm! Egads! Further complications arise when Katie inexplicably meets a smooth Frenchman (Lamas) who insists on wooing her despite her needing to train. Can they fall in love and save the farm?

A fairly peculiar picture that gets even odder with an out of nowhere Tom & Jerry dream sequence, I can’t really make much of it. The light and airy country scenes that make up the beginning segues uncomfortably into the overcast, gloomy English channel scenes. Lamas pops up in the middle of the channel for no particular reason and while one can get a taste of the chemistry that they obviously shared in real life, there’s no real place for them to take it. The film just looks…cold. The Tom & Jerry scenes prop up the pic a bit but for whatever reason, they seem to be pals here and not enemies. The scene almost lasts a good 10 minutes, wouldn’t it have been better for Tom & Jerry to compete for Williams attention? A bitter rivalry was always their focus, why take that away?

Special Features include a musical outtake and some audio only Johnny Mercer demo recordings, a promotional radio interview with Wiliams, a ‘Pete Smith Specialty’ short, a Tom & Jerry cartoon ‘The Cat and the Mermouse’ and a trailer gallery for Esther Williams including this pic and the yet to be released ‘Million Dollar Mermaid’.

While the five films that make up ‘Esther Williams: Volume 1’ could be considered slight entertainments, films more directed at a specific audience than the casual movie fan, even the casual classic movie fan, they make up a nice introduction to a integral star and piece of the musical genre and puzzle as a whole. I can’t quite label any of these films classics per se, although ‘Neptune’s Daughter’ comes the closest, but they do represent a certain era of history that cinema fans can’t ignore. Williams in the water was to women (and men) what John Wayne was to horses – an entrancing movie experience for a past generation.

TCM Spotlight - Esther Williams, Vol. 1 is now available at Amazon. As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.