Traversons La Manche

Jack Carson plays a traveling salesman, promoting a potion called Liqua-pep on the county fair circuit. While driving through Arkansas, he meets a family that owns a dairy farm and are dedicated to physical fitness.

When Jack's character, Wendy, realizes the eldest daughter, Katy (that's how it's spelled in the credits)--played by Esther Williams--is a beauty and a tireless swimmer, he wants her to attempt the English Channel as a promotion for his snake oil. Eventually, she agrees.

Along the way, she meets a Frenchman played by Fernando Lamas (who Esther marries sixteen years later) who becomes her love interest.

Esther's films tend to be light fare, intending merely to entertain while allowing her to swim in a pool, a lagoon, or wherever the script might take her. "Dangerous When Wet" includes a few upbeat songs and the usual all-American touchstones. But it is best known for Esther's underwater swimming sequence with Tom and Jerry (Jerry danced nine years earlier with Gene Kelly).

Even in films with not-much-to-write-home-about stories (though a good deal of her films are still worth watching), Esther Williams was always watchable and more, with her swimming talent on film second to none. Tom and Jerry are two of my favourite animated characters, as a lifelong fan of animation, and a legendary animated-comic duo. Have always loved musicals too.

Williams is captivating in how fetching she is and she radiates in charm, her swimming talent hardly wasted. She has very clear chemistry with Fernando Lamas (though she has had partners with a little more charisma than he), and wonderfully supported by a peppy Barbara Whiting, an energetic Jack Carson and a perfectly cast William Demarest and Charlotte Greenwood.

'Dangerous When Wet's' highlight is the sequence with Williams and Tom and Jerry, which is simply ingenious in every sense. Very close behind are Whiting's "I Like Men" and the very determined and moving English Channel swim scene.

Furthermore, 'Dangerous When Wet' looks great, being beautifully photographed and designed and the colours are rich and colourful. The songs are not exceptional but they are very pleasant and put one in a good mood, but it's the way they're staged that elevate them to a better level.

The script is lively and perky enough, while Charles Walters directs competently. The story while meandering a little in pace towards the end makes for by far one of the more eventful, more plausible and more atmospherically warm and likable Esther Williams films.

Overall, great fun and charming, anybody who like Williams and Tom and Jerry shouldn't miss it. 8/10 Bethany Cox

MGM's resident mermaid Williams gets an ever-so-slightly more challenging part in this musical outing. Often, Williams just did (dazzling) water ballets sprinkled amongst a lot of romantic entanglements and shenanigans. It's much the same here, but at least she gets a chance to do a story that has a few real moments of emotion and even strife. She plays the eldest daughter of an especially healthy farm family who is chosen to swim the English Channel in an international event. Carson plays a relentless promoter while Lamas is a wealthy and charming distraction. The story details Williams and her family undergoing the necessary training and preparation for the big swim, encountering a few hurdles along the way. It culminates in a surprisingly strenuous and moving climax in which a badly exhausted Williams can barely move a muscle in the open sea. Several peppy musical numbers occur throughout the movie including an opening number in which the family begins their daily fitness ritual and an ensemble piece featuring the mother (Greenwood) in a bizarre, wacky, but fun dance routine.

There's also a lengthy dream sequence (a major highlight of the film) in which a luminous Williams swims with the famous cartoon characters Tom and Jerry and other animated sea creatures based on the other actors in the film. (Hilariously, Lamas is depicted as an octopus, which aptly sums up the man's on and off screen persona of an insatiable ladies man.) Parts of the film lag a bit as it meanders to it's fairly predictable end, but Carson brings a lot of energy and humor to his role and other cast members provide nice work as well. Lamas and Williams display clear chemistry together, though she maintains that they did not have an affair during the film (just one racy ride home from the studio in which she had her hand under his robe most of the way!) They married about 15 or so years later once he had cooled his libidinous jets somewhat and she was free of her deadbeat second husband. Cruelly, Lamas' formidable body is kept under wraps much of the time. Their only major swimming sequence together is filmed entirely above the water.

Katie Higgins (Esther Williams) is the eldest daughter of a dairy-farming family of health nuts. Health tonic promoter Windy Weebe (Jack Carson) convinces her to enter a contest to swim the English Channel. After arriving in Europe, Katie finds herself pursued by a dashing Frenchman (Fernando Lamas). This is one of Esther's best movies. She's gorgeous here, as she always was -- the Queen of Technicolor. The cast is great. Highlights include Barbara Whiting's performance of the cheeky song "I Like Men," Esther's famous underwater ballet with Tom & Jerry, and pretty much every scene with William Demarest. It's a very funny and charming musical comedy. A must-see for Esther fans.

Esther Williams has the misfortune to be born to a family of irrepressible morning people. You know the type: always perky and cheerful first thing in the morning and ready to beat it into you if you're not. Esther enters a contest to swim the English Channel, and for some reason the time of the race is set only the night before. Wouldn't you know it, that's the night she's chosen to go out drinking with Fernando Lamas.

All in all, a delightful piece of fluff. This is the one where Esther dances a water ballet with Tom and Jerry.