Frisson d'amour

This movie had a huge impact on my life. In 1945 when I was nine years old, my grandfather offered to pay for boxing lessons for me. The problem was that I was not interested in having boxing lessons, however my parents and I had recently seen the Thrill of a Romance movie; and needless to say I developed a huge crush on Ester Williams. I asked my mother if she thought that my grandfather would pay for swimming lessons, and he did! As a result of seeing this movie, I learned to swim and then swam competitively from age ten through high school and then played four years water polo at UCLA. During the summers, while in college and continuing until age 62, I worked as a lifeguard and pool manager. Both daughters also swam competitively and had summer lifeguard jobs....... Thank You Ester Williams :-)

Enjoyed this 1945 film with young stars like Van Johnson and Esther Williams starting out on a brilliant career in the entertainment of swimming and musicals. Esther Williams,(Cynthia Glenn) was a swimming instructor at a pool and was noticed by a very rich business man who immediately swept her off her feet and got married to Cynthia. There honeymoon was a complete disaster because her husband had a business meeting in Washington, D.C. and he left her all alone without even making love. Van Johnson,(Major Thomas Milvaine) has a room next door to Cynthia and notices her crying on her balcony and gets acquainted with her and they begin to start seeing each other off and on. Cynthia finds out her husband will be gone for a whole week and in the meantime decides to teach Tom Milvaine some swimming lessons and they start dancing and taking long walks in the woods. Lauritz Melchior,(Nils Knudsen) sings many songs since he was a great opera star. You will even see Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra and Buddy Rich burning up his set of drums. Enjoyable musical with plenty of romance and entertainment from 1945.

For 1945 with the Code firmly in place this film was quite daring in its subject matter. But the Esther Williams audience only wanted to see Esther in a bathing suit in or out of the water and Thrill of a Romance gave the viewer plenty of both.

Esther is a swimming instructor at a public pool in Los Angeles and driving by one day is Howard Hughes like tycoon Carleton G. Young. He puts on quite the campaign and they wed.

But Young is far more interested in business and while at a resort hotel on their honeymoon, Carleton gets called away to Washington on a big deal. We know what his priorities are. So Esther is an unconsummated bride alone on her honeymoon, when up pops war hero Van Johnson.

So for a week she and Van keep each other company and look pretty sad all the while.

Now Thrill of a Romance was not advertised to be Hamlet, but I found the premise here to be way to silly. But with lots of shots of Esther wet and dry and music by Tommy Dorsey's Orchestra and Lauritz Melchior of the Metropolitan Opera we had a whole lot of music of every taste. A highlight is a drum solo by Buddy Rich who after Frank Sinatra left as the band's vocalist, was Dorsey's main attraction.

Young Jerry Scott who plays Lyonel a bellboy at the hotel gives a nice lyric tenor interpretation of Because which that year was revived in a big hit record by Perry Como.

Speaking of Sinatra, he recorded a song written for this film I Should Care which was authored by his personal arranger Axel Stordahl and Sammy Cahn. Also sold a few platters back in the day.

Melchior sung a wide range of both classical and popular tunes. And he sort of functioned in the role of a father confessor to both Johnson and Williams. Had this been done at Warner Brothers, Melchior's part would have been played by S.Z. Sakall. Melchior even had the cheeks for it.

It's a nice film, maybe a little too light and too silly for today's audience. But Esther Williams fans got what they wanted.

The glorious voice of Wagnerian Tenor Lauritz Melchoir adorns this formulistic film, crafted by MGM staff writers.

After dominating the Met and international operatic stages along with colleague Soprano Helen Traubel, Melchoir along with Traubel and Ezio Pinza signed MGM contracts. The three appeared in light musicals for this studio, singing arias, light ballads and specialty numbers, which were incorporated into the plotlines.

Here Melchoir's role is quite gratuitous, yet all is forgotten when he opens his mouth and sings several varied selections.

His voice rings out like a bell, and he possesses a welcome warmth and humor in his screen presence. Joined by studio regulars Esther Williams, Van Johnson, and Bandleader Tommy Dorsey, Melchoir manages to punctuate the slightly sub-par plot with charm.

It's as though the project was cast first, then writers were called upon to write for each personality. While the proceedings may be a bit routine, the music, color and trappings are quite enjoyable, and a pleasant reminder of a gentle era of movie making.

Thrill of a Romance is such a VERY nice film. I watched it last night and totally enjoyed this cute and entertaining film. Nice swimming scenes with both Esther and Van together. Wonderful diving from Esther in this film and the music was wonderful.

This film is a wonderful way to end any romantic evening. MonaK