Le bal des sirènes

Plot, who cares about the plot. It is a WWII movie in COLOR, with LOTS of GIRLS. Actually, one of the few Red Skelton movies in which he really isn't a clown. The most important parts are the opening pool party, lots of real era swimsuits, and the singers and musicans, and Esther Williams. This is a fun movie, with lots of girls.

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.

When I check with US movie database, I find it is not a very important movie in Hollywood history. But Bathing Beauty is more famous in China than in US. Actually Bathing beauty is one of few Hollywood movies which officially released in 40's China before communist government took power. Every Chinese over 60 years old remember this movie and Gone With Wind as two outstanding classic Hollywood picture. My father told me his uncle took him to see this movie when he was a child, he remember the advertisement all over the streets at the time and call it a Splendid Colorful Movie. It is true. The color is strong and the final scene is spectacular. Talented actor Red Skelton has great pantomime show in this movie which he mimes ladies' dress up in the morning and his swan lake ballet is memorable.

The swimming routines of Esther Williams and the comedy of Red Skelton are timeless which is why Esther's debut as a star can be seen hundreds of years from now and not lose any entertainment value. Of course an appreciation of swing music and Latin music does help.

Bathing Beauty which is certainly an appropriate title for Esther's first starring role has Red and Esther as newly minted newlyweds when some woman objects to the wedding saying she's already Red's wife.

Red's a writer of swing music and his publisher Basil Rathbone deliberately arranged that incident to break up the marriage so Red can deliver some special material. However the minister beat out the objection with his 'I now pronounce you man and wife' so they are married, but Esther will get that annulled. But not if Red can help it.

She goes back to her old job teaching at an all girl's college which Red enrolls at as a student to be near her to plead his case. At this point the rather thin plot is just a frame for the various routines and numbers done by the stars and with guest performers like Harry James and his Orchestra, Xavier Cugat and his Orchestra and the famous Tico Tico girl Ethel Smith doing, what else Tico Tico on the organ. Also orchestra vocalists Helen Forrest with James and Lina Romay with Cugat have some good numbers.

Basil Rathbone taking time off from playing Sherlock Holmes hams it up to beat both those featured bands in his role as the comic villain of the piece. Red does his usual clowning and is an adept musical performer in a swing version of Loch Lomond.

But this film is strictly Esther and her final water ballet sequence was the first of many making use of that special tank MGM built for this very special star.

You could remake this film today, but where would you ever come up with another Esther Williams or Red Skelton?

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