La fille de Neptune

Swimsuit designer (Esther Williams) has her hands full protecting her man-hungry sister (Betty Garrett). A case of mistaken identity has Esther thinking Betty's in love with Ricardo Montalban when it's really Red Skelton she's fallen for. Esther may spend most of the film out of the water but she's gorgeous as ever. Skelton and Garrett are lots of fun. Montalban is his flirty and charming best. There's also a live-action role for cartoon voice legend Mel Blanc, using his Speedy Gonzalez accent.

Fluffy fun with likable performances from everyone and beautiful Technicolor. Oscar-winning "Baby It's Cold Outside" song is justifiably a classic. Aquatic finale is excellent. We also are treated to a brief tour of a swimsuit factory, which I'm not ashamed to admit I found pretty interesting.

Lame musical comedy starring Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalbahn. Williams plays a bathing suit designer who wants to protect her sister, Betty Garrett, from Montalbahn, a polo star and Lothario whom Garrett has fallen for. Really, though, Garrett has fallen for Red Skelton, who pretends to be Montalbahn. While Williams thinks she's keeping Montalbahn occupied, the two, as you expect, fall in love. Williams is a pretty boring actress, famously only "something" when she's wet, and she's kept out of the water for 95% of the movie, and they even cut away from what promises to be an epic water ballet in the final moments. The only amusing moments come between Skelton and Garrett, though their antics never rise above slightly amusing. They have good chemistry, though. It's too bad their studio didn't recognize it at the time, because they should have been paired again. There are two bits of interest in the film: first, it won the Oscar for best song, Frank Loesser's "Baby, It's Cold Outside". Now there's a trivia question! The song doesn't even make sense in the movie. As far as I could tell, the movie takes place in California. Even if I'm incorrect on that, it certainly was never cold in the movie, and why would someone even write a song about the cold and snowstorms for an Esther Williams movie? Weird. It's a great song, of course, and the best part of the film. Both couples sing it in full back to back, with Garrett and Skelton reversing the roles the second time around. The second thing, there's this one character in the movie named Pancho, who works for the polo team or something. When he began to talk, I was thinking, "Wow, what a stereotypical accent. Sounds just like Speedy Gonzales." Then, "Wow, really a lot like Speedy Gonzales. Wait a second… that actor looks like…" Yes, it was! Mel Blanc, playing a guy who sounds just like Speedy Gonzales. I didn't know Mel Blanc did anything live action.

Two of MGM's biggest box office attractions teamed once again for the film Neptune's Daughter in 1949. Esther Williams and Red Skelton certainly brought their own respective fan bases for this film. With these two MGM was fighting the good fight against the increasing drawing power of television which would certainly soon claim Skelton.

Esther Williams and scatterbrained mantrap sister Betty Garrett are peddling a new line of swimwear and no one could certainly model her own designs better than Esther Williams both in and out of the water. But she's constantly worried about all the boyfriends that Garrett is finding and then discarding. Better to keep a close eye on her.

Enter masseuse Red Skelton at the club resort that Williams and Garrett are staying. He's got no luck with women at all. So he seeks advice from South American polo player Ricardo Montalban who's a devil with the ladies. Red not only seeks advice, but he appropriates Montalban's character name of Jose O'Rourke. That causes some real problems when Montalban courts Williams and Williams learns somebody named Jose O'Rouke has been calling on Garrett.

Red has some really inventive comedy routines one involving tricking Mike Mazurki into thinking he needs a spinal adjustment while he's being held against his will. And the climax is a hilarious polo match where Skelton substitutes for Montalban in a polo match where gamblers are trying for a fix. I've seen many different sports lampooned in film, but Neptune's Daughter is the only film around that took to satirizing polo.

Frank Loesser who was really coming into his own as a writer of both music and lyrics did the score for Neptune's Daughter. Loesser had a big hit in Charley's Aunt running on Broadway and was working on another project when Neptune's Daughter came out, a musical based on Damon Runyon characters called Guys And Dolls. Played instrumentally, but not sung is his previous hit On A Slow Boat To China done during a fashion show sequence involving Esther Williams's swim suits.

And Loesser brought home the film's Oscar for best song with Baby, It's Cold Outside. Montalban and Williams do it first and later there's a comic obbligato from Skelton and Garrett. The big selling record for this song came from Dinah Shore and Buddy Clark in a duet recorded just before Clark was killed in a plane crash. It's a delightful and bouncy number that readily lends itself to satire. I have bootleg recording of a radio broadcast where Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester do it. Turn that one over in your minds.

Topping it all off is a water ballet by Esther and they typically got bigger and better in films as she tried to top herself. Williams was really fortunate that her career was with MGM because it would only be a major studio that would have invested the production values in her films.

Because of that this very charming musical comedy holds up very well for today's audience.

Esther Williams knows clothes, or should I say bathing suits. This Esther Williams outing shows her getting discovered by Keenan Wynn and going right into the bathing suit business. Keenan Wynn, unlike his role in "Easy to Wed," is so subdued he comes across rather uninteresting. Betty Garrett, as Esther's sister, pretty much takes the spotlight as she tries to snare Red Skelton. By the way, Ricardo Montalban is Esther's paramour and "Neptune's Daughter" does include the Oscar-winning song "Baby, It's Cold Outside." But otherwise this film doesn't have much to recommend it. It only makes you think of other Esther Williams movies that are better with this kind of material and talent. The title "Neptune's Daughter" I'm sure was though of to make it sound glamorous. But it does not showcase Esther and company at their best.

Hey, this is a topper. One of the best of WILLIAMS swim films, mainly because it has the great Betty Garrett. Her scenes are wonderful, and she and Red Skelton are wonderful together. The Red and Betty seduction scene where he's trying to act like a Spaniard is sensational and wait until he tastes Garretts appetizer. Sheer genius. The new DVD copy is terrific, sharp and clear. Yes, its MGM's clean-cut studio bound movie, but it's what MGM did best. Haven't seen the other WILLIAMS movies in the collection yet, but am looking forward. Also looking forward to another volume and hope that her best, yet under-rated SKIRTS AHOY is included. See this for pure fun.