"Bathing Beauty" is a silly and rather inconsequential film when you see it today. It's not bad---just not the sort of thing that is anything more than a time-passer. Yet, oddly, the film was for a time the third highest grossing film for MGM!! I just don't see it, but in its time, this was a HUGE hit. My theory is that despite the squeaky-clean image, folks in the 40s must have used a lot of drugs--that seems like the only logical explanation of the film's success!!The film begins with a songwriter, Steve (Red Skelton) and his fiancée, Caroline (Esther Williams) getting married. However, as the man is pronouncing them man and wife, another woman bursts in and insists she's already married to him and presents what she claims are his three kids! Now logic would dictate that everyone would sit down and look at the woman's proof to determine if she is correct AND if not, what is her motivation. However, and this is a HUGE weakness of the film, Caroline runs away--and cloisters herself away in an all-girls school where she is on the faculty. She returns no phone calls and won't have any contact with Steve--even though she loved him enough to marry him in the first place!!! Logical, this is not!While Steve is moping, he meets a lawyer and they discuss loopholes to get him to see Caroline. They discover that although it's TRADITIONALLY a girls college, the charter does NOT indicate this and the school can't stop Steve from matriculating. Much of the remainder of the film consists of the lone male student trying to fit into the school and making a mess of things. Some of this is rather funny--though, of course, amazingly contrived.Eventually, what happens with Steve and Caroline is exactly what you know will happen--but it takes them forever to get to this point. This means the finale is a foregone conclusion with no surprises other than the water ballet which has no relationship with the rest of the film and was obviously tacked on for the obligatory Williams swimming scene.The star of the film is clearly Skelton. He's funny and likable. As for Williams, her character seems shallow and rather nasty--and you wonder why anyone would bother trying to win back such a lady! It's clearly a weak vehicle for her. Another HUGE problem (aside from the plot) is the singing and dancing. This is not the forte of WIlliams or Skelton--yet they film is jam-packed with songs. Too many and too many contrived musical numbers (particularly on the college campus) tend to distract from the plot and Skelton's antics. As a result, the film is very uneven and a film that defies a rational explanation! Not bad--just one that isn't particularly exceptional overall.

Watching this thing -- with Esther Williams, Red Skelton, Harry James, Xavier Cugat, et all -- is like poring over the contents of a time capsule from 1944. My uncle, a professional trumpet player, collected all of Harry James' records. My favorite was "Trumpet Blues." As a kid, I played the old 78 record into oblivion. And I never knew until seeing this that the number was from a movie.Harry James was really distinctive, and a great musician in his own vernacular way. Red Skelton, the central figure, has some amusing moments too, doing pratfalls in a pink tutu, forced into a class in Eurythmics because he's enrolled in a woman's college to be near his wife. ("Eurythmics", meaning something like beautiful movements, was evidently a tough word for the set dressers because they spelled it wrong on the classroom door.) Probably most of the numbers will be familiar, at least to the more perspicacious of modern audience members. Not just "Trumpet Blues" but a couple of numbers con sabor Latino, a medley of waltzes while we watch a bevy of dolls in synchronized swimming -- not nearly as smutty as Busby Berkeley's numbers, sad to say. And then, at the climax, there is Esther Williams doing her thing over, under, and around soaring water fountains in a proper exhibition of the height of vulgarity. The height, not the depth. This Philistine depravity is exhilarating.It's cheerful. It's colorful. It will be shown to the members of our Armed Forces overseas, compliments of the Motion Picture Assocation, and it has Basil Rathbone struggling valiantly with a light-hearted comic role.What's not to like?

I referred to this film, without naming it, in a review of PARLOR, BEDROOM, AND BATH the other day.Red Skelton is a successful composer, and he is smitten when he meets swimming champ Esther Williams. He intends to marry her, and this puts a crimp in the plans of Skelton's producer "friend" Basil Rathbone. Rathbone manages to sabotage Skelton's wedding, causing a furious Williams to toss him aside and return to her old female college to resume her job as an athletics instructor. Skelton finds he is not allowed (by the rules of the college) to visit Williams, and that she won't meet him outside. So, he signs up as a student. The rest of the plot follows the course as Skelton tries to win back Williams, complicated by her anger at him, the machinations of Rathbone to prevent this reconciliation, and the desires of the college President and Board of Trustees to force Skelton out (hopefully by a violation of the strict rules of the college).Let's face it, like many musical comedies it is a silly plot. It is interesting that in 1944 they would tackle the issue of single sex colleges (like Mount Holyoke or Bryn Mawr) in America - but tackle it with one of the female schools, instead of looking at the issue of the male dominated colleges. However, the plot dictated a female school.Esther Williams has several fine displays of her swimming abilities in the movie, and Skelton is wisely out of these until the clincher shot in the end (when she rescues him, but he finds the water a perfect shield for some last minute privacy). I should add that the Technicolor stock of the film is high grade, and a pleasure to look at.Rathbone had played comedy well before this. Usually he could show a cynical sense of humor (in IF I WERE KING, for example, his King Louis XI of France - the historical "Spider King" - has some nice zingers, courtesy of screenplay writer Preston Sturges). In the Bing Crosby film RHYTHM ON THE RIVER, Rathbone had a very funny role as a self-deluded composer who lost his abilities to compose when he lost his girlfriend (his sidekick Oscar Levant keeps undercutting this self-pity by reminding Rathbone the girlfriend he mourns married a Pasta manufacturer and got fat!). Unfortunately here Basil has only one or two brief funny moments of dialog with Skelton, and he is fleeing an angry Skelton at the conclusion, but it is not enough. He was better served as Danny Kaye's partner in THE COURT JESTER.Skelton does nicely in his role, and I recall that one scene that is in this film that reminded me of the scene in PARLOR, BEDROOM, AND BATH. The powers that be at the university (and Rathbone) realize that they can expel Skelton if he violates curfew. He has been trapped inside someone's home, and there is a dog watching the outside that won't let Skelton out. So he stands a good chance of violating curfew.Buster Keaton, aside from an occasional film part, was mostly a gag writer at this time, and he used a variant of the BEDROOM, PARLOR, AND BATH, gag regarding the door of the closet that briefly conceals Charlotte Greenwood in that film. Here, Skelton notices the hinges of the front door can be lifted out. He removes the hinges and then lifts the door so that an opening on one side allows the dog to come in, while an opening on the other side allows Skelton to go out. Then he slides the door back so the dog can't follow him. The scene ends with the confused dog barking at the closed door, while a happy Skelton heads back to his dormitory.I'm not sure if this was the first time Keaton was assigned to work with Skelton, but they would have a very fruitful and successful collaboration into the early 1950s (far better than Keaton's nightmare with Groucho Marx on GO WEST), with such films as A SOUTHERN YANKEE and WATCH THE BIRDIE (a remake of Keaton's last great film THE CAMERAMAN) to their joint credits.

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.