In a film that could only be described as a recruiting film for the WAVES Esther Williams the star most associated with water joins the female navy along with shipmates Vivian Blaine and Joan Evans. It was perhaps inevitable that Esther eventually would get herself a nautical film.Williams is a rich débutante who does things on whim and impulse and she left a bridegroom at the altar and joined the WAVES. The opposite happens to young Joan Evans as Keefe Brasselle joins the navy to follow her. As for wisecracking Vivian Blaine doing her Adelaide role again she decides to join to follow her not so faithful sweetheart Dean Miller.Harry Warren and Ralph Blane wrote a rather undistinguished score for Skirts Ahoy. The best number was the interpolated Oh By Jingo sung and danced by guest performers Debbie Reynolds and Bobby Van.Barry Sullivan who is a fine actor definitely had no chemistry with Esther in this one. In her memoirs Esther said it was always hard to cast male co-stars opposite her as she was in the water and the males were out. Her swimming sequences as usual were well choreographed.Skirts Ahoy is not at the top of Esther Williams films however.

SKIRTS AHOY! (1952) is musical-comedy fluff aimed mostly at a female audience, but it's not too bad. It's pleasant enough and some of the songs by Harry Warren and Ralph Blane are fun ("What Makes a Wave?", "What Good Is a Gal?"). MGM's swimming superstar Esther Williams, "Guys and Dolls" standout Vivian Blaine, and Joan Evans join the Navy to escape their man troubles. Esther Williams performs a couple of dry-land musical numbers, but the script still finds time for her to visit the pool. In one scene she's accompanied by a couple pint-sized swimming prodigies (brother and sister Russell and Kathy Tongay). Keenan Wynn, Debbie Reynolds, and Bobby Van make celebrity cameos.

Apparently I must be the only one that loves this movie and everything about it. As a child I watched nothing but musicals and I had many favorites. They didn't all have to be perfect but each one was very special to me in their own unique way. "Skirts Ahoy" is one of my all time top favorites and I use to watch it over and over. I use to entertain everyone with my quotes and humorous reenactments of the musical scenes. "Skirts Ahoy" stood out to me as different from the rest and to me there was something very special about it. I think there is so much humor in this movie and a very real side of relationships and life lessons. This movie is very dear to my heart and I haven't seen it in so long. For everyone that dislikes this movie, please let me know if it is ever on TV and I will be happy as a clam to sit and enjoy every second of it while everyone else goes to bed ;)

This is a terrible musical in a decade of great ones. It is absolutely dull. Somewhow this Wac- wave/recruitment drivel must have been plonked on the MGM conveyor belt excused by the Korean War as some sort of patriotic gesture. Maybe a female version of the Kelly sailor musicals was in mind but it has nothing to do with anything and has no pizzaz. Not even pizzas. Vivian Blaine does her Ms Adelaide stuff seen to better effect in Guys and Dolls, Debbie Reynolds appears for a second to zap the audience awake and Esther Williams is dulled into battleship gray. Billy Ecstein yawns his way through some sort of faux Lena Horne spot. MGM must have needed a tax write off in 1952, because there is no possible reason why this dull jigsaw puzzle of navy romantic antics could possibly exist... and MGM could make it on the back lot with existing props and costumes. Even Barry Sullivan behaves like J Carroll Naish. I really struggled though most of this... so just go to bed happy if this comes on, I have saved you the trouble of being annoyed by it.