BATHING BEAUTY: Blu-ray (MGM, 1944) Warner Archive

“Let’s get one thing straight…I know I can’t act. I know I can’t dance…and I can’t sing, but I’m going to keep trying until I get it right!” 

– Esther Williams

All self-deprecating humor aside, this infamous quote from Williams, given to a reporter at the time she was shooting the second movie in which she was to receive co-star billing, 1945’s Thrill of a Romance, is likely the one piece of adlib the actress wished she could forever thereafter retract. Williams’ harshest critics were always ready to concur with this assessment, apparently, unaware how difficult it was to swim laps like a pro and still emerge from the briny looking like the prom queen. However, as New York Times’ Bosley Crowther once concluded: “I’m really lost about Esther Williams’ work in the movies…but if nothing else, they had to be extremely difficult and dangerous to shoot!” 

Williams’ tenure as America’s mermaid in 26 aquacade movies for MGM saw her through multiple pregnancies, and, as many physical injuries, from a fractured neck (which threatened to paralyze her) to broken ribs, a bruised ego and beyond; enduring ‘the rapture’ during an extended underwater sequence in 1952’s Million Dollar Mermaid. As Esther’s lungs compressed from holding her breath too long, she would later recall director, Mervyn LeRoy shouting into his underwater microphone, “Esther…what the hell are you doing. We can’t keep you in focus at the bottom of the pool. We’re not lit for that!”

Exactly how did this little known 19-year-old hopeful, with barely enough experience as a sales girl at the posh I. Magnin department store, shift gears and her dreams of becoming an Olympic swimmer (delayed by the onset of WWII), to instead become one of the star attractions at 1939’s New York World’s Fair, winning the chance of a lifetime from Metro talent scouts, who desperately wanted her to audition (an invitation she repeatedly refused before finally – and very reluctantly – acquiescing). That Williams went on to become a bona fide movie star, far more uniquely situated than most, truly is the stuff from which dreams are made. Upon learning MGM was scouting Williams for the big time, her coworkers at I. Magnin decided to secretly dress Esther for her interview with Louis B. Mayer with clothes off the rack. The store’s manager was far less than impressed, suggesting to Williams, she would make the biggest mistake of her life if she gave up a solid job as a sales girl for a pie-in-the-sky chance to become famous. Aside: I wonder whatever happened to the manager!   

And while Williams’ catalog of splashy Technicolor fantasies is rife with memorable moments, the one Esther Williams’ movie that truly belongs on everyone’s keepsake list, were they to become stranded on the proverbial desert isle, remains 1944’s Bathing Beauty – Esther’s real/reel entrée into the world of lavishly appointed Technicolor escapism. Although Williams had marked her Hollywood arrival in 1942’s Andy Hardy’s Double Life, and thereafter was rushed into 2 shorts, and, a cameo in 1943’s A Guy Named Joe, it’s Bathing Beauty that Esther truly made her big splash – both literally and figuratively.  

Bathing Beauty is a musical bon-bon. Its plot is inconsequential, the dialogue, mere connective tissue, sandwiched between the musical stylings of Harry James and Xavier Cugat, with organist, Ethel Smith, and, singers, Helen Forest and Carlos Ramirez feathered in for good measure. The spate of numbers that spill forth from this frothy confection are pure magic. MGM has pulled out every stop to concoct a bizarre fantasia of Latin rhythms meets uptown swing, capped off by a mindboggling fountain and fire finale. In 3-strip Technicolor, how could any of this miss? It didn’t. Initially, L.B. Mayer’s reaction to Williams being put under contract was less than enthusiastic - “How the hell are we going to make movies in a pool?” Mayer was abruptly informed by director, George Sidney, “The same way Darryl F. Zanuck does with Sonya Henie and ice-skating rinks.”

Williams might have enjoyed the experience more, had her anxieties about co-starring opposite Red Skelton, who grumbled incessantly about having to shave his auburn chest hairs, had not been further exacerbated by the implosion of her own 4-year marriage to Dr. Leonard Kovner. Apparently, Mr. Kovner’s idea of ‘the little woman’ had Esther staying at home to knit booties, although he was not above demanding Williams pay him $1500 to get out of their marriage. This represented the entire sum Williams had scrimped together from her year-long stint in Billy Rose’s Aquacade at the World’s Fair.  Instructed by producer, Sam Katz to surrender the cash to her ex, under a provision in writing he would not ask for one penny more thereafter, Esther would be well rewarded when MGM put her under contract, upping her weekly salary to $350 a week (she was only getting $75 a month in the aquacade), and affording her the plush accoutrements of a real star’s dressing room, redecorated to suit her tastes.

To ensure Williams’ glycerin charismata remain intact, despite being submerged daily in harshly chlorinated waters, Max Factor developed a new water-resistant makeup. Esther’s hair was gingerly saturated in a sticky confection of warm baby oil and Vaseline, braided, then augmented with even more artificial braids, held in place by heavy clamps and hairpins that left welts and indentations all over her scalp.  Pain is beauty, I suppose. Because the results on screen were impossibly pristine. Williams rises from her pool like Venus levitating from the sea, immaculate from head to toe, and sparkling in all her wetness remade as ‘afterglow’ under the hot klieg lighting on the set. MGM was taking no chances with Esther’s debut as America’s mermaid.  

Bathing Beauty was actually begun under the title, ‘Mr. Coed’ – as a star vehicle for Red Skelton (whom the studio was grooming as their response to Bob Hope) with Esther, merely, in support. Owing to her prowess in the pool, Sam Katz convinced Mayer to green-light a major renovation of the studio’s largest sound stage - Stage 30, where a massive ninety-by-ninety indoor pool, twenty-five feet deep, was built with enough special effects engineering to make the likes of magician, David Copperfield blush. The pool contained hydraulic lifts, gently submersed fountains, enormous geysers, and, gas-lit pyrotechnics, its proscenium outlined in art deco columns capped by floral arrangements, and, situated between two gargantuan platforms where the likes of Xavier Cugat and his orchestra, and, Harry James and His Band would later perform. At a staggering cost of $250,000, the water pressure alone, fed through needle nozzles, could envelope the entire set in a 60-foot curtain of mist. Given the extravagance of this undertaking, all in service to the film’s water-logged finale, Mr. Coed could no longer be the title. Indeed, the resultant pic was not a Red Skelton movie, but the first in a long line of Esther Williams’ aquacades, sending cash registers ringing around the world.

1944 marked another banner year for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, as it continued to acquire new talent the way others do paper clips – by the handful. Esther’s arrival on the scene perfectly fit into Mayer’s notions of wholesome family entertainment, diverting from the rigors of wartime. The thimble of a plot, scripted by Dorothy Kingsley, Allen Boretz and Frank Waldman, is easily distilled into a single strand of consciousness: a mournful husband enlists in an all-girl’s college to win back the affections of his estranged wife, who just happens to teach there. Fraught with hilarious misdirection, superb casting, exceptional production values, and, an unabashedly playful score, Bathing Beauty is chiefly memorable, even iconic, because of its easily excised and predigested parts, rather than their total sum.

Skelton (as Tin Pan Alley songwriter, Steve Elliot) tells jokes. Esther (as his lovely young bride, Caroline Brooks) swims. In between, we have Basil Rathbone, as devious Broadway producer, George Adams, Jacqueline Dalya, as Maria Dorango (an unwitting accomplice in the break-up of Caroline and Steve’s marriage), and, the electric fingers of former ‘Hit Parade’ organist, Ethel Smith – playing a college music teacher named (wait for it) Ethel Smith! Other bit parts are filled out by Jean Porter, as a plucky frosh, Janise Paige (a savvier school girl), Donald Meeks (lovable drunkard, Chester Klazenfrantz), Bill Goodwin (stuffy professor, Willis Evans, having set his cap for Caroline on the rebound), Ann Codee (humorously stern ballet master, Madame Zarka), Nana Bryant (as the clever, if compassionate, Dean Clinton), and finally, to satisfy the trend for all things Latin American, Carlos Ramirez (as Steve’s baritone-warbling buddy, Carlos). 

Bathing Beauty is uber-kitschy as it resplendently ripples across the screen. It’s a summer flick to be sure, ironically photographed in January, partly on location at Lakeside Country Club in the San Fernando Valley, where the turgidly brown lawns were dyed bright green for the Technicolor cameras. This effectively ruined the sod, forcing MGM to cover the costs to re-seed in the spring. Bathing Beauty’s prologue tells us everything we need to know about the next hour and forty-eight minutes: “We don’t know if this story actually happened, but if it did happen it couldn’t happen in a nicer place than California.” And thus, we are off on a pleasurable excursion, with much of the picture shot on MGM’s Culver City backlot and interior sets. It possesses the flavor of a Joe Pasternak spectacular. But it’s not.  And its lithe blend of pop tunes (of which 1929’s ‘Te quiero dijiste’ – a.k.a. ‘Magic Is the Moonlight’, again, became a huge hit, alongside Johnny Green’s newly written, ‘I’ll Take the High Note’) and re-orchestrated classical fare (everything from Strauss’ Die Fledermaus Overture to Jascha Heifetz’s Hora Staccato gets covered) prove irresistible.

There is something for everyone. Helen Forrest’s syrupy rendition of ‘I Cried For You’ is vintage big band fluff. The exotic gets fleshed out by Lina Romay, accompanying Xavier Cugat and his orchestra, who open the show with the spirited and playful, ‘Bim, Bam, Bum’, and later, in the extravagantly staged, ‘Alma llanera’. Ethel Smith lends her hummingbird-like fingering to two organ masterpieces, ‘By the Waters of Minnetonka’ and the electrifying ‘Tico-tico no fubá.’ The musical program is closed out by ‘The Thrill of a New Romance’ – the springboard to Esther’s spectacular water ballet finale, interpolated with Harry James’ Boogie Woogie. We really have to give it to director, George Sidney, for his extraordinary pastiche; the perfect fodder for war-weary audiences, desperate to escape their woes for just an hour or two. “In those days we left MGM movies with a smile,” Ricardo Montalban later recalled, “If was fictious, let it be…it really relaxed you…it was wonderful.”  And indeed, Bathing Beauty is a picture to reform even the most hardened cynic, left grinning from ear to ear, if only because of its audaciousness.

Bathing Beauty opens, poolside (where else?). We find Broadway composer, Steve Elliott making his intentions known to New York producer, George Adams (the ever-reliable Basil Rathbone). Steve plans to give up songwriting and settle down with Caroline Brooks (Esther Williams) who has also pledged to retire from her job as an instructor at Victoria College, once they are wed. Exactly what the happy couple will live on – besides love - is open for discussion. Naturally, Adams is gravely concerned. After all, he was counting on Steve to write the score for his new water ballet. So, Adams enlists, Maria Dorango (Jacqueline Dalya), whom he once seduced with promises of making her a star, now to pose as a Latin-American singer already married to Steve. Interrupting Caroline and Steve’s nuptials with the declaration Steve is her husband, and, producing three red-headed boys wearing sombreros besides, Maria unsettles Caroline’s faith in Steve. She promptly retreats to Victoria College to resume her career – sadder, but none the wiser.

Undaunted, Steve and his pal, Carlos Ramirez hightail it to Victoria. Alas, they are denied access at the gate as Victoria is strictly an all-female college. In despair, Steve’s resolve is given a badly needed boost when he accidentally bumps into the college’s inebriated attorney, Chester Klazenfrantz (Donald Meeks) inside a posh New York nightclub, managed by his good friend, Harry James. It seems Klazenfrantz has been hired to change Victoria’s charter. You see, despite its preference, Victoria was never officially designated to be exclusively female. Girding his loins, Steve returns to Victoria and insists on registering as a new applicant. Unaware of Caroline’s estrangement from Steve, Dean Clinton (Nana Bryant) concurs; the college cannot deny Steve’s application. However, it can recommend expulsion after a two-week probationary period if the faculty can find reasons enough to give Steve 100 demerits. Newly enrolled, and confined to musty basement quarters, Steve makes friends with his cohort who know him by reputation.

Although he tries to shore up his relationship with Caroline, she is hardly receptive. Meanwhile, the other students greatly value Steve’s contributions on the hit parade and rally to his side. Hence, when stodgy music professor, Hendricks (Francis Pierlot) tries to discredit Steve by ordering him to re-orchestrate his own version of Loch Lomond, Steve enlists not only the student body, but also the formidable talents of Carlos, Hendrick’s assistant/organist (Ethel Smith) and Harry James and his orchestra.  Steve and his entourage perform, ‘I’ll Take the High Note’ – a superb riff on the time-honored Scottish ballad. This brings down the house, forcing Hendricks to concede defeat and afford Steve an ‘A’ in music.

Later that evening, Steve launches into yet another reconciliation attempt with Caroline at her house. Instead, he is discouraged to learn Caroline is entertaining Willis Evans (Bill Goodwin), a conservative botany professor who has always been in love with her. Realizing Steve is hiding in her closet to spy on them, Caroline commands Duke, Willis’ Great Dane to stand guard, at the same time reminding Steve if he is not back in his basement dorm by eight o’clock, he will be expelled for breaking curfew. Managing his escape in the nick of time, Steve is confronted by Adams who threatens to vilify him in the press unless he finishes the score for his big show.

As yet unaware it was Adams who hired Maria to wreck his marriage, Steve vows to seriously hurt the person responsible for his present predicament. Meanwhile, as Parents Day is fast approaching, Dean Clinton raises concerns among the faculty. Steve cannot remain at Victoria or the college will be subject to scandal. Henceforth, all of Steve’s professors are entrusted with the task of finding ‘legitimate’ reasons to ascribe him enough demerits to get him expelled. To this end, ballet instructor, Madame Zarka forces Steve to wear a pink tutu and dance with the co-eds. Once again, despite his misgivings and humiliation, Steve rises to the occasion.

In desperation, Dean Clinton encourages Caroline to go out on a date with Steve. She need only make certain the two arrive back at the college too late for curfew. Caroline reluctantly agrees to this subterfuge, but later, regretting her deception, begins to fall in love with her husband all over again. Furthermore, Steve is finally successful at convincing his wife he is innocent of the charge of polygamy. Having renewed their faith in each other, the couple make plans to return to California together. Unbeknownst to anyone, Maria has arrived at Victoria, looking to exonerate herself and expose Adams as the deceiver. What follows is a calamity of riotous proportions, vaguely reminiscent of the infamous ‘state room’ scene from the Marx Bros. classic, A Night at the Opera (1935), and more recently, plied to perfection in the Lucille Ball musical, Best Foot Forward (1943) as Steve’s campus sorority tries to initiate him.

Maria is forced to hide in the closet along with Adams. Carlos and the sorority girls are shoved into a cramped adjacent room. Plucky pledge, Jean Allenwood (Jean Porter) arrives with devastating news. Dean Clinton and Jean’s parents are on their way to inspect Steve’s basement accommodations, having heard the rumor there is a male pupil at Victoria College. All hell breaks loose as Caroline hides in the closet, discovering Maria, and, more certain than ever Steve is lying to her. The Allenwoods arrive and discover Steve’s room teeming with this mixed company, leaving Dean Clinton chagrined. Caroline, stubbornly refuses to accept Steve’s implausible – though nevertheless true – claim of innocence. Expelled from Victoria, Steve begrudgingly returns to New York to write the score for Adam’s show. However, Maria has finally intercepted Caroline with the whole truth. As Caroline prepares to star in the lavish aquacade (Williams was actually suffering from pneumonia at the time she shot these scenes), she informs Steve it was Adams who orchestrated the whole darn mess. Happily reunited with Caroline, Steve wants his revenge, diving into the pool after Adams and nearly drowning before being rescued by Caroline, the couple ecstatically slipping beneath the waves. 

Bathing Beauty is a boisterous and blissful romantic comedy. Although Esther Williams would star in many more like-minded outings during her tenure at Metro (1952’s Million Dollar Mermaid and 1953’s Easy to Love the very best among them), none would ever quite rival Bathing Beauty for its dizzyingly innocent blend of lithe beguilement and top-heavy musical talent. This picture is credited with inspiring ‘synchronized swimming’ as an Olympic event. Viewed today, it has everything one could hope for from a blue-chip escapist entertainment. There is a youthful allure here, wholesome and unspoiled, and yet, despite the passage of time and tastes, as invigorating and fun to watch today. Largely, the credit must go to Esther Williams. In her first co-starring role, she is already a seasoned pro.

Williams, who left us in 2013, was a remarkable raconteur who frequently, and with a genuine zest for living, could strip away Hollywood’s faux incredulity, playfully to expose the ‘grand ole days’ for what they actually were – shamelessly, a hoot.  Case in point: all early Technicolor movies required their stars to appear for screen tests, holding a cardboard and metal plaque with a spectrum of colors to see how these would register in Technicolor under the current lighting conditions. This device was known as ‘a lily’. “You know,” Esther mused decades later, “I often wondered what Lana Turner was doing while I was holding that goddamn lily. (pregnant pause) I know what she was holding.” Despite having to deal with some fairly temperamental ‘artistic types’ during her years in the biz, Williams remained circumspect and exceedingly grateful for the opportunities that had come her way. Labeling MGM as her ‘university’, in which she received a ‘diploma’ as a much-beloved Hollywood icon that continues to endure, Williams would acknowledge, “I came to the studio as a swimmer and left it as America’s mermaid. For some reason, people still tend to remember me that way.”

After far too long an absence, Bathing Beauty finally arrives on Blu-ray via the Warner Archive (WAC). Prepare to be dazzled. In 1992, MGM/UA issued what it deemed a ‘Technicolor restoration’ on LaserDisc with questionable results and some misregistration of the original 3-strip negative. When Warner Home Video farmed out Bathing Beauty as part of TCM’s Spotlight Collection Vol. 1 on DVD in 2000, they used this same severely flawed transfer, resulting in some very muddy color balancing. But now, Bathing Beauty has received the sort of ‘ground up’ remastering effort in 1080p, a total re-combine of those Technicolor records, with all the advantages of modern digital clean-up techniques applied.

The results will astound. Bathing Beauty sparkles with gorgeous, fully saturated hues. Contrast is superb, and overall image clarity is razor sharp with a fine filament of naturally occurring grain running through it. Viewing Bathing Beauty on Blu-ray really is like seeing the pic for the first time. Colors pop, flesh tones appear natural, and everything looks as one always knew that it could in vintage 3-strip Technicolor – spectacular.  The 2.0 DTS mono soundtrack has been remastered as well and exhibits remarkable resonance, especially during the musical sequences. Truly, there is NOTHING to complain about here. We get an episode of TCM’s now defunct series, ‘Private Screenings’ in which the late and very great, Robert Osborne sits down with Williams to discuss her career.  There are also two cartoon shorts and a badly worn trailer to relish. Bottom line: Bathing Beauty, at long last, looks as appealing as its leading lady. It’s Esther at the peak of her powers, and Skelton, as funny as ever. Very – VERY – highly recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

5

VIDEO/AUDIO

5

EXTRAS

2.5