BATHING BEAUTY

US, 1944, 101 minutes, Colour.
Esther Williams, Red Skelton, Basil Rathbone, Keenan Wynn, Ethel Smith, Xavier Cugat, Bill Goodwin.
Directed by George Sidney.

Bathing Beauty is quite a pleasant musical comedy, but is very much of its times, the '40s. It is of historical interest in the development of the M.G.M. musical. It was Esther Williams' earliest swimming film. Red Skelton was emerging during the early '40s as one of M.G.M.'s top comedians with such films as Vincente Minnelli's I Dood It. Skelton and Williams were to appear in many other films over the next decade. These films include Neptune's Daughter and Texas Carnival.

The film is also one of the earliest directed by George Sidney. He had made Thousands Cheer and the very popular Anchors Aweigh. He was to make some of the notable M.G.M. musicals of the '40s and '50s e.g. Annie Get Your Gun, Showboat. He directed Esther Williams in several films. Later he was to make musicals like The Eddy Duchin Story, Pal Joey and the British '60s musical Half A Sixpence, with Tommy Steele and based on H. G. Wells' novel Kipps. Sidney was a flamboyant director and did not have the subtleties of such directors as Vincente Minnelli and Charles Waters, the other prominent directors of the golden age of M.G.M. musicals. This film has all the colourful conventions of the musical, the songs, the comedy, the glamour. It is somewhat garish in its colour style and for the taste of later decades looks somewhat camp. However, it has its place in the development of prominent careers at M.G.M. in its age of musicals.