★ 6 / 10
Loosely based on the true story of Australian
CinemaSerf
Loosely based on the true story of Australian Annette Kellerman, this starts with her as a young girl under the care of her doting dad (Walter Pidgeon). He is…
Loosely based on the true story of Australian Annette Kellerman, this starts with her as a young girl under the care of her doting dad (Walter Pidgeon). He is on permanent watch around her as he is terrified that her disabling polio might endanger this determined young girl - especially when she takes to swimming in the lake. It appears, though, that this exercise is doing her the power of good and soon she (now Esther Williams) is winning local trophies. Meantime, her music teaching father is facing some financial hardships so they decide to relocate to London where he has an offer of a job. On board the ship they encounter the enigmatic “Jimmy” (Victor Mature), his pal “Doc” (Jesse White) and their boxing kangaroo. That proved quite lucky as there is no job when they arrive and so it falls to her to make a living doing the odd thing in the water. Next stop the USA and then success beckons as the public appear fascinated with her underwater ballet and acrobatics. There is one such scene in this film where I dare you to try and hold your breath for as long as she is supposed be able to. I got nowhere near! From what I know of the accomplished Miss Kellerman, there is a certain degree of cinematic licence taken here as the gently engaging plot gives way to sentiment making quite heavy going of this biopic - especially the romantic elements. Williams is charismatic, Pidgeon his usual reliable self and some of the set-piece routines are nicely staged and scored, but Mature is frequently upstaged by the roo and it all ends a little abruptly. It’d be interesting nowadays to see whether anyone would pay to sit poolside and watch anyone demonstrating the crawl, or the backstroke, or exhibition diving from a high board - but clearly, our forebears did.
★ 8 / 10
Entertaining biop of early 20th century swimming sensation Annette Kellerman
weezeralfalfa
One of the best of the film series featuring Esther Williams' swimming talents, that usually included some choreographed 'water ballets'. It has one of the…
One of the best of the film series featuring Esther Williams' swimming talents, that usually included some choreographed 'water ballets'. It has one of the better screen plays for her films, being a tribute to the first international swimming star: Australian-bred Annette Kellerman. No doubt, much of the screen play is quite fictionalized. This is probably especially true of the details of Annette's relationship with her promoter and future husband , American James Sullivan, played by familiar leading man Victor Mature.
Although most identified with his several roles in biblical-oriented films or ancient Egyptians, Mature had been paired with some of Hollywood's most glamorous ladies in musicals or romantic dramas for more than a decade, yet was still quite handsome, cocky, and personable, at age 40. Sullivan's participation in a race across the US in a very primitive plane is probably as fictional as his supposed promotion of the German shepherd Rin Tin Tin as a potential Hollywood star....David Brian serves as Sullivan's faithful partner(Alfred) in his various oddball enterprises and world travelings. Walter Pigeon plays Annette's father, who decides to move to the UK, where Annette gains further notoriety in her swimming feats. The real Annette made 3 unsuccessful attempts to become the first woman to swim the difficult English Channel.
Donna Corcoran plays Annette as a girl, whose legs are weak from polio and thus she has been encouraged to swim much to strengthen her legs, which eventually fully recover. After consulting several sources, it's still unclear to me if polio was the actual cause of her problem. The polio scare was at its height around the time this film was made, shortly before an effective vaccine became widely available. When Annette was a girl, polio was a much less common cause of muscular paralysis in children, infants being much more commonly affected, and often dying.
The film dramatizes Annette's trial for indecent exposure in wearing her customized one piece form-fitting bathing suit on a beach near Boston. She thereafter became noteworthy in serving as a model for the evolution of modern women's beach/swimming attire. Later, she starred in a series of Hollywood silent films, one of which featured her quite nude at times: a first in Hollywood films, but not mentioned in this film.
The film ends with Annette in a hospital, trying to recuperate from an incident in which she was propelled through a glass viewing section of a swimming tank, after the glass gave way, seriously injuring her spine. This is based on a true incident. However, it happened in Bermuda, not while making a Hollywood film. Also, the problem wasn't a spinal injury, but severe lacerations from the jagged glass. Interestingly, while making his film, Esther suffered a very severe injury in a broken neck from a high dive, necessitating a long delay in finishing the film. Thus, the nature of the reported injury and its circumstances much more resembled Esther's injury than Annette's.
There are, of course, several spectacular 'water ballet' segments, appropriately choreographed by Busby Berkley, in one of his last such roles, having been most active in this regard in the '30s. Included are some signature overhead kaleidoscopic shots... Esther looks quite stunning in all of her outfits, in or out of the water.
Present for one performance is Maria Tallchief,as Pavlova: world famous traditional ballet dancer. Maria was, in fact, acknowledged to be such: unexpected for the daughter of an Osage Native American!
Various familiar period or classical music pieces are played as background music. "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" is periodically heard or sung, serving as the theme song. There is a formulistic rocky period in the Annette-Sullivan relationship, when she has a well-established high class suitor, in contrast to Sullivan's romantic wandering seat-of-the-pants persona.
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Thank you!!! Please, upload all the Esther Williams classics!