Easy to Love (1953)

Being a prop in a fancy resort is hard work. Julie (Esther Williams) and the other girls at Cypress Gardens perform many shows a day. When they're not in a show, they lounge about the grounds in fancy dresses as part of the scenery, posing for photographs and flirting with guests. As the star swimmer of Cypress Gardens, Julie's schedule is extra grueling... Here she is doing synchronized swimming in a lagoon of flower petals, when all she wants is to go out for a fun evening of her own. Or maybe spend a little time making her hard-working boss Ray (Van Johnson) jealous by going on a date with her flower petal companion.
When Julie threatens to quit because of how overworked she is, Ray offers to take her to New York. Julie thinks she has finally gotten Ray to appreciate and fall in love with her, but it turns out it's just a modeling/PR gig. Luckily for Julie, though, she meets a famous singer in New York who actively pursues her and finally makes Ray start to feel some pangs of jealousy.

Esther Williams. When did someone decide that synchronized swimming movies should be all the rage? Are there other synchronized swimming movie stars out there? In this movie, not only does Esther Williams get to float about in flower petals, but she gets to audition in a tank...
...and she performs in a water-ski extravaganza that I'm convinced defies the laws of physics.
What was possibly my favorite scene didn't even involve Esther Williams, though. It involved Julie's singer suitor singing a song called "That's What a Rainy Day is For" with a whole bunch of old ladies who must have been born in the 1800s to be so old in this movie. Cute song.

Maybe two stars. Some very entertaining stunts, but the love story was so unbelievable. I watched this with Barbara, and we kept turning to each other to say, "I don't understand why he likes her yet," or "Why does she like him?" The love story needs to be believable!!! And I don't appreciate lines like, "So you don't fight nature...You fight your wife." Sorry.

Easy to Wed (1946)

I can only hope that on the day of my wedding David and I get to perform a long song and dance number for all of our guests. In fabulous technicolor costumes.

This movie is Libeled Lady in color... Or so I think. I got this movie because it was a recommended Esther Williams movie and found out upon reading the DVD sleeve that it is in fact a re-make of Libeled Lady. After watching the trailer for Libeled Lady and reading Amy's blog post, I think it is pretty safe to say that Easy to Wed is just a remake in color...mostly the same dialogue, with a few changes: Lucille Ball for Rita Hayworth, duck hunting for angling, swimming stunts for no swimming stunts... The older movie does have William Powell and Myrna Loy, though, so I am ready to believe that it was a better movie. Now of course I very much need to see Libeled Lady to compare.
The movie starts with a slander suit. Connie Allenbury (Esther Williams) and her wealthy father are suing a newspaper for two million dollars for publishing an article that called Connie a husband stealer. Warren Haggerty comes up with a brilliant plan to save the paper... hire back Bill Chandler (Van Johnson), a reporter he had long ago fired and a man just sleazy enough to be willing to trick Connie Allenbury into actually stealing a husband, thus ruining her lawsuit. For Connie to actually steal a husband, though, Bill needs to be a husband. Haggerty gets his fiance, Gladys (Lucille Ball) to marry Bill so that Gladys can then discover Bill cheating on her with Connie.

Bill goes to great lengths to win the trust of Connie and her father. He even pretends to be an expert duck hunter, a lie which gets him invited for a weekend of hunting at the Allenbury cabin. While he's at the cabin, he realizes that Connie isn't actually the spoiled brat she appeared to be. She just comes across that way to protect herself after years of being harassed by men who want her for her money.
Once Connie trusts Bill, she drops her stuck-up act and...
Now Bill has a problem, though. He is actually in love with Connie and no longer wants to go through with the plan. Much hilarity ensues. Some of it involves Bill and Gladys pretending to be ducks to learn the art of duck hunting. (Long video, but fun!)

So three stars, because it really was a funny movie. One of those stars is for a scene near the beginning of the movie when Esther Williams water skis down a giant slide standing not on water skis, but on a man's back. I'm not sure I'll see it again, though. I will see Libeled Lady.

Pagan Love Song (1950)

I am now the proud owner of TCM Spotlight: Esther Williams, Volume 2. The Box Set. Thank you Mom and Dad. Prepare for silliness.

My brother Jeremy very reluctantly sat down to drink tea and watch this movie with me when I received the box set...

Mimi (Esther Willimas) is a beautifully tanned, white resident of Tahiti. She longs to leave the island to find a higher calling than living in paradise. She already has a boat ticket away. Hazard Endicott (Howard Keel) arrives on the island of Tahiti (Hawaii) to take hold of a plantation he has inherited. When he first sees Mimi she is in a canoe with her friends. He mistakes her for a native islander and tosses coins for her to catch, while speaking to her in really painfully slow and loud English. Mimi decides to mess with him, adopting an island accent and pretending to be what he thinks she is.
***Jeremy rolls his eyes.***

Endicott hires Mimi's two friends (one of whom is a very young Rita Moreno) to be his housekeepers (although he really wanted to hire Mimi). He is surprised by how small and run down his plantation is, but his new workers tell him it will look great when it is cleaned up. Endicott sings a song about the "house of singing bamboo."
***Jeremy snorts.***

Endicott comes to love his new house and the island. He sings a song involving lines like "How-dee-doo" and "You are well I trust?"
***Jeremy laughs.***

Endicott sings a reprise of his "House of Singing Bamboo" song while holding a pig in his lap.
***Jeremy tries to leave, but is is convinced to stay at least a little longer and finish his tea.***

Endicott finally discovers that Mimi is not really a native, when she invites him to a party at her house. He shows up in island attire, only to feel out of place when he is surrounded by white people in fancy suits and dresses. Endicott and Mimi fall in love, and Mimi's family become hopeful that she will stay on the island to be with him.


Endicott ends up with three island children staying with him, and he sings with them about etiquette.
"Etiquette, etiquette, always fold your serviette..."
***Jeremy raises his eyebrows and says, "Okay Jess, enjoy." He leaves.***

And so on, with some twists and turns, one involving the native workers leaving Endicott's coconut crop outside where it can rot in the rain and him getting very very angry. It was not as much fun to watch once Jeremy left. He didn't even get to see the synchronized swimming. Not the real swimming and not the fantasy swimming.

I feel like I've been typing this a lot lately, but one star. It would be hard to have a good movie with silly, happy islanders, some of whom are probably white people with their faces painted. Oh my. I may someday watch it again, though, because as with my least favorite Cary Grant movies, I do own it.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949)

Having loved On the Town, I needed to see more Kelly & Sinatra films. A baseball musical turned out to be a great choice. Not only did it have the same two main characters, but it had a number of the same character actors as well. Oh, joy!

Eddie (Kelly) and Denny (Sinatra) are baseball players and vaudeville performers. At the beginning of the movie we get to see their last act of the vaudeville season before they rush off to Florida for spring training with the Wolves. Once back with the team, they sing the strangest song about their fake exploits while on the road with the vaudeville troop, featuring a verse about a college girl who was so love struck that she stopped studying and...
"Her teachers wouldn't pass her
so she just turned on the gasser
now the sweetest girl at Vasser's
in the cold cold ground."
And oddly enough, because Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelley can sing anything, it sounds nice.

Right after being welcomed back to the team, the men find out that a new owner, K.C. Higgins, will be arriving shortly to take over management of the team. Everyone is angry to the idea of being put under tighter control by a new owner. Of course in a comedic twist of fate, K.C. Higgins turns out to be a Katherine (Esther Williams). I have only ever seen one Esther Williams musical before (and loved it), so I did not recognize Katherine as Williams when she first showed up. It wasn't until the guys watched Katherine swimming in the pool as she sang "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" that I realized who I was watching.

Katherine plans to clamp down on the players, giving them fines for coming in late and even offering them baseball advice. Eddie can't stand this, and the movie goes on to follow the familiar plot of woo the woman and pretend to love her so that you can get her to do what you want. Denny is assigned the job of wooing Katherine, which he does quite easily by singing a song. Unfortunately for him he goes off to bed, and Eddie rushes off to finish the wooing job, also by singing to Katherine. Denny watches horrified as Eddie appears to be stealing his new girl, not believing his pal Goldberg that Eddie is only wooing in his name. "Then what, I suppose she'll kiss him, and he'll come back and kiss me." I started to get a little worried about how easily Katherine was fooled by Eddie's act. Then Katherine charged Eddie the $50 fine for breaking curfew, and I felt much better.

Then of course much hilarity ensues. Shirley (Betty Garrett) falls for Denny at a game and stalks him mercilessly, Eddie and Katherine appear to fall for each other, all as they dance, sing, play baseball, start fist fights, have clam bakes, lie to each other, get into trouble with gamblers, try to protect each other in all the wrong ways, have a great chase scene around the bases, and dance and sing some more.

Next time I go to a game, forget the Red Sox hat... it is finally time to break out my grandmother's old hats.

This picture does no justice to the technicolor pink in the movie. And this is just one of the many wonderful hats that Katherine and Shirley wear throughout the movie.
Four stars! Four stars! Yes, it's silly and sexist, but four stars! Must see again!

Dangerous When Wet (1953)

Oh, a swimming musical. Why have I not been watching these?

The Higgins family is a family of swimmers. Every single morning Pa, Ma, Junior, Katie (Esther Williams), and Suzie jump up seemingly at the crack of dawn to do some laps in the local swimming hole.  And, it being a musical, they sing a wonderfully cheery song as they get ready to swim.  When Katie is spotted by a somewhat lecherous salesman one morning, the family ends up with the chance to swim in a race across the English Channel in order to promote his product.

Although the rest of the Higgins family deems the English Channel too cold, Katie continues to train.  One day, during a foggy training session she loses sight of her salesman coach in his rowboat and is pulled aboard the sailboat of the charming and dashing Andre (Fernando Lamas - who became Esther Williams's husband).

There are passionate looks, vows to stay away for the sake of the race, and several minor scandals.  On their first date Andre gives Katie a bikini as a gift!  Andre invites Katie over to his house to meet his mother, and his mother isn't there!  And she stays anyways!  And they go swimming together!

The movie even contains a dream sequence in which Katie swims with Tom and Jerry.

I searched and searched for a photo of the great goggles worn in the movie... no photo to be found. Just picture the most wonderful gigantic swim goggles imaginable... and then double their size. Oh how I want those goggles.

And then of course there is Katie's heroic swim.

Three stars. I would love to see this again. And bring on the Esther Williams movies. Are they all so wonderfully silly?