BATHING BEAUTY

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CREDITS

1944, 101 minutes, Technicolor.
Producer, Jack Cummings; Director, George Sidney; Screenplay; Dorothy Kingsley, Allen Boretz and Frank Waldman; Cinematography, Harry Stradling; Music Direction, Johnny Green; Choreography, Robert Alton and Jack Donohue; Water Ballet Choreography, John Murray Anderson.

CAST

Steve Elliott, Red Skelton; Caroline Brooks, Esther Williams; George Adams, Basil Rathbone; Willis Evans, Bill Goodwin; Ethel Smith, Herself; Jean Allenwood, Jean Porter; Carlos Ramirez, Himself; Chester Klazenfrantz, Donald Meek; Harry James and His Music Makers; Xavier Cugat and His Orchestra.

SONGS

I'll Take the High Note by Harold Adamson and Johnny Green; I Cried for You by Arthur Freed, Gus Arnheim and Abe Lyman; Bim Bam Boom by J. Camacho and Noro Morales; Tico Tico by Zequinha Abreu; By the Waters of Minnetonka by Thurlow Lieurance and J.M. Cavanass; Hora Staccato by Grigoras Dinicu and Jascha Heifetz; Magic Is the Moonlight by Maria Grever and Charles Pasquale; Trumpet Blues and Cantabile by Harry James and Jack Mathias; Blue Danube Waltz by Strauss; Loch Lomond.

PLOT SYNOPSIS

"Hoping to win back his estranged swimming coach wife (Esther Williams), a love-struck songwriter (Red Skelton) enrolls in a womens' college. . ."
- Liner Notes from MGM/Turner Laserdisc

NOTES

"Bathing Beauty covered a peanut of a plot. . .with lashings of Technicolored icing, and the result was a lavish piece of escapist entertainment. . ."
- Clive Hirschhorn, The Hollywood Musical

"I could not resist the wish that MGM had topped its aquatic climax - a huge pool full of girls, fountains and spouts of flame - by suddenly draining the tank and ending the show with the entire company writhing like goldfish on a rug."
- James Agee

"This first starring extravaganza is simple compared to [Williams'] later big splashes; it features Red Skelton and a nitwit plot about a man enrolling in a girls' college. The Johnny Green songs are sadly undistinguished."
- Pauline Kael, 5001 Nights At The Movies


Bathing Beauty was one of the top-grossing films of 1944. See Box Office Hits

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