Esther Williams was a likeable star - non-threateningly pretty, sexily athletic, full of bounce. Maybe not the best actor in the world but she had personality - plus technicolour and MGM sheen. It's a shame she didn't have a stronger co star than Peter Lawford or, it must be said, Ricardo Montalban, both of whom have impressive torsos but are a little bland, especially Lawford (who has such a whimpy voice).
The plot is a kind of send up of old Dorothy Lamour/Maria Montez South Sea island films, only its dimmer than anything either of them made: Williams plays a movie star making a south seas film co-starring real life fiancee Montalban and Cyd Charisse, who secretly loves Montalban. The naval advisor is Peter Lawford, who has long loved Williams - so he "charmingly" abducts her, flies her to an island, and insists she dance with him.
I think we're meant to find this stalking harassment adorable; so too is Williams, but we never really see why. Lawford isn't charming, and doesn't deserve her love. I mean, if his character brought something to the relationship - if he treated her like a normal person, or made her laugh, or something, it might work. But he just abducts and harasses her, and despite seemingly being happy with Montalban she falls in love with him. It's okay though because Montalban chucks her over for Charisse. Then at the end Williams tries to help out Lawford and he gets all upset with her for no reason and says things like "have you forgotten to be a woman?" (It's like they just threw in scenes from old Clarke Gable movies without bothering to make sure they flowed.)
The thing is, the whole story could have been easily improved - just make Williams a temperamental bitch, or have something in common with Lawford. It wouldn't have been hard. But they got lazy.
MGM try to distract the audience with other things - Esther in the water of course, dancing and doing numbers but having frolics with Lawford and Montalban which were a little steamy; Charisse flashes those spectacular legs in some dance numbers; Jimmy Durante provides some tiresome (to me anyhow) comic schtick and songs; Leon Ames does blustering comic naval officer stuff and Xavier Cugat does comedy and conducts his orchestra; there's also some tiresome antics involving a child actor which I think is meant to be funny. Esther and Charisse run around in brown face, the photography and production design is impressive.
No comments:
Post a Comment