A swim teacher and a wealthy businessman are married after a brief courtship. A charming war hero falls in love with this newly-married woman, after her husband abandons her on their honeymoon for the sake of a business meeting.1h 45min | Musical, Romance | 23 May 1945
Director: Richard Thorpe
Stars: Van Johnson, Esther Williams, Henry Travers, Spring Byington, Lauritz Melchior.
Charles Walters ... dance director
We get a lot of big band (Tommy Dorsey with Buddy Rich on drums) and a lot of singing (LM in full operatic throat), and swimming (EW & later VJ) and diving (EW, but with a diving double?? in the cast/crew), but we get no water ballet, and no dancing that I saw (does social dancing need to be choreographed?)
The plot is adequately described above, except maybe that LM befriends EW & VJ, and tries to assist their friendship.
The new husband who abandoned EW is a candidate for abuse school. He swept her off her feet in a month, and was angry with HER when he returned after more than a week. But EW, being the strong woman she is, immediately accepted his offer of an annulment, and wanted no cash.
It's not a story that I enjoyed. EW's abandoned, gets swept up by another man, dumps the husband that dumped her, and is romanced by the new guy again at the end. Very messy, and not inspirational during the war. Plenty of brides would have felt abandoned by servicemen husbands, although their need to leave was legal. The singing wasn't fun, and no dancing makes for a poor musical. Tempting to give this a minus, but LM gets a good moment when a black teen bellman/messenger at the hotel demonstrates his singing talent, and LM promises to get him singing lessons.
MGM, dir. Thorpe; 6
