Bathing Beauty (1944) on Netflix
Songwriter Steve Elliott is set to marry Caroline Brooks, a college swimming instructor. At the ceremony a woman claims to be his wife, and Caroline leaves for New Jersey.
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Trailer
Plot summary
Steve Elliott writes songs, and Caroline Brooks teaches swimming at a college. They plan to marry, and each intends to give up that work. New York producer George Adams has hired Steve for a water ballet show and wants the songs finished, so he recruits Maria Dorango, an actress posing as a Latin American singer. Just after the ceremony, Maria announces that Steve is her husband and shows three redheaded children she says are his. Caroline leaves for her teaching post at Victoria College in New Jersey.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Bathing Beauty (1944)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Red Skelton was advised to shave his red chest hair for Bathing Beauty's swimming sequences, but he protested; after conferencing with his wife he only cut it once the studio paid him $200 in cash and saved all the curls in a plastic bag.
- Bathing Beauty's musical numbers were shot before it had a story: the script had been through a million writers and was "bleh, lying there", while the studio was already committed to Esther Williams, Red Skelton, Harry James and Xavier Cugat.
- A scene in which Red Skelton's character is trapped in a house with a large aggressive dog outside proved so hard to complete that it was due to be scrapped, until Buster Keaton visited the set and quickly suggested a resolution.
- The pool sequences were shot in January at the Lakeside Country Club in the San Fernando Valley, where the grass was dead and brown; director George Sidney had it spray-painted green, which ruined the lawn and forced the studio to reseed it in the spring.
- Bathing Beauty's finale water ballet has been parodied many times, including in The Great Muppet Caper with Miss Piggy, Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles and History of the World, Part I, The Carol Burnett Show's "Slippery When Wet", Beauty and the Beast, The Simpsons' "Bart of Darkness" and Hail, Caesar! with Scarlett Johansson.
- Bathing Beauty's working title was Mr. Co-Ed, with Red Skelton having top billing; after MGM executives watched the first cut they retitled the film, gave Esther Williams prominent billing and put her bathing suit-clad figure on the posters.
