Lives in the early 20th century in Australia a girl named Annette Kellerman, who has problems with the legs. Secretly from her family, she swims in the local pond and a miracle happens: everything becomes fine with her legs. And then Annette begins to successfully perform in competitions, ahead of even men and travel around the world. In the States, she meets the Impressario James Sullivan and with him begins his new water show. Later, their paths diverge, but fates are already connected. Annette becomes a famous showman, whose water performances are a huge success.
This film of the 50s is considered one of the most famous works of Esther Williams, the star of water musicals. As always, the main swimmer of Hollywood shows his sports training in a lot of choreographic numbers, usually in the water to beautiful music. Everything looks bright and very good, although the current synchronists show more effective shows at competitions.
By execution. Swimmer Williams is not bad, but she has worse acting skills. Outside the water, she needs good partners. If Walter Pidgin in the role of the heroine’s dad still somehow pulls, although he irritated with his whining, then the choice of Victor Matthewr for the role of the love of the heroine’s life is such a thing (Glenn Ford originally planned). Their chemistry is not particularly visible (although there was an affair between the actors on the set), and everything is scripted in a bland way.
The most curious thing about the film was that it was based on the true story of the first famous swimmer Annette Kellerman. At the beginning of the century, her water shows were a sensation, and she was the highest paid woman in the United States. It is to her that we owe the appearance of the modern women’s bathing suit, for which she was arrested. In addition, she was a Hollywood star and in 1916 starred naked in the scenes of the film “Daughter of the Gods” (from him there are only photos, one of which is below), becoming the first major star to do this in cinema (in our musical, of course, this is not the Hayes code). In general, the real story of Kellerman for me was more interesting than the film dedicated to it.
5 out of 10