Exclusive"Million Dollar Mermaid" (1952): First Aquatic Biopic

Excuse me, Madame Pavlova. Yes? I wanted to tell you what a great admirer of yours I am. Why, thank you, my dear. Are you a student of the ballet? Well, I was, but I don't have the time now. But all my life I've wanted to be just like you. I thank you again, but what is it you do now? Well, I'm a swimmer. Oh, a swimmer. Do you compete in races? I won many races back in Australia, but now I swim in exhibitions. Australia? Why, are you Annette Kellerman? Well, yes, I am. Oh, my dear, you should not envy me. I dance on my toes, I pretend to be a bird. But you, there are hundreds of ballerinas. There is only one million dollar mermaid. I'm Tiffany Brannan. I'm Rebecca Brannan. Welcome to Real Thoughts on Cinema. Many people think that in classic films, women were only allowed to be pretty faces. Good point, but that's just not true. Looking good was very important for both men and women in the golden era of Hollywood, but there were many actresses who had unique abilities and special talents which made them famous besides their beauty. Exactly. Just such an actress was Esther Williams, a highly trained swimmer who became one of the top movie stars. Today we're going to talk about one of the finest movies she made, Million Dollar Mermaid, from 1952. This movie tells the real-life story of Annette Kellerman, another great swimmer in the early 20th century, starting with her childhood when she had been sick with polio and therefore had to have braces on her legs and couldn't even walk well, but she taught herself how to swim and through that made her legs strong. She went on to train in music and dancing because her father, played by Walter Pidgeon, is a music teacher and runs a music conservatory. As she grows up, she begins winning a bunch of swimming competitions and races, but her father still wants music and dancing to be her main career. Due to financial reverses, he has to close the conservatory and they leave their native home of Australia and go to London, where he's been promised a job. On the boat there, she meets Jimmy Sullivan, sort of a carnival attraction manager who's always coming up with the next big thing to fascinate people. At the moment, it's a boxing kangaroo. But he's heard of Annette Kellerman, this great swimmer, and he envisions her having her own show, a water show, but her father says she's not interested in swimming as a career. However, when they learn the man who had promised him a job has died, Jimmy talks Annette into doing a long swim leading up to his carnival in order to draw attractions to it. However, no one is interested in the kangaroo when they get there. They're only interested in Annette. And Jimmy realizes he's found the next big media sensation. This movie stars, of course, Esther Williams alongside Victor Mature and Walter Pidgeon. It's an MGM production. It was directed by Mervyn LeRoy and produced by Arthur Hornblow Jr. The screenplay was written by Everett Freeman. It's an amazing feat to fit even a large portion of someone's life into a movie. Yes, yes it is. Even now, it was hard to condense everything that happens in this film into a brief synopsis. Yeah, that's true. Annette Kellerman had such a fascinating and colorful life story. How accurate is this to real life? Well, it's interesting to see how this movie came about to be made. Because when you look at Esther Williams, she herself was actually a lot like Annette Kellerman because she was this great young swimmer. She won a bunch of competitions. She would have competed in the 1940 Olympics, but World War II stopped them from happening. So instead, she ended up being in Billy Rose's Aquacade swimming alongside Johnny Weissmuller, the famous Olympian. Who also was a movie star. Exactly. So then she got Hollywood's attention and she ended up making a bunch of movies. And you think, how can a swimmer be a movie star? But they actually contracted her so that she could be sort of MGM's answer to Sonia Hennie, who was an ice skater over at a different studio. But before she became a movie star, she requested nine months of training so that she could learn how to sing, dance, and act. And she said if it took nine months for Esther Williams to be born in the first place, it should take nine months for Esther Williams, the actress, to be born. And she became a really successful star. They teamed her up with some of the top actors of the day at MGM. But it was hard to find a way to work swimming into every movie. A lot of times she would play a swimmer. Or sometimes she just was a woman who happened to be swimming so they could get some numbers in. And she enjoyed those movies to varying degrees. But she came up with the idea of making a film based on the life of Annette Kellerman because she thought, what a great story for me. That would be just an amazing feature. Now, a couple of years earlier, in 1949, MGM made a movie called Neptune's Daughter, which was the same title as a film that Annette Kellerman had made because she was a movie star herself back in silent films in the 20s. But that film, it was a real fantasy film when Annette made it, and she was hoping they would make it like that, like the British movie Red Shoes. But that movie isn't like that at all. It's very much a romantic comedy musical. And she was so horrified, she said, I will never let that studio make a movie about my life. But then she actually met with Esther Williams, and she was so taken with her that she gave the green light to the film. Although she did sort of complain, she's much prettier than I ever was. Yes, that's true. So having met Esther and being honored to have her play her, they started working on the story. So how accurate is it? Some points are very accurate. Other points are not so accurate. Her father was a musician. Her mother was not dead, though, when she was a young child. Her mother was an important part of her life. I think they also, in Hollywood style, played up that her father really wanted her to do music. Her father was more enthusiastic about her being a swimmer in real life than he is in the movie. Her father isn't against it in the movie, but he just doesn't think that's quite the right thing for her. It was actually his idea for her to do that sensational, tame swim. But I think the biggest difference, and the thing that perhaps bothered Annette the most, was the characterization of her husband, Jimmy Sullivan. All right, so Jimmy Sullivan was a real person. She ended up marrying him. They were still married at the time this movie was made. He was her only husband. They were married until death did them part. But she said he was a very quiet, genteel man. There was nothing cheap or sleazy about him. She wanted Glenn Ford for the role of her husband. She saw him as having the right kind of quiet strength. I can kind of see that. But right after the success of Samson and Delilah, they said, no, we're putting Victor Mature in. But it's not necessarily him. It's the way the character is written. Was he sort of a carny like that? He was a promoter, but he wasn't... It wasn't the big idea man. It wasn't the way that they made it in the movie. That was a good story idea, but it wasn't like that. And because of that, when the friends of James Sullivan in real life would greet him with, hi there, Samson, any time they saw him after the movie came out. So she wasn't too thrilled about that. But she was pleased enough with the film that she was seriously talking about a sequel with Mervyn DeRoy. That would have been about her work more in pictures and her efforts during World War I. No, actually during World War II. World War II, right. Because she was a silent film actress during the 20s and she wanted to get more into that in the sequel. They just barely hint at the beginning of her film career making Neptune's Daughter. Now she did have that tragic accident, right? She did. She did have a serious accident, as is depicted in the film. But it actually happened when they were filming in Bermuda rather than in Hollywood. And the director supposedly was in the tank at the time. But she did have a serious injury. And one thing that is definitely similar, they changed it a little, is a big claim to fame she had was her whole one-piece suit scandal. Because women wore very covering bathing suits at the time and she scandalously wore a one-piece suit. In fact, the working title for this film was The One-Piece Bathing Suit. And that was how they released it in England. But the whole incident was that she was arrested at Revere Beach in Boston. And in the movie, James Sullivan eventually admits that he orchestrated all that. And it's said there's no police record of her ever being arrested. So it's believed that she kind of made that up. So it didn't even happen. It was totally a publicity. Yeah, it was just a publicity stunt. It was in the newspapers, but she wasn't actually arrested. So more orchestrated by her rather than her being just sort of at the center of it. That's right. But the idea that she had this ballet training that she then brought into her swimming is very much true. That she did lectures and even wrote books on the body beautiful and health and wellness. There's a very notable number in the film, which was very balletic. It has her in a little tutu. Did Esther Williams have any kind of dance training that you know of? Because I've always found her form of doing the water ballet, it looks like she must have. Well, she definitely had dance training as she was in Hollywood. I don't know how much she had before then. But she was excellent at water ballet. And for a biopic, I think this is pretty accurate in the fact that the real person worked on it and seemed to like it. So I think it's quite faithful in its depiction of her. Maybe they fudged some details with her father and her husband, but they captured her spirit, which she appreciated. And kind of an odd, not odd, but just something you're not expecting in this film. Interestingly, even though I've watched this movie multiple times, I didn't even really remember the song that was in there, is the character of Anna Pavlova, the famous Russian ballerina. That's right. Plays a small part, almost like a cameo. Yeah, she was appearing at the Hippodrome, a big theatre in New York around the same time. Right, to kind of tie into that idea that she trained for the ballet. Yes. And that that's sort of what she originally wanted to be. And Pavlova is portrayed by the amazing American ballerina Maria Talchev, who was a member of the Osage Indian tribe, and she was considered the first prima ballerina of America. She was married to famous choreographer George Balanchine. Right. And it's really an amazing scene, very short, showing her dancing the famous Dying Swan. But you really get this moment that's all focused on ballet and it's not something that one would expect to see in a movie about a swimmer. Yeah. Because they talk about her dancing a lot, but they don't show it. You never see her dance. You see her when she's a little girl, dancing, but Esther Williams doesn't dance in this movie. But yeah, it is, and it's a rare opportunity to just forget the swimming. If you are a ballet historian, to see this Hollywood feature of Maria Talchev. And it's so interesting to me, you'd think it would have been a long struggle for an Indian or a Native American woman to be a ballerina, but she was the first American prima ballerina. So it's really, and she's such a beautiful dancer, and she really embodies that Pavlova spirit and the costume she wears is gorgeous. With that dance, the Dying Swan, there's so many different versions of it, and I think it's interesting. Because it's like this one dance ballet to The Swan by Camille Saint-Saëns. There is footage of the original Pavlova. From 1907. Recording in 1907. There's one from the 20s as well, to just a piano arrangement. You can definitely see the costume is inspired by the design of hers, although they went even more over the top, but the skirt has got so many layers to it. It's just wild. And sort of every ballerina does this dance a little differently, so it's interesting to see Maria Talczyk's version of it. At the very beginning, you see her doing these turns, and I've never seen that dance done with turns in it before. So it's a fascinating study, both this reference, this kind of homage to Pavlova, and like you say, there's footage of this great American ballerina. And speaking of great numbers, this movie showcases, of course, aquacade swimming numbers, but it's unique among big-budget Esther Williams films in that there are multiple numbers, and they're all around the same time because they're when she's at the Hippodrome. There's an earlier montage when you see her swimming all over the place, and they used footage from earlier movies pieced together. You're familiar with her films, recognize, oh, this is from this other movie. But there's some really interesting things earlier that aren't the big elaborate numbers when she's doing these races or her marathon swims. Diving exhibitions. Yeah. Just really showing off her beautiful technique. Which is so impressive, but there are some beautiful numbers. There's the smoky number as she's diving in numerous times, and then the underwater water ballet where you see the beautiful, there's like a clamshell, and she goes into just, both of them really gorgeous. And the cinematography is amazing. See, it's very much like the Busby-Berkley style, wouldn't you? Was it not directed by Busby-Berkley? No, it was directed by Mervyn LeRoy, but I think Berkley may have helped direct. I understand that Busby-Berkley directed the two huge swimming numbers. And if you're familiar with his work, you'll recognize some of the water choreography is almost exactly copied and pasted from a movie he made years earlier, Footlight Parade, from 1933, Warner Brothers. One of the first three big Warner Brothers musicals. The bio-waterfall number, which featured a lot of swimming stuff, which looks a lot like Esther Williams' movies. I'd seen most of her movies before seeing that film. It's like, oh, I recognize the style. And then watching this again, it's like they're doing that exact choreography. Because of the backup swimmers doing it, but they had men being the supporters with women instead of having women doing all the parts. Right. Like they did in Footlight Parade. And probably the biggest number would be the first one you see her do with Hippodrome, where she's wearing this gold costume, crown, and there's just this wild dive off of this tower at the end of it. Yeah. Which she did have a stunt double, I understand, for a couple of scenes. But that one she did herself. Yeah, for the smoke number, two dives, there was a double. But that one she did her own dive. And apparently they didn't take into consideration the weight of the crown that she was wearing. Yes. And she was... She didn't even think about it until all of a sudden she's on the diving board. She was up there and she thought... And she was a little unsteady because she'd broken her eardrums seven times up to this point, not just in this film, but during her career. And she suddenly got up there and thought, I might break my neck. And she actually did injure several of her vertebrae and was in a body cast for seven months. She broke her neck and severed three of her vertebrae. And after she dove, she was still able to move her legs, but she couldn't move her upper body. So she swam to the surface and they had to pull her out of the pool. And I understand they filmed that last because they knew it could be really dangerous, which is kind of horrible. But you've got to look out for business. She knew it was risky. Right. And she wanted to do it. But that's so interesting that it was actually the crown had a lot to do with it. And she said that was the closest she could come to breaking, to severing her spine without actually doing it completely. It's just kind of ironic because near the end of this film, her character, Annette, suffers this bad spinal injury. It's the dangers of being a swimmer, I guess. But like I said, that wasn't the end. She was in the body cast for seven months, but then she made a lot more movies after that. She did not let that stop her. She was a champion. Yes, she was. And I think another comparison she has between Annette Kellerman is the advocacy of a swimmable bathing suit for women because Annette Kellerman paved the way for the one-piece bathing suit. Esther also paved the way for bathing suits that were supportive and really swimmable because the Hollywood costumers didn't really know how to make good bathing suits. They made them to look good, but they weren't always good fabric. Like in one movie, this time for Keeps, she was wearing this plaid swimsuit and it got so wet, she had to unzip it and swim to the surface without any suit on at all to avoid drowning. They were making them like dresses. Yeah, and there were other types too. So she ended up developing her own line of swimwear. I've always noticed there's something very unique about her bathing suits. They're just like the ultimate. So by the late 40s, she developed them and they were very supportive, beautiful, feminine, swimmable. When she was making the movie Here Come the Waves, she was involved with the waves, the actual branch of the military, and she realized that women in the service were just given these flimsy little cotton swimsuits as part of their uniforms, which didn't support their figures at all. So she went to the Navy and modeled her swimsuit to them and said, you need to give this to the women. You're not supporting them. And they, right on the spot, bought them for every member of the waves. So like Annette Kellerman, she believed in a bathing suit, not like a little bikini or something that was heavy drapery, something that was covering, supportive, and swimmable. So you could do what you needed to do. So I think it's interesting. The modern swimsuit industry should take a page out of her book on that. But when she's not in the swimming pool, there's some other beautiful costumes in this movie. Right, because it's a period piece. It's around the turn of the century, right? And then a little later, through like the 20s. Right. And so that beautiful style that was sort of between the more of like Victorian idea of the long skirts and then when... Yeah, it's called like Edwardian or bell poke. I feel like you don't see that style as much as some others. True, yeah. In terms of historical costuming. And I'm always struck by this very beautiful style. Yeah, it's... And it's interesting seeing the styles change across the movie. And I think they did a really nice job being accurate. Yes, I think so too. My outfit is inspired by the first costume which Esther Williams wears in the movie. That is in a bathing suit, that is. It's a simple white blouse with a green scarf in the neck, a matching one in her hair, and a blue skirt with simple black shoes. In contrast to the simple garments which Annette wears at the beginning of her life back in Australia, she ends up wearing very elaborate, glamorous clothes as she becomes a star of the Hippodrome. I'm wearing an outfit inspired by a costume we see her wear twice, both times at the Hippodrome. It's evocative of the teen style with a full drapey top, a black sequin belt, and then a long straight skirt. And the first time we see her wearing it, she's wearing a very glamorous white fur hat with a matching muff. And the second time, it's a more casual affair as she's giving out presents to children at Christmas. And in that time, she's not wearing gloves and she has on a bracelet. This movie cost a lot. You can just see that. And not even just in money. I mean, with her breaking her neck. Right. And I think that's what really makes it capture so much the spirit of somebody's life. It looks like a lot of life and sort of heart's blood went into it. And I think that's probably why it's the best remembered and kind of considered the greatest of her films. It was so financially successful in addition to costing a lot. Yes, it was very successful. And Million Dollar Mermaid became her nickname around the studio after the release of this film. Yes, it was. It was her favorite movie. I can see why. As you said, it's just all about her being a swimmer. So they don't have to come up with kind of creative ways for her to be in the water. It's just all about that and it feels... You can tell it's very close to her heart. She seems really passionate about it. Yes, and she gives a very dramatic acting performance. Because sometimes she was in, you know, comedies, musicals, and she was good at that. But in this one, she faces a lot of heartbreak. And she really gets to show a lot of range. Yeah. Both as an actress and even as a swimmer. I feel like you see her doing so many different types of things. And her competitive swimming. She didn't always get to do that, but you see her doing exhibitionism as she did. And she even named her autobiography after it. Right. So I think it was worth the high price because it made money and it was fulfilling to her. Annette Kellerman was happy, so the studio was happy. The actress was happy. The real person was happy. That's the really rare one. Yes. How often, even if they didn't necessarily hate the movie, they were like, who was that supposed to be about? So it's impressive that they actually made a film that pleased the person on whom it was based. So indeed, it was a great tribute to two great female athletes. Two great swimmers. Who were also lovely ladies as well. With a charming reference and homage to two great ballerinas. That's right. I think if you enjoy swimming, if you enjoy any kind of athleticism, if you like swimming yourself or dislike watching the beautiful pageantry of swimming, you'll really enjoy this movie. It's a historic landmark as well as a very entertaining, moving, deep and meaningful film. You can purchase it on Amazon Prime Video. It's also available on DVD. And it's an excellent, beautiful Technicolor copies. Many classic films were based on mostly ordinary people experiencing the normal troubles of life, with many of them being based on real people, such as Annette Kellerman. However, even in the Golden Era, they would occasionally take a jaunt into fantasy. Join us next time as we talk about a film with all the beauty and mystery of a Gothic Victorian novel. Based entirely around a romance which breaks the boundaries of life and death, truth and fantasy. Thank you for watching. Goodbye.