Neptune’s Daughter. Edward Buzzell. 1949. ⚃
Hey! Esther Williams and Red Skelton! Two actors I don’t really have on my radar, but I think I’ve seen them both in movies recently? Skelton was pretty funny?
[twenty minutes pass]
This is very odd. There’s barely been any swimming: It’s all been Skelton and Betty Garrett trying very hard to seduce each other in their nerdy ways.
It’s quite funny, but really odd. Is this a fixer-upper movie? Edited together from a few short movies or something?
[twenty minutes pass]
Now they’re doing the Baby It’s Cold Outside song. Did that originate here? It’s not like I remember it? I mean, Ricardo Montalban is doing one of the parts, and I don’t remember that.
And… “Say, what’s in this drink?” That’s probably always been there, but makes it even rape-ier than I remembered!
“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is a popular song written by Frank Loesser in 1944 and introduced to the public in the 1949 film Neptune’s Daughter.
Oh! But then Red Skelton and Betty Garrett do some verses where Skelton tries to make Garrett leave! I didn’t remember that, either. “You really can’t stay / Baby it’s cold outside.”
[forty minutes pass]
It’s an odd movie. There’s a bunch of funny pieces in here, but, like why:
Why paint that poor horse’s forehead white? It just looks odd.
Speaking of which, the colour process used here is an early one, I guess, and it’s quite striking: Some things look very colourful indeed, while the not-so-colourful bits all look beige.
[the end]
It’s an odd movie… which I like! But it doesn’t fire on all cylinders. And there’s not enough swimming! The final scene is lovely, though.
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