Synopsis
After overcoming polio, Annette Kellerman achieves fame and creates a scandal when her one-piece bathing suit is considered indecent.
Your Movie Library
Cast
- Esther WilliamsAnnette Kellerman
- Victor MatureJames Sullivan
- Walter PidgeonFrederick Kellerman
- David BrianAlfred Harper
- Donna CorcoranAnnette - 10 years old
- Jesse WhiteDoc Cronnol
- Maria TallchiefPavlova
- Howard FreemanAldrich
- Charles WattsPoliceman
- Wilton GraffGarvey
Recommendations
- 60
TV Guide Magazine
LeRoy's direction is apparently nonexistent, but what this movie really lacks is a good musical score with tunes by someone like Harry Warren, Richard Rodgers, or Cole Porter. - 60
Chicago Reader
Another audacious MGM aquacade, this 1952 Mervyn LeRoy extravaganza stars Esther Williams as the famed Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman and Victor Mature as the man who discovers first her and then Rin Tin Tin. But the real star is, as always, Busby Berkeley, who contributes more of his Ken Russell-ish wet dreams. - 50
The New York Times
Like the stage show, this Technicolored shindig, which laughingly pretends to be a biography of the famous swimmer, Annette Kellerman, is a luxuriance of razzle-dazzle that includes Hippodrome acts, water ballets, bathing suit shows, diving performances, low comedy, anachronisms and clichés. It also includes an abundance of Miss Williams and Victor Mature, but it does not include the felicities of a reasonably fascinating script. - 50
Variety
This is a gaudy, conventional biopic based on the career of Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman, appropriately tagged ‘Million Dollar Mermaid’. - 50
The New Yorker
The picture's only claim on one's attention is in the two sequences staged by Busby Berkeley.
