Bathing Beauty (1944)

• Director
  • George Sidney
• Writers
  • Kenneth Earl
  • M.M. Musselman
  • Curtis Kenyon
• Stars
  • Red Skelton
  • Esther Williams
  • Basil Rathbone

  If you've never seen a '40s singing, swimming musical this may be the one to catch. Featuring a mammoth cast, including such notables as Xavier Cugat, Basil Rathbone, Red Skelton, and Esther Williams, this is a swimming spectacular. The plot's quite thin: Skelton plays a lovesick songwriter who enrolls in a girls' school to stay near his new wife who ditched him shortly after the wedding bells rang and was hired on as the college's swim teacher. Of course Esther Williams is the beautiful swimming instructor who spends most of her time in the pool performing in a score of choreographed pieces.