But no one would mistake these movies for one another.......the outlook, temperament and general atmosphere of these films were as wide as the ocean that separates the two countries....
The BQ held a distant childhood memory of watching "Mr. Peabody.." (the American film) on television, since like all kids, we gravitated to anything imaginative and fantastic. And what's more fantastical and fun than a mermaid? But no kid would care or remember what the film actually was....a deft, lighter-than-air meditation on aging and mid-life crisis.
In "Mr. Peabody', hitting 50 years old becomes a traumatic, emotionally devastating event for the title gentlemen (William Powell, somehow combining puckish humor with middle-age angst). On a tropical vacation, he mopes around, thinking of his mid-century milestone as a one-foot-in-his-grave death sentence......until he accidentally snags an adorable mermaid (Ann Blyth) while fishing, (Giving all new meaning to the phrase 'hooking up') Lenore the mermaid, a mute, angelic, innocently infantile creature, entrances Mr.P., who parks her in his hotel's fish pond, In true Hollywood fashion, this fish pond is deeper and wider than an Olympic pool and outfitted with huge toy castles like a Chinese restaurant aquarium. Mr. Peabody rekindles his will to live and romantic fervor with Lenore even as he realizes the doomed nature of his infatuation. Meanwhile, Ann Blyth swims like a champ in beautifully photographed footage shot at a Florida nature park (Criminally, this ethereal fantasy that cries out for color was shot in black and white)
Across the 'the pond', the Brits came up with an entirely different take on this material in 'Miranda'. Their mermaid tale (with mermaid tail credited to the Dunlop company), unfolds as a oh-so-British drawing room sex comedy, loaded with genteel double-entendre gags and entangled romances. Miranda the Mermaid, fetchingly played by Glynis Johns, is far from the silent, primal childlike Ann Blyth creature.
Johns' Miranda, unlike Blyth's primitive wild aquatic animal Lenore, is introduced to us as more of a functioning adult female, although oblivious to subtlety and bluntly direct, as if afflicted with Asperger's Syndrome. She's also chatty, British and a serious nymphomaniac, working her charms on three men at once.....the married young doctor(Griffith Jones) who hooked her, like Mr. Peabody, on a tropical vacation, his engaged-to-be-married artist friend,(John McCallum) and his also engaged butler-chauffeur (David Tomlinson, who would later team with Johns to play Mr. and Mrs. Banks in "Mary Poppins.") In the guise of a disabled girl wearing floor length dresses, Miranda loves having the guys carry her around like a toddler they're putting to bed......which, the movie implies, some of them do. (How exactly they accomplish sex with a woman who has a layer of fish scales in place of a vagina, one can only speculate....)
All of Miranda's canoodling, naturally, doesn't sit well with the doctor's wife and the outraged, heartbroken fiances of the other two guys Miranda, though, attentive only to her impulsive needs for sex and food, giddily floats along in her own romantic bubble, stopping only to indulge in all the expected physical gags......guzzling salt water, gobbling up tons of raw fish and in a trip to the zoo, engaging in a honking match with a seal.
The two films end up sharing a few surprising similarities......both mermaids sing plaintive, haunting siren-calls to their lovers. (This takes on more dramatic relevance in "Mr. Peabody",with the mermaid's song beckoning Mr. P. to escape the mid-life blues.... in "Miranda", Johns' ghostly warbling sounds tacked on and out of place amid all the rapid fire gags like "There's something fishy about that girl...").
Both movies spotlight scene-stealing MVP's in their supporting casts. In "Mr. Peabody" it's Clinton Sundberg, the tall, tenor-voiced fellow usually stuck playing obsequious hotel clerks or other meek characters. He's priceless as a resort executive aching to indulge in the booze and cigarettes he unwillingly gave up. And "Miranda" offers up British comedy national treasure Margaret Rutherford playing Miranda's dotty nurse. Rutherford demands close attention when you watch her, in that she's fully capable of tossing off a dozen witty asides while on screen for only a few minutes.
Befitting their natures, the films go their separate ways....."Mr.Peabody" ends with Peabody and his psychiatrist agreeing that Peabody's fling with the fantastic may have made him a better man, a more loving husband to his younger wife and less terrified of advancing age. "Miranda", much more of a laugh-getter than 'Peabody', finishes up with a fine, funny zinger of a final shot.....leading to the further amorous adventures of Miranda in the 1954 well-titled sequel "Mad About Men."
Mermaid aficianados (and we know there's millions of you out there....we think)....feel free to pick your favorite.....Ann Blyth's speechless sweetheart or Glynis Johns' sex-hungry sprite.....the BQ fell for them both (and their movies).....so we'll splash 3 stars (***) for each. Everybody in the pool......
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