Skirts Ahoy (1952) As we sat down to watch this extremely minor-league MGM musical, we wondered if we'd find anything in it worth blogging about........
The songs? Nah.....strictly third tier. You could easily forget these songs while you're still listening to them.
The dances? With two terrific exception (which we'll get to shortly), the choreography's the usual one-two-three kick stuff.
The storyline? The usual tropes of a standard Hollywood military comedy, only this time dealing with women who join the Navy WAVES.
So.....what did we find interesting.....
Let's start with the trio of women at the film's center......there's the gloriously muscular swimming goddess Esther Williams as a wealthy debutante who flees her wedding to joins the Navy to see the world. Then there's the sweet 'n shy girl-next-door Joan Evans playing an apple pie cutie who flees a looming conventional 1950's life as a housewife-doormat. And finally there Vivian Blaine, playing the same wisecracking streetwise New Yorker she perfected in "Guys and Dolls".
Williams, of course, gets to frolic acrobatically in the training camp swimming pool. Blaine chimes in with her patented whiny-voice Broadway character.......
It's the Joan Evans character that intrigued us .Early on, she falls into a deep, deep homesickness depression. Then, after spending the first third of the film pouting like a toddler who's had her toys taken away, she suddenly makes a startling, decades-spanning leap into 21st century womanhood.
In a scene that sounds like it could've been written yesterday, Joan gives her simpering, overly possessive fiance the old heave-ho, declaring herself as a woman who knows her own mind and who will take her own journey, wherever it leads her.
We couldn't believe we were hearing this in a 1952 film.
That out of place sequence doesn't last long though. Before you know it, the three girls are belting out a song that basically says a girl without a guy is an abhorrent freak of nature and needs stamping out at once.........
Oh yes, the two musical numbers we loved. In true vaudeville tradition, MGM sends in its cute 'n cuddly Junior Varsity team, Bobby Van and Debbie Reynolds dancing their feet off as if they've just inhaled an entire meth lab.
The real showstopper, (and the only reason we didn't regret spending time with this movie), is a powerhouse, mass march-and-dance number executed by an entire company of WAVES. It's the most electrifying fun to watch.
And that's why we we'll salute out 2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2). Mainly for hardcore Esther Williams fans and MGM musical completists. Those folks should want to climb aboard.....
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