Busby and Ester

I am looking over the movie listings in the paper. Oh, how movies have evolved! The offerings look mighty slim for our interests. Judy and I love musicals. I know some of you think they are basically a silly media form. I have a wonderful relative that laughs when John Travolta sings with his mechanics in Grease.


My thoughts go back to Carl Kerr, who was Professor Emeritus of English at the college. Before his passing, we had a discussion about musicals and I asked if he liked Andrew Lloyd Webber. I love his scores of Phantom of the Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Evita. He made a terrible face and said that he hated them! He informed me that they have not made quality movies since the 1940's.


He said that the musicals directed by Busby Berkeley were the last of the great musicals. Berkeley was famous for his elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns. Berkeley's quintessential works used legions of showgirls and props as fantastic elements in kaleidoscopic on-screen performances. He started as a theatrical director, just as many other movie directors. Unlike many at the time, he felt that a camera should be allowed mobility, and he framed shots carefully from unusual angles to allow movie audiences to see things from perspectives that the theatrical stage never could provide. This is why he played an enormous role in establishing the movie musical as a category in its own right.

Mr. Kerr said that Ester Williams (1921- ) was an actress that he adored. Esther Williams' youth was spent as a teenage swimming champion. She eventually was spotted by a MGM talent scout while working in a Los Angeles department store.She made her film debut with MGM in a 1942 "Andy Hardy" picture called Andy Hardy's Double Life (1942). She became Mickey Rooney's love interest in the movie, and her character was called "Sheila Brooks".







The scene most people associate Esther Williams with is the famous and often spoofed grand water ballet finale in Bathing Beauty (1944). Several moments, such as the swimmers who dive past one another in the pool, the moment where Williams is received as a queen, then dives and reappears above water, surrounded by several other swimmers who form a circle around her, became iconic. Enjoy the video by clicking on the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGMoRHq_pMY

Esther Williams retired from acting in the early 1960s and currently lends her name to a line of women's swimwear and to a company that manufactures swimming pools and swimming pool accessories. She co-wrote her autobiography The Million Dollar Mermaid.