Easy to Love

Easy to Love may yet when the definitive history of film is written to be Busby Berkeley's ultimate triumph. No longer confined by a motion picture sound studio, Berkeley stages a water ballet finale that is probably his ultimate fantasy number.

I have no doubt that somebody at MGM got together with someone at Florida's Cypress Gardens and decided to make a film promotion of the place. In essence that's what you have here. MGM shot the whole thing down there in Florida and the technicolor photography is spectacular.

When MGM did its compilation film That's Entertainment it was also mentioned that for one and one star alone did that studio construct a sound stage just for her. That would be Esther Williams, swimming star and movie star.

Esther's place at MGM was something akin to Sonja Henie's at 20th Century Fox. A sports star who was already a celebrity before becoming an actress, Esther because the Olympics of 1940 was canceled did not quite have the clout Henie did when dickering with the MGM brass. Yet Esther was as good a businesswoman as Henie and MGM did quite all right by her in marketing her to the public. She does some numbers in the tank, but that finale is something else.

For those of you who have only seen the finale because of That's Entertainment, the story is three guys and Esther and who she will choose. Her choice is her boss at Cypress Gardens Van Johnson, nightclub singer Tony Martin, and her swimming partner John Bromfield.

Tony Martin sings the Cole Porter classic title tune and several other numbers, the best of which is one sung with a chorus of senior citizens and Esther, That's What a Rainy Day is For. I particularly like that one it's perfectly suited to Martin's style. Besides the finale Esther a very cute number dressed in a clown get up with a seal and chimpanzee and a mechanical alligator. According to her memoirs they were among her most memorable co-stars.

I think it's unfortunate that Easy to Love did not utilize the musical talents of Van Johnson. He was signed by MGM in fact after he was spotted in the cast of Broadway's Too Many Girls. Of course he was no match for Tony Martin as a singer, but in films like Till the Clouds Roll By and Brigadoon he more than held his own. In fact MGM should have used him more in musicals generally than they did.

And for we who appreciate these things there's the sight of John Bromfield who spends most of the film in a bathing suit.

Easy to Love is quite the spectacle and real easy to take.

Julie Hallerton (Esther Williams) is the under-paid aquatic star of Cypress Gardens. Her boss Ray Lloyd (Van Johnson) is secretly one love with her, but he had competition from handsome singer Barry Gordon (Tony Martin) and park employee Hank (John Bromfield).

In 1952-53, Esther Williams was on a role. She had her two best films, Million Dollar Mermaid and Dangerous When Wet, released, and Easy to Love is also one of her best films.

The main plot is pretty thin, but Esther's charms keep it going. The romance between her and Johnson is unbelievable, mainly due to the fact that his character is a jerk to her throughout the film! Tony Martin is good, and gets a couple good songs to sing, while Edna Skinner is fun as Esther's roommate. The songs are all good, but Cole Porter titular song is surprisingly the worst.

The main pleasure of the film is Busby Berkeley's three spectacular aquatic numbers: the one with Esther as a clown has to be seen to be believed, and the big water-ski finale is fantastic. Overall, good fun.

Release dates for this one indicate that M-G-M decorated the nation's movie screens with this tuneful treat on Christmas Day. It was a delightful concoction with Esther displaying just about everything that made her one of the studio's biggest box office favorites, including a frantic number where she's dressed as a clown and required, no doubt by Busby Berkeley, assisting director Charles Walters, to perform some exceedingly lively stunts in the course of an elaborate aquatic display of why she was still a champion when wet.

Tony Martin croons the title tune, a Cole Porter standard, to Esther as she languidly swims for what seems like miles in a moonlit lagoon and there's an extremely sweet little song, entitled "That's What a Rainy Day Is For," tossed off, as they could afford to do in those melodious times, by Mr. Martin again, to a roomful of charming elderly ladies surrounding Miss Williams. The final extravaganza, set in Florida's Cypress Gardens, involves motorboats, dozens of swimmers, and Esther dangling and diving from a helicopter, no doubt the brainchild of Mr. Berkeley, the scourge of everyone assigned to execute the products of his fertile imagination (and, according to some reports, his alcohol-fueled tirades.)

Of course the plot, with Esther pining for a remarkably disinterested Van Johnson, probably irritated even the tolerant audiences of the early Fifties, but it was scripted cleverly enough to display Esther's gift for light comedy, something that is not as appreciated as it should be. When that lengthy sequence of scenes from Esther Williams movies was put together for "That's Entertainment!" in 1974, a young acquaintance of mine, completely unfamiliar with Hollywood's one-and-only mermaid, exited the theater thoroughly besotted with her charms. He found himself literally at a loss for words to express his admiration. I don't know if he ever had the opportunity to see one of her pictures in its entirety, but this wouldn't have been a bad choice, were he limited to just one title.

A likeable enough film. A treat for the eyes. I must admit that, knowing Busby Berkeley was ijnvolved, I was actually frightened for those in the final water number, even though this all happened 70 years ago. It was dangerous to let him play with motorized vehicles. Interesting to read that this was Esther Williams' favorite film. I'm not a fan of Tony Martin, and he looked a little old to be involved in these highjinks. But he was in very good voice, especially with the song about a rainy day.

Olympic-swimming-hopeful turned MGM-screen-sensation Williams does her thing as only she could in this light musical. She plays an overworked employee of Florida's Cypress Gardens (owned in this film by Johnson) who gets a chance to hit the big time for four times the money and half the work. While on a trip to New York City, in which Johnson works her like a galley slave, she falls for suave singer Martin who introduces her to a big-time producer. However, despite his autocratic treatment of her, she loves Johnson and can't decide what road to take. Meanwhile, back in Florida, she has yet another man to contend with, her hunky swim partner Bromfield, who wants to marry her. Worked in between all the romantic shenanigans and misunderstandings are several splashy (pun intended) swimming and/or skiing productions and a large handful of silky love songs sung by Martin. The film is simple, undemanding entertainment with beautiful and creative aquatic and water-ski moments to enliven the more familiar and routine romantic plotline. Williams is absolutely gorgeous in or out of the water and her acting, while it isn't anything tremendous, is perfectly acceptable as she shows affection and not a little amount of spunk. Johnson's character is pretty obnoxious at times, but he and Williams have a good rapport together. As an actor, Martin sings beautifully, but he's smooth enough not to detract from the film. It's hard to imagine Williams even glancing anywhere else but at the tanned, buff Bromfield, who spends a great deal of his screen time in teensy black swim trunks (but is just as yummy in pastel sportswear!) Baker has one scene as Martin's suspicious girlfriend. It's always a feast for the eyes when Williams swims in one of Busby Berkeley's elaborate concepts. Here she shares a blossom-strewn love duet with Bromfield, is the centerpiece of a skiing spectacular and hams it up as a clown in a slam-bang circus number (looking like the result of an affair between Ronald McDonald and Lucille Ball.) It should be noted that she was pregnant during the filming of this movie! Like most films of this ilk, it all turns out with a happy (if unbelievable!) ending for all. Martin's denouement is particularly amusing.