Then Cynthia appears in her wedding dress.  It’s a 1940s silhouette with a funny little front bustle and a long, long lace train that gets caught on the doorknob.  It’s sort of pioneer-woman with huge flower crown who was teleported to 1944, and it’s one of the least exciting gowns she wears in the movie.  Hint.

It also appears to be the same dress used for a publicity photo for Easy to Wed (1946) with Van Johnson and Lucille Ball:

I’m shocked that extravagant MGM would be so thrifty!

Back to our movie.  Julio, the little boy who told Bob about Cynthia, has come to give Cynthia a wedding gift: a dive he finally mastered.  It’s very sweet, and she gives him a big hugs, despite Bob’s warning that she’ll ruin her dress.  Cynthia replies, softly, “I won’t need it again.”  Look at that lace train!

Bob and Cynthia head off on their honeymoon to a fancy hotel in California with fancy painted backdrops. Although they sometimes do go on location for “hiking” scenes, mostly they’re stuck on the backlot with painted scenery.  It’s especially noticeable when Cynthia’s poised to dive–look for the fake mountains and trees behind her.

Cynthia has changed into a really excellent leopard-coat-with-red-lining ensemble.  I love it all, including her luggage.

Bob and Cynthia settle in at the hotel and hear an awful racket as they change for dinner.  Guess who’s singing on his balcony (which appears to be a mostly painted backdrop)?  This guy.  He belts out “Vesti la giubba,” which you may know better as “Ridi, Pagliaccio.”  It’s a famous, tragic aria from the opera Pagliacci, so I suppose it’s a good introduction to Melchior, though it doesn’t fit the cheerful tone of the rest of the movie.

Melchior looks a bit like an olive in his dressing gown and ascot.  I know he’s a famous tenor, but I imagine the hotel desk would have gotten some “tell that guy to be quiet” calls if this was not an MGM musical.

Cynthia and Bob enjoy the song and then change for dinner.  Cynthia wears a green dress with vines snaking all around and flowers at her hip.  The color and the vine winding around her back and under the bodice are unusual, and she could have looked like a stem, but she pulls it off.

Sometimes those simple, straight, pre-New Look, 1940s silhouettes can be dull or masculine with the exaggerated shoulders and tailoring, but not when Irene designs them for Miss Williams.

Bob is a real stick-in-the-mud, but Cynthia seems to love him.  And he seems to like how pretty she is, and her worshipful gaze.

In the dining room, we learn that famous opera star Nils Knudsen (Lauritz Melchior) is on a diet and constantly complaining about it.  It’s a subplot that gets old, no matter how many schemes he concocts with waiters or even Tommy Dorsey.

It continues through the whole movie, with jokes about his rabbit food, and his attempts to sneak desserts and steak without the hotel manager seeing (she’s his diet enforcer).  There are several other subplots, too, but I’m going to focus on a young Major who can’t take his eyes off the new Mrs. Delbar.

He watches as Bob and his bride enjoy their dinner…

…until Bob takes a phone call at the table.  The Major sees Cynthia reacts to bad news:

Thorpe and cinematographer Harry Stradling, Sr. nail the shallow focus look in this movie.  Deep focus is more prestigious, and holds more cachet in film circles, as I discussed in my Roman Holiday post, but golly!  Shallow focus like this can be extraordinarily beautiful and interesting, too.  I prefer to think of the two styles as different, not in a value hierarchy.  (Of course that’s a selfish determination, since dismissing shallow focus as less means dozens and dozens of my favorite movies are somehow less important and less worthy…)

Back to the phone call: there’s a big business deal going down in Washington, D.C., and Bob decides to attend.  Never mind that he and Cynthia were married just a few hours ago.  (Family first, unless there’s a business thing.)  She’s only a little bitter when he says it’s lucky that he hadn’t unpacked yet…You can watch it here.

Bob scurries off to D.C., leaving his bride alone at the hotel.  She paces around the hotel room, (excellent gown viewing time), and then falls on a chaise (bright green with pink trim, natch) to cry.

She’s not alone for long; Major Tommy was stargazing on his balcony next door.  He hears crying, and peers over the hedge.

He’s just darling to her, very sweet and kind.  He’s also shocked when he grasps the entirety of the situation.

She’s flattered at his indignation, and comforted by his kindness.  And the audience is swooning.

The next day, the camera follows her lovingly (thanks, Thorpe) as she strolls to the pool in a white suit, strappy gladiators, and a punchy robe with matching hair ribbons tucked into her (partially fake) braid.

Sydney Guilaroff and his hair wizards really nailed her swimming-hair in this movie.  I’ve never seen so many complementary hair ornaments, and the baby oil-Vaseline mixture keeps things shiny and immovable even when she dives.  Oddly, out of the water she sticks to tried and true bouncy curls with nary a variation.  For more on the techniques MGM invented to keep Williams looking gorgeous in the water, read my post here.

Cynthia meets Maude Bancroft, played by Frances Gifford, whose biggest claim to fame was starring in a B-movie 15-chapter serial in 1941 called Jungle Girl.  Don’t worry, the pool furniture sticks to Technicolor’s darlings, chartreuse and turquoise.

What a coincidence!  Maude’s father is one of Bob’s business associates, and he’s in Washington working with Bob on the big deal.  Maude is working on a deal of her own: she’s on the hunt for Major Milvaine.  And now we get Tommy’s backstory: he’s a famous war hero!  Maude heard he’s staying at the hotel, but she doesn’t know what he looks like, and she’s a bit confused on other details, too.

Cynthia doesn’t realize that the man in the Army uniform (hint, Cynthia) who comforted her the night before is the famous Major Milvaine.

 Maude assumes that a muscly man showing off his physique in the pool is the Major (he’s actually a boxer; add this to the list of subplots), and Cynthia wishes her luck and goes swimming.

She backstrokes right into the handsome, freckle-speckled gentleman from the night before.  The first time she swims away after saying hello, but when she swims into him a second time, she stays.

He admits he can’t swim, so she offers to teach him.  The whole thing is adorable, mainly because of Van Johnson’s amusing, spluttering attempts to stay afloat.  He’s charmingly goofy and boy-next-door-handsome in this movie; I can see why bobby-soxers went wild.

After the swimming lesson Cynthia miraculously appears in time for lunch in a midriff-baring dress (I know there was rationing during WWII, but surely they could scrape enough fabric together to make a whole dress?) and perfect hair.  No two piece bathing suits in this movie, though they were very popular, but a two-piece dress is okay.  But of course no belly buttons on display! For more, read History Through Hollywood: Fashion.

They chat, and Tommy tells her about his ordeal on the island.  It’s calmly patriotic and lovely, and you just want to give this brave boy a big hug.  At least, Cynthia looks as though she does.

This movie was filmed in August-October 1944, with a few days of additional work at the end of November; WWII was still raging.  The film premiered in New York on May 24, 1945, just over two weeks after Germany surrendered, and a few months before Japan officially surrendered and ended WWII in September.

I imagine that watching Van Johnson in his uniform falling in love with Esther Williams, while tales are told of his incredible bravery and the many “Jap” planes he shot down, must have been a happy respite from the real war for audiences in 1945.  But besides Van Johnson’s character, the war does not intrude.  It’s all happy times by the pool watching Esther Williams dive:

The war does intrude indirectly in the absence of silk: it was rationed to be used for military purposes, so costume departments had to make do with other fabrics.  You won’t find any Carole Lombard-esque silk gowns in movies made during the war!

Esther Williams’ dresses aren’t made of silk, and even her wedding dress appears to be made of jersey or something similar.  You’ll also notice that she wears relatively straight silhouettes; part of that is her body type, but part of it is wartime fashion, influenced by government mandated rationing.  When fabric is harder to come by, short sleeves and straight skirts suddenly become trendy.  You can compare her costumes in Neptune’s Daughter, Dangerous When Wet and Easy to Love to see the difference, keeping in mind that Dior’s “New Look” of tiny waists and full skirts was introduced in 1947.

If Van Johnson’s character was changed from a soldier into a businessman, athlete, firefighter, etc., it would be easy to forget that this movie was made in 1944.  It’s all swimming pools, dancing, and beautiful clothes.

Cynthia and Tommy dance so much that people start to notice.

And Bob still doesn’t return, even though Cynthia begged him to come back.  She knows she’s in danger of falling for Tommy.  One night, when she gets a coldly-worded telegram from Bob saying he’ll be in Washington for another week.  She’s sad, yet also happy because that means she can keep hanging out with Tommy.  She knows that’s a dangerous way to feel, and decides she’d better end her association with the handsome Major.

And he knows he can’t hang around with her anymore, either.  It’s too painful for both of them.  So they part…or do they?

Perhaps Tommy follows Cynthia on her hike, perhaps they get lost and are forced to spend the night in the forest; perhaps they finally find their way back to the hotel just as Cynthia’s husband is arriving, and perhaps he doesn’t like the look of things…

I can hardly remember; I’m so distracted by this incredible dress:  Who needs silk?

Disclosure: this movie isn’t the greatest film ever, and you can tell that Esther Williams is a novice actress (this was only her fourth movie and second starring role after 1944’s Bathing Beauty), and I will admit that sometimes the musical performances  are a teensy bit tiresome if you aren’t into 1940s big bands or Wagnerian tenors…but I still love it.

It’s MGM at its best, churning out bright, beautiful, almost-fantasies created by skilled craftspeople and stuffed with talented performers.  They were masters at creating another world, and that’s what this movie, and others like it, provide.  It’s another world, close to reality but prettier and softer and much more musical.

This impression is helped along by the Technicolor explosions in this film.  I’ve never been anywhere where the furniture ranges from lime to chartreuse, the pool water is bright blue, and the people are dressed in shockingly bright, but never quite garish, colors. This movie is a great example of mid-1940s color design. You can see similar shades in Romance on the High Seas, Meet Me in St. Louis, The Harvey Girls, On an Island With You, and Easy to Wed.

Fun fact: the set people painted the cement of the swimming pool with a new kind of paint to get that glorious Technicolor turquoise that looks so nice against Esther William’s pink bathing suit.  (You can see where the navy edge ends and the turquoise paint begins in this image of Cynthia diving.)

But it wasn’t the right kind of paint, and when they filled the pool, the chlorine in the water dissolved the paint, filling the pool with a nasty gloopy mess. They had to drain the pool, re-paint it, and re-fill it before they could shoot the swimming scenes.  But golly it looks nice against that pink suit!

I’m not the only one who enjoys this movie.  It was the 8th highest grossing film in 1945, even though it didn’t get great reviews.

Here’s the trailer–enjoy!  For more, follow me on Twitter, tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook.  You can shop for this movie here, as well as Esther Williams’ autobiography, The Million Dollar Mermaid.