{"id":9209,"date":"2010-05-22T12:52:17","date_gmt":"2010-05-22T20:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=9209"},"modified":"2010-05-23T05:39:39","modified_gmt":"2010-05-23T13:39:39","slug":"dangerous-when-wet-charles-walters-1953-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=9209","title":{"rendered":"Dangerous When Wet (Charles Walters, 1953): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed on DVD.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 One of Esther Williams’\u00a0finer films made at MGM, is Dangerous When Wet<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 A light-hearted musical with a cameo appearance by cartoon characters Tom and Jerry.<\/p>\n

Katie Higgins (Esther Williams) and her family are health enthusiasts and\u00a0avid swimmers, who raise cattle for a living.\u00a0 Out for their usual morning swim, Katie meets up with traveling\u00a0promoter Windy Weebe (Jack Carson), who is busy\u00a0peddling a health elixir (or snake oil) labeled as Liquipep.<\/p>\n

Windy is unsuccessful in vying for the attentions of Katie, but soon\u00a0realizes her potential as a long distance swimmer.\u00a0 Securing Liquipep as a sponsor, Katie and her family travel to England with the intent of swimming the English Channel using Windy’s talents as a trainer.<\/p>\n

The family is eliminated from the competition, save only\u00a0for Katie,\u00a0who meets up with\u00a0a romantic French lothario\u00a0Andre Lanet\u00a0(Fernando Lamas) during\u00a0practice swims.\u00a0 Lanet, who’s all arms and\u00a0hands,\u00a0uses every method to distract Katie from her goals, such as champagne sailing, picnic lunches, and late night swims, but to no avail.\u00a0 Katie is determined to win, knowing the prize money will bail out the family farm and enable them to purchase a prize-winning bull.<\/p>\n

In a highly creative dream sequence, Katie falls into a deep sleep\u00a0and suddenly appears\u00a0under the sea.\u00a0 Panicky and confused, but\u00a0eager to\u00a0 cross the channel, Katie secures the help of Tom and Jerry to keep her on course.\u00a0 A French octopus attempts to woo Katie away\u00a0but Tom and Jerry come to her rescue – thanks to the talents of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.<\/p>\n

Not only is the animated sequence fun and entertaining to watch, it is appropriately placed within Katie’s dream, making it an acceptable form\u00a0for Esther Williams’ fans as well as Tom and Jerry fans alike – successfully reaching both audiences.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another\u00a0feature that sets this aqua musical apart from Esther’s others\u00a0are the catchy tunes “Ain’t Nature Grand” and “I Got Out of Bed on the Right Side,” written by famed lyricist Johnny Mercer.<\/p>\n

Mixing live-action with\u00a0animation is a style of film making that was\u00a0mastered by Walt Disney, who used this technique in a number of films, such as the five time oscar-winning Mary Poppins<\/em> (1964).<\/p>\n

Williams, who sort of fell into acting after\u00a0(and\u00a0due to)\u00a0her\u00a0competitive swimming career, always delivered a competent performance.\u00a0 Her greatest role undoubtedly, was as Annette Kellerman in Million Dollar Mermaid<\/em> (1952), a biopic of the\u00a0world-class Aussie swimmer.<\/p>\n

It would be flagrant not to mention the wonderful character actor Jack Carson (Windy Weebe), who always appeared as the wise-cracking but harmless\u00a0oaf in a slew of well-known films, such as Mildred Pierce<\/em> (1945)\u00a0and The Strawberry Blonde<\/em> (1941).<\/p>\n

An all around great family film.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy.\u00a0 Viewed on DVD. \u00a0 One of Esther Williams’\u00a0finer films made at MGM, is Dangerous When Wet.\u00a0 A light-hearted musical with a cameo appearance by cartoon characters Tom and Jerry. Katie Higgins (Esther Williams) and her family are health enthusiasts and\u00a0avid swimmers, who raise cattle for a living.\u00a0 Out for their usual […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,67,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animation","category-dvd","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}