Neptune's Daughter (1949) User Reviews

"Any woman that's over size 20 should have her bathing suit made-to-order."

[utgard14 · 7/10 · 9 April 2014]

Swimsuit designer (Esther Williams) has her hands full protecting her man-hungry sister (Betty Garrett). A case of mistaken identity has Esther thinking Betty's in love with Ricardo Montalban when it's really Red Skelton she's fallen for. Esther may spend most of the film out of the water but she's gorgeous as ever. Skelton and Garrett are lots of fun. Montalban is his flirty and charming best. There's also a live-action role for cartoon voice legend Mel Blanc, using his Speedy Gonzalez accent.

Fluffy fun with likable performances from everyone and beautiful Technicolor. Oscar-winning "Baby It's Cold Outside" song is justifiably a classic. Aquatic finale is excellent. We also are treated to a brief tour of a swimsuit factory, which I'm not ashamed to admit I found pretty interesting.

It may have been cold outside, but watching 'Neptune's Daughter' left me feeling warm inside

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 22 January 2017]

While not a great film, and it won't be for all tastes, 'Neptune's Daughter' was to me an entertaining film that ticked most of the right boxes.

'Neptune's Daughter' is at its weakest in the story department, where the silly and thin mistaken-identity story is purely functional at best, where a few parts border on the improbable. Keenan Wynn is given little to do and his acting and narration felt like they belonged in another (darker) film because they seemed at odds here. Most of the comedy is a lot of good-natured fun, but some falls flat due to being overdone somewhat.

However, 'Neptune's Daughter' is a beautiful-looking film, with opulent use of colour, handsome cinematography and elegant costumes and sets. The songs and music are pleasant and energetic, "Baby It's Cold Outside" being one of the most deserving wins in the Best Song category though Red Skelton and Betty Garrett's number with Xavier Cugat is a delight too.

While not all the comedy works, most of it does and in a way that's genuinely amusing and good-natured. The highlight is Skelton and Garrett's first date in her apartment, a hilarious scene and beautifully played and executed. The staging for the songs is suitably spirited and always pleasing visually, though while the big water ballet is beautifully photographed and performed and fun it wasn't quite the "aqua spectacular" that was expected, just lacking the continuous energy and imagination of the best Esther Williams water ballets.

Esther Williams is very charming and brightens up the screen whether in or out of the water, while Ricardo Montalban is suave, devilishly handsome and full of energy and charisma. Red Skelton seems to be really enjoying himself and is very funny, a riot even in his best bits, and bubbly Betty Garrett enchants the viewer from the moment she's introduced to her last second. Look out also for a rare live-action appearance from the immortal voice actor Mel Blanc, in case you don't spot him he's the mustachioed guy that sounds exactly like Speedy Gonzales.

In conclusion, a very enjoyable film that did make me feel warm inside, though it is not masterpiece status. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Neptune's Bust

[JLRMovieReviews · 5/10 · 15 June 2009]

Esther Williams knows clothes, or should I say bathing suits. This Esther Williams outing shows her getting discovered by Keenan Wynn and going right into the bathing suit business. Keenan Wynn, unlike his role in "Easy to Wed," is so subdued he comes across rather uninteresting. Betty Garrett, as Esther's sister, pretty much takes the spotlight as she tries to snare Red Skelton. By the way, Ricardo Montalban is Esther's paramour and "Neptune's Daughter" does include the Oscar-winning song "Baby, It's Cold Outside." But otherwise this film doesn't have much to recommend it. It only makes you think of other Esther Williams movies that are better with this kind of material and talent. The title "Neptune's Daughter" I'm sure was though of to make it sound glamorous. But it does not showcase Esther and company at their best.

"Baby, It's Cold Outside"...so stay indoors and watch this wacky comedy-musical...

[Doylenf · 24 May 2001]

Esther Williams had some fairly amusing comedies in the '40s that had her jumping into a pool every so often to keep her "Million Dollar Mermaid" label intact. She not only swims here, but joins in the fun and even lends herself to a funny rendition of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with Ricardo Montalban while Red Skelton is doing his own version of the song with Betty Garrett. It's a wacky bit of fun about Red being mistaken for a polo player. He has some wild slapstick scenes--one of which has him joining a bevy of bathing beauties as he attempts to fit into a water ballet (reminiscent of his hijinks in "Bathing Beauty"). His partner in fun is Betty Garrett who delivers her own special brand of comedy with no strain at all.

Ricardo Montalban is an excellent foil for Esther's romantic scenes as the wealthy polo player. The blurb on the video jacket offers a quote from the N.Y. Times: "The most entertaining of all the aquatic spectacles in which Esther Williams has starred."

'Nuff said. Enjoy!

The younger daughter steals the show, not that papa is present.

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 4 September 2013]

A terrific foursome lead the way in this screwball musical about mistaken identity of the most absurd kind. It all concerns a handsome polo player Ricardo Montalban who romances bathing suit manufacturer Esther Williams while silly Red Skelton is pursued by her flirtatious sister Betty Garrett who mistakes Skelton, ridiculously so, for the Latin Lothario.

While the entire cast is excellent, it is the effervescent Garrett who stands out. Many of MGM's featured players or second leads stole the show from the star, and Garrett is up there with Virginia O'Brien, Ann Miller and Janis Paige as the sassy flirty gal who may not land the hero but takes off with the best material. Garrett shines in the Latin themed I Love Those Men, and even in an outtake cut from the film shows her metal. The Oscar Winning Baby, It's Cold Outside features all four leads and is winningly staged. Of course, Esther swims, and the finale is lavishly staged.

Montalban, the most likable Hispanic actor of his time, has an easy-going charm that never seems cocky or smug. He sings and dances with ease and looks great in tight clothing. Skelton deliberately speaks with the worst Spanish accent on film but is over-shadowed by Mel Blanc who is extremely funny using his Speedy Gonzalez voice. While Keenan Wynn opens and closes the film as a sort of narrator, he is rather wasted. That is really a demotion considering three years before he was one of the leads in Easy to Wed. Mike Mazurki adds his typical dumb mug performance as a gangster trying to fix the final polo match which has some very funny slapstick sight gags.

Neptune's Daughter *** Bless the Mixups in Movies

[edwagreen · 7/10 · 14 May 2011]

Very comical film where a person's identity leads to all sorts of mayhem, including a near rivalry between two sisters, and the bad guys after the same wrong man.

Along with the mayhem, came the Oscar winning song "Baby, It's Cold Outside," sang with such zest by Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban, at at the same time, Betty Garrett and Red Skelton. It was really tunefully done. This song, in winning the Oscar, beat out "My Foolish Heart," from the 1949 tearjerker with same name with Susan Hayward and Dana Andrews. That song winning must have been some sort of academy upset, by that was not unusual in the best song category.

You can't imagine how long the confusion regarding Montalban's identity will go on. It provides for a funny premise, and Red Skelton riding a horse and playing polo is also quite hilarious.

Great comic line in the film: "Love has ruined more businesses than the Sherman-Anti Trust Act! ...To think, the latter was in 1890.

Enjoyable nonsense.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 10 August 2013]

Like so many of Esther Williams' movies, this one is enjoyable but also complete nonsense. After all, a movie which features a lengthy underwater ballet at the end can't be taken very seriously!

The film begins with a South American polo team coming to the States. Its star is José O'Rourke (Ricardo Montalban) and an idiot, Jack (Red Skelton), decides to pretend to be him in order to win Betty's heart (Betty Garrett). However, O'Rourke has no idea that Jack is posing as him--nor does Betty's sister, Eve (Williams). Instead, Even thinks that O'Rourke is a gigolo--with VERY bad intentions. When she confronts the real O'Rourke, he has no idea what's going on but goes along with it, as he's smitten with Eve. What's next? See this silly film for yourself.

If you cannot let yourself just sit back and enjoy all the silliness, then you'll probably have a very hard time watching. After all, NO SANE PERSON would think Red Skelton looked or sounded Hispanic!! And, some of the music is silly (especially the water ballet). But, if you can forget about this, the film actually is pretty cute, funny and features the wonderful Oscar-winning song "Baby It's Cold Outside" for the first time in a movie. Well worth seeing...but silly and inconsequential.

This is why we had to have the women's movement.

[xavrush89 · 6/10 · 29 December 2003]

In 1949 it probably made perfect sense that a smart and athletically gifted driven woman would have to choose between the bathing suit business SHE BUILT and marriage to a man she just met. Now, it seems absolutely ridiculous. In fact, Williams' supposedly 'scatterbrained' sister (Betty Garrett) actually seems like the more open minded worldly one watching it today. So if you can avoid those details getting on your nerves, this is worth watching, not a must-see, but worth watching.

It should also be pointed out that this movie would be nothing without Betty Garrett and Red Skelton. If Garrett were in the lead role, this would probably escalate from a fair movie to an excellent one. (And that goes for all the films she was ever in!) But alas, our leads are Williams and Montalban, both drop dead gorgeous, but not much else. Her swim number doesn't come until the end, and it's hardly the grandest of her career. And RM's bod is hot, as usual, even by today's personal-trainerized standards. Still, you'll spend most of your time wanting Betty and Red to come back on, and then it's fun again.

P.S. Just so you know, despite "Baby, It's Cold Outside", this does NOT have a holiday theme.

P.P.S. If you want to watch a dramatic film afterwards as a contrast, rent "A Place in the Sun", since it also involves a bathing suit company (and that's where the similarity ends).

Baby, It's Cold Outside

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 12 May 2011]

Two of MGM's biggest box office attractions teamed once again for the film Neptune's Daughter in 1949. Esther Williams and Red Skelton certainly brought their own respective fan bases for this film. With these two MGM was fighting the good fight against the increasing drawing power of television which would certainly soon claim Skelton.

Esther Williams and scatterbrained mantrap sister Betty Garrett are peddling a new line of swimwear and no one could certainly model her own designs better than Esther Williams both in and out of the water. But she's constantly worried about all the boyfriends that Garrett is finding and then discarding. Better to keep a close eye on her.

Enter masseuse Red Skelton at the club resort that Williams and Garrett are staying. He's got no luck with women at all. So he seeks advice from South American polo player Ricardo Montalban who's a devil with the ladies. Red not only seeks advice, but he appropriates Montalban's character name of Jose O'Rourke. That causes some real problems when Montalban courts Williams and Williams learns somebody named Jose O'Rouke has been calling on Garrett.

Red has some really inventive comedy routines one involving tricking Mike Mazurki into thinking he needs a spinal adjustment while he's being held against his will. And the climax is a hilarious polo match where Skelton substitutes for Montalban in a polo match where gamblers are trying for a fix. I've seen many different sports lampooned in film, but Neptune's Daughter is the only film around that took to satirizing polo.

Frank Loesser who was really coming into his own as a writer of both music and lyrics did the score for Neptune's Daughter. Loesser had a big hit in Charley's Aunt running on Broadway and was working on another project when Neptune's Daughter came out, a musical based on Damon Runyon characters called Guys And Dolls. Played instrumentally, but not sung is his previous hit On A Slow Boat To China done during a fashion show sequence involving Esther Williams's swim suits.

And Loesser brought home the film's Oscar for best song with Baby, It's Cold Outside. Montalban and Williams do it first and later there's a comic obbligato from Skelton and Garrett. The big selling record for this song came from Dinah Shore and Buddy Clark in a duet recorded just before Clark was killed in a plane crash. It's a delightful and bouncy number that readily lends itself to satire. I have bootleg recording of a radio broadcast where Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester do it. Turn that one over in your minds.

Topping it all off is a water ballet by Esther and they typically got bigger and better in films as she tried to top herself. Williams was really fortunate that her career was with MGM because it would only be a major studio that would have invested the production values in her films.

Because of that this very charming musical comedy holds up very well for today's audience.

One of Esther's best, and that's not saying much

[marcslope · 6/10 · 12 February 2010]

MGM colleague Fanny Brice on Esther Williams: "Wet she's a star. Dry she ain't." She's mostly dry in this halfhearted Jack Cummings musical, and while she acts competently and even sounds like she's doing her own singing on "Baby, It's Cold Outside," hers isn't a dynamic screen personality. It's an assembly-line plot with a few good gags, and the cast -- handsome Ricardo Montalban, appealing Betty Garrett, silly Red Skelton, I'll-play-anything-to-keep-my-contract Keenan Wynn -- is game. But there's barely enough Frank Loesser to keep it feeling like a musical, and the plotting is so casual that Wynn, as the guy who doesn't get the girl, has to turn unaccountably into a good sport in the last reel just to make the happy ending feel happier. The color's pretty, and director Edward Buzzell (whose other big MGM musical, "Best Foot Forward," is far superior) keeps things moving. And Skelton, so annoying in so much studio product, is marginally less so here. But the sexism of the day (Williams, a career gal, is still man-controlled) is irritating, and even the underwater ballet feels perfunctory. One compensation: a superbly dirty, how-did-it-get-past-the-censors verbal exchange between Skelton and Garrett ("and now you will please turn over"), early on.

Not good, but with a couple of points of interest

[zetes · 5/10 · 10 August 2008]

Lame musical comedy starring Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalbahn. Williams plays a bathing suit designer who wants to protect her sister, Betty Garrett, from Montalbahn, a polo star and Lothario whom Garrett has fallen for. Really, though, Garrett has fallen for Red Skelton, who pretends to be Montalbahn. While Williams thinks she's keeping Montalbahn occupied, the two, as you expect, fall in love. Williams is a pretty boring actress, famously only "something" when she's wet, and she's kept out of the water for 95% of the movie, and they even cut away from what promises to be an epic water ballet in the final moments. The only amusing moments come between Skelton and Garrett, though their antics never rise above slightly amusing. They have good chemistry, though. It's too bad their studio didn't recognize it at the time, because they should have been paired again. There are two bits of interest in the film: first, it won the Oscar for best song, Frank Loesser's "Baby, It's Cold Outside". Now there's a trivia question! The song doesn't even make sense in the movie. As far as I could tell, the movie takes place in California. Even if I'm incorrect on that, it certainly was never cold in the movie, and why would someone even write a song about the cold and snowstorms for an Esther Williams movie? Weird. It's a great song, of course, and the best part of the film. Both couples sing it in full back to back, with Garrett and Skelton reversing the roles the second time around. The second thing, there's this one character in the movie named Pancho, who works for the polo team or something. When he began to talk, I was thinking, "Wow, what a stereotypical accent. Sounds just like Speedy Gonzales." Then, "Wow, really a lot like Speedy Gonzales. Wait a second… that actor looks like…" Yes, it was! Mel Blanc, playing a guy who sounds just like Speedy Gonzales. I didn't know Mel Blanc did anything live action.

Very great underrated late 40s golden ager

[richspenc · 9/10 · 26 March 2017]

Not many people today seem to know much about Esther Williams' fabulous films of the mid and late 1940s and early 1950s. The later 1950s is such a well known era with the birth of rock'n'roll and Elvis, but the immediate post WW2 years 1945-1954 are in general bit less known to the under 60 year old age group today (a 60 year old this year would've just been born in 1957, and many people can only relate so much to the time periods before they were even born). Some of the best Golden Age films (there are many wonderful films in the 1928- 1945 period too) are from 1945-1954 such as "Singing in the rain", "Easter parade", "A streetcar named Desire", and many others. And of course Esther Williams' films, all of them were between 1944 and 1955.

"Neptune's daughter" was great. Esther here is owner Kenan Wynn's assistant of a large clothing and swimsuit company. Red Skelton has a funny role as a masseur of the South American polo team, which includes star player Ricardo Montanan. I like the early scene with Red almost winning top prize in a radio show contest but barely missing out due to one little reason, that scene was funny due to how it was played out. This film has the great "Baby it's cold outside", first verse Esther and Riccardo, second Betty and Red.

Red lies about being Latino to attract Esther's sister Betty. That idea was played out like a joke, since Red has red (no pun intended) hair, fair skin, and is not too talented at acting Hispanic. Betty was also not too bright for completely falling for it. There were a few sexual tones in this film; when Ricardo compares a woman to a horse and says "but one cannot make love to a horse, unless one is another horse". That line in a more modern movie would've certainly come with some perverted smart*** comebacks, and people wouldn't use the term "make love", they would've used dirtier language. I liked the scene with Betty and Red with Xavier Cougat's orchestra (this is another of numerous Esther films with Xavier) Since Red lied about understanding Spanish, he had to play his way out of a situation during a song where he was thought to know how to play several different instruments. There was also another great old fashioned exotic samba type song with Xavier, orchestra, and beautiful exotic Latin girls.

I loved the addition of Mel Blanc and his Speedy Gonzales voice, the Bugs bunny reference with Red saying "Albaquerque" and saying "he went thataway" while pointing two fingers in two different directions, and the whip and cigarette in the mouth trick and Mel's cousin "No nose". I also found funny a scene with several men trying to get Red onto a horse, and it almost looked like the horse was looking at the camera and thinking "what a maroon".

I also loved the scenes with Esther and Riccardo such as the dialogue between them in the car while driving, Riccardo had some amusing lines there such as his comments on the sites Esther was trying to show him ("you've showed me pirates cove with no pirates, inspiration point with no inspiration, and lovers lane with no love"). Also funny was Riccardo's comment on the detour sign ("quote, a detour is to take the bad road cause the good road's unavailable, unquote") bringing up Esther's earlier detour remark (then comically says "you also implied I am a blackmailer, and several other unpleasant things".). I like how Esther tells Ricardo before reluctantly taking him on a date "I will show you the most boring evening of your life". That sort of reminded me of in "Bathing beauty" Esther's reluctantly accepting Red into the college showing him his room saying "I hope you will be very uncomfortable here". Kenan's comment over seeing Riccardo with Esther at the club was also funny ("There he goes feathering his nest, unfeathering mine"). I also loved the part in Esther's clothes factory when Riccardo and Esther were talking in her office. I don't know how many people caught the "Naked gun" reference; Riccardo got a thin piece of glass stuck on the end of his finger in the same way Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) got a thin tropical biting fish stuck on the end of his finger in Ludwig's (played by Riccardo) office in "The naked gun". Esther also had a tropical fish tank in her office that Riccardo noticed in this film much like in "Naked gun" the tropical fish tank in Ludwig's office that Drebin got the fish stuck on his finger out of. Also the same was how in both films they were trying to pull it off their finger and then quickly hiding that hand behind their back whenever someone looked at them. Good referencing. I'm guessing the "Neptune's daughter" referencing in "Naked gun" was Riccardo's idea since he was in both films and in both scenes I just mentioned (he did not look as much as 40 years older in "Naked gun", he aged well). The only thing is that there are likely a good amount of Naked gun fans who hasn't known what film they were referencing in the scene in Ludwig's office.

another era

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 18 July 2022]

Competitive swimming Eve Barrett (Esther Williams) joins Joe Backett in his swimsuit company. Betty (Betty Garrett) is her flighty sister. Jose O'Rourke (Ricardo Montalban) is the sexy Latin polo captain and Jack Spratt (Red Skelton) is his unsexy masseur.

This has the Oscar winning song "Baby, It's Cold Outside". While that scene would never fly today, it's still kinda fun. This is a lot of colors and a lot of swimsuits. It's very 50's. Red Skelton is doing his comedy which doesn't really make me laugh. This old fashion movie is another era from the designs to the writing. It's like a time capsule, more fascinating for its out of date sensibilities.

Esther and Ricardo

[dpc92264 · 4/10 · 4 August 2019]

When Esther and Ricardo are on the screen this movie is fun. Sadly Red Skelton and Betty Garrett ruin every scene they are in. Everything they say and do is cringeworthy. The Latin stereotypes are insulting and offensive.

Mediocre

[dougdoepke · 30 June 2013]

The movie features a marvelous cast, each doing his or her specialty. But I especially like the unheralded Betty Garret as the ditzy sister who manages to steal several scenes. Williams has a few abbreviated swim scenes, but does more acting than paddling. Then too, making her a swimsuit designer gives us guys an eyeful of the modeling scenes. Frankly, though, I was disappointed with the big aqua number, which has legions of girls diving into the pool but little more. It's far from any kind of ballet that Williams is so good at.

Of course, Skelton is made for movies like this where his slapstick comedy can blend into the overall shenanigans. However, a couple of his skits (mounting the horse & piling it on muscle- man Mazurki) went past their peak of hilarity. Good to see voice wizard Mel Blanc get a movie break after so many years of funny dialects on radio, TV, and cartoons. All in all, the movie's an entertaining and certainly colorful 90-minutes, but unfortunately not Williams' best.

Mistaken identity leads to laughs in this good comedy and light musical

[SimonJack · 7/10 · 28 December 2022]

Esther Williams and Red Skelton made half a dozen musical comedies together at MGM. "Bathing Beauties" of 1944 was by far their best film, but "Neptune's Daughter" is a close second. The more lavish musical numbers and spectacular swimming scenes, along with Harry James and Xavier Cugat, made that first film hard to beat. While Cugat and orchestra are very good, as always, here, the musical part of this film isn't integrated into the story. Rather, it is presented mostly in interludes of Cugat and company performances at his club, Casa Cugat.

The one exception is a very good scene with back-to-back duets singing "Baby, It's Cold Outside." Williams and Ricardo Montalban sing it together, then Skelton and Betty Garrett sing it together. The song won the only Oscar for this film, as an original song. Frank Loesser wrote it in 1944, but it became a hit tune after this movie. It had eight recordings made by singers and bands in 1949, including Don Cornell and Laura Leslie with the Sammy Kaye orchestra on RCA; Bing Crosby on radio and a Christmas album; Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan on Decca Records; Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer with the Paul Weston orchestra; and Doris Day and Bob Hope, Dean Martin and Marilyn Maxwell, and Dinah Shore and Buddy Clark. It remains a very popular tune around the Christmas Holidays and winter months, and nearly 70 other recordings had been made of the song by 2020..

What this film lacks in great, integrated musical numbers, it somewhat makes up for in comedy. Skelton's Jack Spratt is mistaken for José O'Rourke, by Betty Barrett. He is half conscious after getting knocked out, and when it comes to he goes along with his mistaken identify since O'Rourke has a reputation as a Latin lover. Well, that leads to complications between Betty and her older sister, Eve (played by Williams). It's the basis of a whole lot of humor and fun.

There is one other thing in this movie that should be of huge interest to long-time movie buffs. Mel Blanc is in the movie and plays Pancho. I scrolled down the IMDb list of Blanc's number one record of 1,228 acting credits, and couldn't find another feature film in which he appeared as an actor. Almost all of his credits have been for voices of film characters. But here, he speaks, with one of his many varied and distinctive voices edged with humor. He is one of a handful of stable workers who tend the ponies for O'Rourke's polo team.

So, this film is a chance for movie buffs to actually see Mel Blanc acting in person. Here's a person that virtually every living person who has ever gone to the movies, will have heard on the silver screen - whether they knew it was him or not. The world-renowned Blanc has used his talented voice to bring to life more characters on the screen than any other person. Most have been cartoon characters, including the most well-known and recognized across the globe - Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Woody Woodpecker, Porky Pig, and Elmer Fudd, along with dozens of others (The Road Runner, Coyote, etc. ).

The cast are all good. A person not seen in many films, but who was very good in a number of musical comedies is Betty Garrett, who plays Eve's sister, Betty. And Mike Mazurki, in his typical gangster heavy or thug role is always worth a few chuckles, if not hearty laughs.

Here are some of the best lines in this film.

Eve Barrett, "Betty, dear, you've got to stop throwing yourself at men. You're only going to get hurt." Betty Barrett, "Not if my aim is good."

Betty Barrett, "Gee, you're handsome. Do you think I'm pretty? You don't he to answer that now."

Jack Spratt, impersonating José O'Rourke, "Spanish is the beautiful language of love." Betty Barrett, "You speak it fluently, don't you?" Spratt, "Mmm, oh, umh, Tijuana." Betty, "Ah, huh, well, I wanna if you wanna."

Eve Barrett, "Fine time to get home!" Betty Barrett, "Fine time before I got home."

Eve Barrett, "Betty, dear, can't you get in enough trouble here, without going below the border?"

Eve Barrett, "Now put down those animated beanbags and listen to me."

Eve Barrett, "Mr. O'Rourke, your state of mind after you tuck your horses in is hardly any of my concern. I'm sure you can find some other misguided female to take their place."

Joe Backett, "The mallet wielder insults me. I try to defend myself, and I'm accused of creating a scene."

Joe Backett, "Doesn't our business, our friendship, mean more opt you than this, this, Romeo from the Amazon?"

Betty Barrett, "Oh, I forgot - my engagement ring. I bought it today. You'll get the bill for it tomorrow."

José O'Rourke, "Well, guess this is what you call a happy ending, huh? After all, I got the girl I wanted, she got the man she wanted, and you... Well, you got the business." Joe Backett, "Yeah. Yeah, I sure did, didn't I?"

Baby, it's cold outside

[guswhovian · 7/10 · 31 July 2020]

A swimsuit designer falls in love with a South American polo player, while her scatterbrained sister falls in love with a masseuse pretending to be the polo player, leading to many complications.

Neptune's Daughter, while a lesser Williams musical, is still a heck of a lot of fun. The script is quite funny, with Red Skelton getting some priceless comic bits. There's only one spectacular Williams swimming extravaganza, but it's quite good. Ricardo Montalban looks suitably handsome, Esther is charming as always (and looking beautiful to boot) and Keenan Wynn is good in a thankless role. Mel Blanc is hilarious as Pancho, who sounds exactly like Speedy Gonzales.

The musical highlight is the famous Oscar-winning "Baby, It's Cold Outside", wonderfully performed by the four leads. Don't miss this one.

Very nixe romantic classic

[cwolf10 · 7/10 · 8 November 2019]

Betty is desperate for a husband - she and her sister go to Brazil (for different reasons *wink* *wink*) anyways, she falls for a polo player named Jose.... or so we think....

Best of Esther Williams' vaudevilles

[searchanddestroy-1 · 7/10 · 7 July 2022]

Esther Williams, in all her "wet" movies, may I say, simpler, all her movies, she played dramas, light hearted dramas - DANGEROUS WHEN WET, MILLION DOLLAR MERMAID, or vaudeville oriented schemes, most of them more stupid one than the other. This one is over the batch, let's be fair, even if you don't like this kind of stuff. And I definitely don't; except the aquatic sequences with Williams of course. And what a surprise to see here Ted De Corsia and Mike Mazurki, the most notorious gangsters on screen during Hollywood forties, fifties and early sixties era. I would have never bet to see them here. Why not Anthony Caruso or Rodolfo Acosta? And of course they don't play Esther Williams goons running after her; they let this to Ricardo Montalban who, for once, took the place of Howard Keel or Van Johnson, the usual Williams partners in this vaudeville genre.

Bright and funny

[haddock · 8/10 · 3 September 2007]

I am astonished about the low rating of this movie! There are of course many musicals which are boring and this one - I admit - does not feature very much. No great songs (despite "Baby it's cold outside - Oscar!), no great dancing and absolutely no great acting. But there is something to make the film special: The comedic timing is perfectly, the gags drop fluently. The supporting roles are fantastic: Red Skelton at his best and the absolutely wonderful Betty Garrett to team him (they should have made more movies!). Xavier Cugat and his orchestra play enthusiastic samba rhythms, the decoration of the picture is bright and joyful! There is no single boring moment, the whole film is like a short trip to the Caribbean sea with a fancy cocktail in your hand!

Features the Oscar winning Song "Baby It's Cold Outside", and Esther Williams

[jacobs-greenwood · 4/10 · 13 October 2016]

Directed by Edward Buzzell, and written by Dorothy Kingsley (who would share a Best Writing Oscar some years later for her work on Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)), this below average Musical comedy stars Esther Williams (in the title role?), Keenan Wynn, Red Skelton, Ricardo Montalban, and Betty Garrett. "Baby, It's Cold Outside" earned Frank Loesser his only Oscar, on his fourth try out of five nominations, for Best Song. The scene in which it's sung, by Williams with Montalban and Garrett with Skelton (the two couples), is one of the film's best. Otherwise, it's pretty chauvinistic fluff.

Williams plays a champion swimmer whom Wynn's character finally convinces to partner with him to sell swimsuits. They are very successful. Garrett plays Williams's sister, who can't wait to find a fella, that ends up meeting goofy masseur Skelton, who's never even kissed a girl. Enter Montalban, South America's best polo player. After losing a radio callout contest, Skelton winds up giving the injured Montalban a massage, who in turn gives Skelton some romance advice. Wynn decides that arranging a show for the visiting polo players would be good business, and Garrett decides to be the first girl to meet their star, José O'Rourke (Montalban), for her own desires. Garrett mistakes Skelton for O'Rourke and, wanting to impress her and try out his new "moves", Skelton pretends to be José.

Trouble arises when the standoffish businesswoman Williams believes the horse riding playboy O'Rourke is courting her; she thinks he's pursuing her and her sister at the same time! This well oiled case of mistaken identity theme is about all there is to sustain the rest of the film, besides some singing, dancing, and music played by Xavier Cugat (as himself) and his band. Naturally, this device only delays the inevitable, each gal will end up with their guy, though Williams puts up the most resistance, with Wynn making his own play for her in a losing effort to Montalban.

There is a subplot involving a gangster (Ted de Corsia), and his dumb heavy (the always reliable Mike Mazurki), who figures capturing O'Rourke before the big polo match will be a good way to win a big gambling bet. Otherwise, the only other feature of note is some humorous, not politically correct scenes with Mel Blanc playing a South American named Pancho. Then, of course, there are the swimsuits, and their models, as well as the standard synchronized swimming routines which are typical of Ms. Williams's films.

Fun

[ryancm · 8/10 · 22 August 2007]

Hey, this is a topper. One of the best of WILLIAMS swim films, mainly because it has the great Betty Garrett. Her scenes are wonderful, and she and Red Skelton are wonderful together. The Red and Betty seduction scene where he's trying to act like a Spaniard is sensational and wait until he tastes Garretts appetizer. Sheer genius. The new DVD copy is terrific, sharp and clear. Yes, its MGM's clean-cut studio bound movie, but it's what MGM did best. Haven't seen the other WILLIAMS movies in the collection yet, but am looking forward. Also looking forward to another volume and hope that her best, yet under-rated SKIRTS AHOY is included. See this for pure fun.

Another disappointing Williams vehicle

[ThomasColquith · 3/10 · 16 August 2022]

I purchased a set of Esther Williams films and "Neptune's Daughter" was amongst them. Unfortunately this is one of the lesser films and none of them are outstanding. Esther doesn't even have much screen time here. I guess "Dangerous when wet" is the best of the bunch, but even that has rough parts. I do like Esther Williams and the whole swim ballet concept, but these films just don't grab me and hold my attention. I don't get why Red Skelton has to be in so many of these films either. And in "Neptune's Daughter" there was once again another pagan dance scene in front of an idol, seemingly simulating primitive sacrificial practices -- a total non-sequitur and unnecessary. Also, like in "She" of 1935, I just don't see why studios chose to include those vast sets and mock sacrifices unless it reflects some hidden desire to ape it for occult purposes. It's surprising for the straight-laced time period though, but maybe those are the ones you have to watch out for. My rating 3/10.

Horsing around, in a somewhat inferior follow up on "Bathing Beauty"

[weezeralfalfa · 8/10 · 9 May 2015]

Released 5 years after Esther Williams' initial starring role in a 'swimusical', in the very well received "Bathing Beauty", Red Skelton is again prominently featured, and Xavier Cugat's band again has several lively productions. This time, instead of a romance between Esther's and Red's character, a more standard formula plot has Esther being wooed by famous polo player Jose O'Rourke, in the form of conventional handsome and suave Ricardo Montalban, while Red is pursued by Betty Garrett's typecast man-hungry character, who mistakenly believes him to be O'Rourke. You will likely recognize Betty from her role as a man-hungry taxi driver, who tries to bed Frank Sinatra, in "On the Town", released the same year. Ricardo and Esther make a rather bland romantic couple, compared with Red and Betty, in which Red has to pretend he is a South American, knowing only a few words of Spanish, as Cugat, for example, soon figures out. Despite all the glaring clues that Red can't be whom she thinks he is, Betty incongruously continues to believe, until near the end, that Red is O'Rourke. Cugat's band makes several appearances, the first 2 being especially noteworthy, and are the clear highlights of this film for me. Included in the first production is a nameless dance couple, who do a fancy dance routine, in very colorful outfits. This production is actually split into two parts, with Betty the primary featured performer in the second part, with some input by Red. The second production features a primitive jungle tribe theme, with some wild dancing to "Jungle Rhumba". There is a water show near the end, but it's nothing special.

Besides Cugat's productions, the several musical numbers were composed by Frank Loesser. Betty's character expresses her fascination with men, in "I Love Those Men": part of Cugat's first production. During the swimsuit fashion show, Loesser's composition "On a Slow Boat to China" is sometimes heard in the background. Believe it or not, the words were considered by the Hays commission to be too racy to be sung by the principle characters to each other! Ricardo later expresses his fascination with Esther in "My Heart Beats Faster", as they dance around a bit. In their respective private residences, First Ricardo and Esther, then Red and Betty, sing the well-remembered counterpoint duet "Baby, It's Cold Outside", in playful scenes. The story is that Loesser actually composed this in '44, but it remained a privately-done song until MGM bought it for this film. It actually won the Oscar for Best Original Song, in a year with thin competition.

In place of Red's joining a ballet class, in "Bathing Beauty", here he joins an otherwise all female swimming team doing warm-ups beside the pool, in order to escape a man chasing him. Not as amusing as the ballet caper , but will probably please Red's fans, he ending up with his neck pinned under a croquet wicket!

The section where Red has to actually play polo, supposedly as O'Rourke, is totally unbelievable, if amusing. First, it takes a team of people to get him on a horse, which turns out to be a jumper, rather than a polo pony. This is merely the first of several horses, including a bucking bronco, that Red rides on and off the field of play. During the match, Red falls off his horse and is dragged by his stirrup for a spell, breaks his mallet, and hits a bag of polo balls on the sideline, scatting balls all over the field. Nonetheless, he manages to score enough goals to give the South American team a win, and thus preserve the reputation of the real O'Rourke, who has been kidnapped by a gang, who have bet on the South American team losing.(South America apparently is being treated as one country!)

Keenan Wynn, aside from acting as the occasional narrator, has a rather minor character role....This was the second and last pairing of Esther and Ricardo as the leads.

This film is presently part of a DVD collection of some of Esther's films.

If you like Esther Williams movies you will probably like this

[skiddoo · 5/10 · 29 June 2010]

She looked beautiful and youthful with her hair down, which happened infrequently in her movies, in an era when women wanted to look mature and sophisticated not young.

My feeling about Baby, It's Cold Outside is it was the comedic use of obviously phony arguments to underline the flirtatious ploy. They also didn't have family or neighbors to care if they stayed. (This certainly wasn't the first or last time a song was shoehorned into a movie, such as Easter Parade being sung in a rural setting in Holiday Inn when it is about NYC, or Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but this is undeniably one of the odder examples of that.) It reminded me,though, that my favorite Esther Williams scenes were set in winter, on Mackinac Island in This Time for Keeps.

I enjoyed Red Skelton (who would have done well to learn Spanish!) and Betty Garrett. My eyes glazed over from disinterest when they weren't on. I loved some of Esther's clothes, though, especially the swimsuit and wrap in the teaching scene with Skelton. (Where we saw one of the strangest ways to knock a fellow out.) It seemed to me the Keenan Wynn character and the Skelton and Garrett characters didn't belong in the same movie. Wynn seemed like he would have fit a drama rather than a light comedy, such as Skelton and Garrett showing how NOT to mount a horse. (The stunt work in this movie deserves praise.) Wynn's character, narration, and background music struck me as being more appropriate for something dark, maybe a crime of passion. Williams and Montalban's characters were somewhere down the middle. The poor fellow really did "get the business" as was cruelly pointed out.

Swimming scenes always make me wonder how many times everyone had to dry off and reshoot.