“Million Dollar Mermaid” is a film about the life of Australian swimming star Annette Kellerman. Star Esther Williams fits like a glove in this MGM biopic, as her career is similar to Kellerman, who also was a professional swimmer, movie star, and even has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Director Mervyn LeRoy pulled out all the stops, assembling a film with top-rate production values, a fantastic screenplay by Everett Freeman, a wonderful musical score by Adolph Deutsch, orchestration by Alexander Courage, incomparable choreography by Busby Berkeley, and beautiful cinematography in Technicolor by George J. Folsey.
The cast includes Esther Williams, Victor Mature, Walter Pidgeon, David Brian, Jesse White, David Brian, Gordon Richards, and Donna Corcoran as Annette at age ten. “Million Dollar Mermaid” was a big hit in theatrical release for producer Arthur Hornblower Jr. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
The title of this motion picture came from a 1916 silent film “A Daughter of the Gods,” starring Annette Kellerman, from director Herbert Brenon and producer William Fox of the Fox Film Corporation, a forerunner of 20th Century Fox. It was the first film to have a production budget of one million dollars. “A Daughter of the Gods” is considered a lost film, as no copy or print of this movie have been found in any archive or collection.
Million Dollar Mermaid (1952)
cinema
My Review
“Million Dollar Mermaid” is a film about the life of Australian swimming star Annette Kellerman. Star Esther Williams fits like a glove in this MGM biopic, as her career is similar to Kellerman, who also was a professional swimmer, movie star, and even has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Director Mervyn LeRoy pulled out all the stops, assembling a film with top-rate production values, a fantastic screenplay by Everett Freeman, a wonderful musical score by Adolph Deutsch, orchestration by Alexander Courage, incomparable choreography by Busby Berkeley, and beautiful cinematography in Technicolor by George J. Folsey.
The cast includes Esther Williams, Victor Mature, Walter Pidgeon, David Brian, Jesse White, David Brian, Gordon Richards, and Donna Corcoran as Annette at age ten. “Million Dollar Mermaid” was a big hit in theatrical release for producer Arthur Hornblower Jr. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
The title of this motion picture came from a 1916 silent film “A Daughter of the Gods,” starring Annette Kellerman, from director Herbert Brenon and producer William Fox of the Fox Film Corporation, a forerunner of 20th Century Fox. It was the first film to have a production budget of one million dollars. “A Daughter of the Gods” is considered a lost film, as no copy or print of this movie have been found in any archive or collection.