Evening star., 1944-07-21
BY PATRICIA SIMMONS.

If you're not allergic to beautiful
women and Red Skeletons manner
of comedy. you couldn't choose a
better hot-Weather movie than
Bathing Beauty" which opened
yesterday at the Capitol
The picture. tailored to fit the
ba thing suit lines of Esther Will
liams, takes on the aspect of a star
studded aquacade, revolving around
the swimmer and an incidental
story concerning song writers,
orchestra leaders, and several hun
dred pretty girls with ideas of their
own on how to modernize q COL
lege campus.
Miss Williams fits into this pic
ture as the college teacher who puts
on bathing suit between classes
and with plenty of results. We don't
profess to be an authority on the
technicalities of a championship
stroke but by the time Miss Will
llams is poured into that fuchsia
bathing suit no one particularly
cares. The swimmer is poetry in
motion from the time she perches
on her diving toes until she climbs
from the pool dripping in techni-
color loveliness. OF course, Holly
woods idea of a swim calls for
everything that makeup men and
costume artists can dream up. Miss
Williams pool is dyed to Just the
right shade of contrasting green,
there's music timed to her stroke
by obliging Mr.. Cugat and there's
always an audience of appreciative
and good looking gentlemen.
In the grand underwater finale,
which even the script admits didn't
lust happen" Miss Williams
emerges as the star of Basil Rath-
bones aquacade and an excuse for
the most spectacular confusion of
sheer beauty created by the cam
era's eye since The Great Zieg-
feld.' Things happen so quickly to
the musical liquidation of Strauss
medley, that with the introduction
of each new fantastic sight you
conclude that surely Hollywood has
reached its imaginative climax, but
no, there are more and more foun-
tains, more acrobatic mermaids, and
finally, when you're at the point of
wishing you had brought along dark
glasses, Miss Williams emerges from
a giant pearled oyster shell in an
l-jeweled bathing suit.
If you're not interested in seeing
the picture now, then stay home, for
the rest of the feature is just more
excuse for beauty. backgrounded
either to the Latin melodies of
Xavier Cugat or the well-known
Harry James style Both the macs
tros pop up in the most amazing
places, but always at the right mo-
ment. When Red Shelton takes over
the college professors music class.
who should happen to be in the
vicinity with all his musicians but
Harry James.
Throughout most Of the picture
Shelton gets pretty thoroughly
Knocked around from post to pool
and back again-the post being his
bachelor quarters in a girls school.
Maybe some day Hollywood will let
poor Mr.. Shelton forget that he was
once very successful funny man
in vaudeville. He does everything
the script calls for and manages to
look happy about it. But how any
one could and survive that ballet
scene we'll never know.
1mitators come and 60 on local
movie stages, but Ollio O'Toole is an
exception. In addition to the usual
run OF Hollywood personalities and
the expected freside chat from Mr..
Roosevelt, Mr.. O'Toole does some
very original and extremely clever
! burleSQue work on fOIr of orr u,oll
known radio commentators. The
Byrne Sisters opened the show al
ternatlng as double Carmen Mi
randas and two sweet little ladies
IN lavender, dancing well in both