Film
Million Dollar Mermaid
A glittering MGM spectacle built around Esther Williams as real-life swimmer Annette Kellerman, who scandalized 1920s society with her one-piece bathing suit and revolutionary aquatic performances. It's all elaborate musical numbers, jaw-dropping synchronized swimming sequences, and the particular Hollywood strain of female ambition—where triumph means romance. For those enchanted by Golden Age excess and willing to meet mid-century values halfway.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you enjoy old-Hollywood biographies built around water spectacle, where the swimming set pieces carry as much weight as the romance and the comeback story.
Skip it if you tire of 1950s studio dramas, where the dialogue runs earnest and the romance follows a familiar, glossy pattern of its era.
What it asks of you: Expect a long, unhurried run of nearly two hours, with a gentle opening that builds toward bigger, brighter set pieces as the story gathers momentum.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Singin' in the Rain1952
The same year, same studio, same commitment to pure visual spectacle. Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor deliver the kind of joyful technical mastery that makes you believe in cinema's possibility. A masterpiece about the joy of performance itself.
But If you're not in the mood for unironic romanticism or elaborate song-and-dance sequences, it can feel saccharine. It demands you surrender to its world completely.
The Red Shoes1948
Powell and Pressburger's vision of artistic obsession—a woman torn between love and her calling—with ballet sequences so hypnotic they feel like dreams. Visually rapturous and genuinely tragic, where Million Dollar Mermaid is triumphant.
But It's oblique and psychologically complex in ways that can feel distant. The famous ballet sequence goes on for twenty minutes, which either transports you or tests your patience.
Funny Girl1968
Barbra Streisand as Fanny Brice, another real woman who clawed her way to stardom through sheer talent and chutzpah. Bigger musical numbers, fuller emotional range, and a refusal to pretend ambition doesn't cost. The spiritual heir to what Williams was attempting.
But Nearly three hours long. Streisand's voice and personality dominate completely—if that doesn't appeal to you, you'll feel the length.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Million Dollar Mermaid
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Phantom Lady1944
Both feature women navigating male institutions and male desire, but Raines' heroine operates through deception in darkness where Williams operates through beauty in light. One climbs; one survives.
Robert Siodmak's noir thriller with Ella Raines as a woman using her own intelligence and sexuality strategically to save the man she loves. Dark, sexually aware, and tense—it's a woman with agency, but in shadows rather than spotlights, paying a price for her power.
But It's morally murky and the violence is real in ways Hollywood spectacle never is. If you need your heroines unambiguous and victorious, the moral complexity will be unsettling.
More like this (6)
An American in Paris1951
Gene Kelly again, another MGM masterpiece from the same era, with a celebrated seventeen-minute ballet and the same commitment to making dance carry emotional weight. If you loved the swimming spectacles, this sophistication in movement is worth the ticket.
But The romance plot is thin and the American abroad shtick can feel dated. It's really about the dancing; if that doesn't move you, neither will the film.
Sunset Boulevard1950
Billy Wilder's ruthless masterpiece about Hollywood's cruelty to women, fame as a trap, and the cost of ambition. Gloria Swanson is mesmerizing. A corrective to the glamorous mythology Million Dollar Mermaid trades in.
But It's bleak and cynical where you might want inspiration. The murder-suicide framing and obsessive psychosis are uncomfortable—Wilder offers no comfort.
The Great Ziegfeld1936
The template for all showbiz epics that followed, with Myrna Loy and William Powell in a film that understands spectacle and grandeur. The thirty-five-minute 'Pretty Girl' number anticipates Williams' aquatic productions in scope and ambition.
But At three hours and seventeen minutes, it's exhaustingly self-satisfied. The pacing is glacial and the gender politics are regressive even for 1936.
Torch Song1953
Joan Crawford as a stage star learning to see past her own ambition. More psychologically complex than typical musicals of the era, with excellent Technicolor and Crawford's formidable screen presence carrying genuine emotional stakes.
But It's less visually inventive than the best MGM spectacles. Crawford's persona can read as harsh, and the 'woman must learn to sacrifice' message lands heavy.
Raintree County1957
Elizabeth Taylor in full Technicolor glory, another sprawling period epic about fame and ambition. If you're specifically drawn to the Williams aesthetic—beautiful people in beautiful costumes solving beautiful problems—this delivers that without apology.
But It's genuinely not very good. The plotting is confused, the dialogue clunky, and even Taylor's luminescence can't quite save it. This is a waning echo of the MGM house style.
Lola Montès1955
Both about women who achieved fame through their bodies and beauty, but where Kellerman's story ends in triumph, Montès shows the long arc—what comes after celebrity, what the price actually was, how the world treats famous women when they age.
Max Ophüls' heartbreaking masterpiece about a famous dancer-courtesan in her decline, told in fractured flashbacks with virtuoso camera movement. Simone Signoret is magnificent—dignified, tragic, a woman destroyed by the fame and beauty that were supposed to elevate her.
But It's elegiac and despairing where Million Dollar Mermaid is triumphant. Ophüls' camera is so restless it can feel mannered, and the chronology is deliberately disorienting. This is a lament, not a celebration.
People
Cast
Esther WilliamsAnnette Kellerman
Victor MatureJames Sullivan
Walter PidgeonFrederick Kellerman
David BrianAlfred Harper
Donna CorcoranTen-Year-Old Annette
Jesse WhiteDoc Cronnol
Maria TallchiefPavlova
Howard FreemanAldrich
Charles WattsPoliceman
Wilton GraffGarvey
Frank FergusonProsecutor
James BellJudge