Biopic of Australian swimming champ and entertainer Annette Kellerman. After overcoming polio, Kellerman achieves fame and creates a scandal when her one-piece bathing suit is considered ind... Read allBiopic of Australian swimming champ and entertainer Annette Kellerman. After overcoming polio, Kellerman achieves fame and creates a scandal when her one-piece bathing suit is considered indecent.Biopic of Australian swimming champ and entertainer Annette Kellerman. After overcoming polio, Kellerman achieves fame and creates a scandal when her one-piece bathing suit is considered indecent.
- Nominated for 1 Oscar
- 2 nominations total
- Swimmer
- (uncredited)
- Bather
- (uncredited)
- Pawnbroker
- (uncredited)
- Swimmer
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaIn an interview Esther Williams said that she met and spoke with Annette Kellerman before filming began, while attempting to get Kellerman's approval of Williams in the lead role. After the meeting Kellerman gave her complete approval and said she was pleased with the casting choice, though she good-naturedly complained that Williams was much prettier than her.
- GoofsAnnette Kellerman (Esther Williams) tells the judge that her swimsuit "will cover the entire body except the *forearms* and the head." However, the swimsuit she exhibits in court and which she wears in the following scenes does not cover *any part of her arms*.
- Quotes
James Sullivan: Baby, somewhere along the line, we got our signals crossed. You've got it into your head that you're Joan of Arc. Well, get it out fast. You're a swimmer doing a tank act in Sullivan's water carnival, and not a bad show either.
Annette Kellerman: And how long can it last? After all, all we're doing is capitalizing on a lot of cheap bathing suit publicity.
James Sullivan: Well, what do you think this Aldrich thing is anyway? All he's trying to do is cash in on the same dodge, a ballyhoo that I arranged.
Annette Kellerman: That you arranged?
James Sullivan: Sure. Who do you think got that cop to arrest you?
Annette Kellerman: Oh no, Jimmy, you didn't.
James Sullivan: Didn't I?
Annette Kellerman: Can you stand there... what about all that talk of a crusade and how...
James Sullivan: Bunk. Who cares what a lot of females wear on the beach, as long as I can keep you in a one-piece bathing suit? Baby, you're a swimmer. You belong in the water. Wet, you're terrific. Dry, you're just a nice girl who ought to settle down and get married.
Annette Kellerman: Thank you very much for the advice. One thing I know for sure, if and when I do get married, it will never be to a cheap, stubborn, flea circus proprietor.
James Sullivan: This flea circus does alright for the fleas in it, except when they jump out of their cages.
- ConnectionsFeatured in That's Entertainment, Part II (1976)
- SoundtracksLet Me Call You Sweetheart
(uncredited)
Music by Leo Friedman
Lyrics by Beth Slater Whitson
Played during the opening credits
Sung by the patrons in the ship's lounge
Played often in the score
If Annette Kellerman hadn't blazed the trail, Esther Williams could not have had a movie career. Kellerman first won many swimming medals in her native Australia and then went to the United Kingdom and then to America where she was the first international female swimming star. The Aquacade, the water ballet, I believe the Australian crawl swimming stroke were named in her honor, all these are due to her. She was crippled as a child and swimming did indeed make her legs grow stronger, as therapeutic to her as it was to a certain crippled president of the United States.
I'm really surprised that the Australians have not done any kind of big screen or small screen film about her, she was such an icon in a newly independent country. Leaving it to America and to MGM, Million Dollar Mermaid is a fine Esther Williams film, but no more than that. I get very little information about the trials and tribulations of the real Annette Kellerman and the people around her.
She did in fact marry her manager James Sullivan played here by Victor Mature who did NOT bring Rin Tin Tin to the silver screen. They do in fact cover her notorious arrest in Boston for wearing a shocking newly designed one piece bathing suit. Boston had many silly laws back in the day, they were known for it. If you remember in John Ford's Donovan's Reef, a gag is used about Elizabeth Allen wearing the typical Gay Nineties bathing attire and then stripping down to what Kellerman popularized.
Most of the plot of Million Dollar Mermaid is fictitious, her romance with Hippodrome impresario David Brian, her accident on the set of Neptune's Daughter. Annette did become an early silent film star as big in the silent days as her male successors Johnny Weissmuller and Buster Crabbe became in sound.
Kellerman and Sullivan lived to see Million Dollar Mermaid and it's unknown what they thought about it. The fact they were both still around I'm sure made MGM tread softly. One thing the film didn't answer was why Kellerman did not compete in the Olympics. In that she has something in common with Esther Williams. Esther didn't compete because the 1940 Olympics were called off as were the 1944. She had to turn professional and then became an actress and the rest is history. Why Kellerman didn't is something I'd like to know.
Perhaps an Australian production might answer that question if one is made. Until then we'll have to be satisfied with the beautiful and expensive Million Dollar Mermaid.
- bkoganbing
- Jan 4, 2009
- How long is Million Dollar Mermaid?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Runtime1 hour 55 minutes
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
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