Truly Dreadful Film

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

NOTES: Marjorie Fowler is Nunnally Johnson's daughter, Gene Fowler, Jr. is his son-in-law. Guy and Constance Jones also wrote There Was A Little Man, filmed in the same year it was published - 1948 - as Luck of the Irish. Fred Clark who plays Basil was not a professional actor but a real-life butler - for Humphrey Bogart.SYNOPSIS: Not a clone of "Miranda" at all. In any event, "Miranda" was not published in the U.S. until 1948, two years after the Jones' book. In this one, the mermaid is a device - a charming device - to circumvent the Hays Office. It's a sadly wistful little sex "comedy" of youth and old age, beautifully summed up in William Powell's line, murmured with an off-hand sadness, an almost casual regret: "Fifty - the old age of youth; the youth of old age."COMMENT: A much under-rated and misunderstood film. I blame myself too. First time I saw it, I found it a complete mystery that such a slight piece of whimsy could have been adapted from a novel of no less than 242 pages. Did Johnson throw all the novel's amusing characters and incidents away, I wondered, to concentrate on the one-joke mermaid? Ah, youth! Actually, the mermaid doesn't come in for thirty minutes - charmingly introduced in what would have been Irving Pichel's one really inspired piece of direction, were it not undermined by Mrs Fowler's intercutting a banal reaction shot of William Powell. But even daughters cannot ruin Johnson's delightful idea of making the mermaid silent. What a contrast to the garrulous Miranda! True, Miranda sings, but off-camera, a siren song deftly blended by the voices of Winifred Harris and Lydia Bilbrook. Miss Blyth herself is not one of my favorites, but Russell Metty's soft, flattering photography lends her face an endearingly perfect vulnerability. Her appeal to Powell is from the very start, protective.Powell's performance is one of the most skillful of his career. He and Johnson manage to balance between creating an involving, amusing and sympathetic character without toppling into farce, disdain or outright unbelievability. The support players and characters are a big assist here. Clinton Sundberg is most amusing, yet totally credible, and makes the most of his richly witty lines. Lumsden Hare is a more familiar type - the stage Englishman - but who could fail to respond to his irritated running gag and the perversely named "Flying Squad" which is passed by everything on the road?This film was obviously made on a tight "A" budget. The sets are both artistic yet dramatically functional. All the same, obvious backdrops and special effects reveal to the trained eye that the film was entirely lensed in the studio. Even the underwater location sequences in Florida were made by a second unit with an extremely-difficult-to-detect double for Miss Blyth (who does her own swimming in the close-ups). Pichel's direction, alas, is somewhat ponderous and heavy-handed, altogether too emphatic, although players like William Powell most of the time and Clinton Sundberg all the time are able to deliver their lines with just the right touch of casual off-handedness that embellishes dry wit.Metty's superlative photography has already been commented upon. It only remains to laud the delightful music which contributes so much to both pace and atmosphere; and the technical wizardry of the mermaid itself.

As a girl of 9 I saw Mr Peabody and the Mermaid and was blown away by it. It stayed in my memory as a mysterious and haunting film, with her song still ringing in my ears 56 years later.Luckily I found out that my TV/video is compatible with the NTSC system.(There is no DVD made as far as I know.) So through the magic of E-bay I bought the video from someone in America, who posted it to me in Australia. Tonight I played it. I saw that the humor of it went over my head as a child, but I still enjoyed it immensely. How divine and delightful is Anne Blythe! Loved her also in Rose Marie and The Student Prince. Leonie

Some postmodernists have suggested this is a dramatic film. It is a satire--the sort of film where the hero cannot fail because of his/her values, ideas and ethical self-command. The central character in this well-loved feature is an man (William Powell) who has reached the age of fifty. He has a lovely wife (Irene Hervey) but he is restless; he has lost the sense of adventure in his life, and his wife is treating him as if he were "old". Then on a fishing trip, he catches a mermaid (Ann Blyth). She cannot talk, she has a tale and lives beneath the sea; but she does not think he is old, she finds him kind, fascinating and absorbing. Of course this fabulous find upsets his staid routine and disrupts all his relationships. He has to keep the lovely young mermaid a secret; He takes her home, where she takes a bubble bath. Andrea King all-but-steals the film; she is gorgeous, on the make for him, and suspicious that he is hiding something. A highlight of the film comes when she dons a bathing suit (she is a champion swimmer and gorgeous) and investigates the mermaid tale underwater, where Blyth bites her on the leg. Clinton Sundberg, one of the best line-readers on planet, plays a man who is giving up smoking with whom Powell has droll conversations. Art Smith plays the psychiatrist to whom he confesses his find; he is also older, and has had a fantasy of his own. Ever the practical sort, Powell tries to buy half a bathing suit, with hilarious results; he also eventually has to explain the goings on to his wife; this is a character-based adult script by Nunnally Johnson adapted from Guy and Constance Jones' novel "Peabody's Mermaid"; and it makes, by my lights, an unforgettable, charming and beautiful made film. Irving Pichel directed with verve and intelligence. others in the cast include Lumsden Hare, Fred Clark, James Logan, Mary Field, Beatrice Roberts, Mary Sommerville and many more in smaller roles. The film boasts fine underwater cinematography by David Horsley and Russell Mettey's usual very fine work. Original music was composed by Robert Emmet Dolan with art direction supplied by Bernard Herzbrun and Boris Leven; the difficult set decorations were supplied by talented Russell A. Gausman and Ruby R. Leavitt with costumes designed by Grace Houston. Carmen Dirigo is credited with the film's challenging hair stylings and Bud Westmore with the makeup for Lenore the mermaid and the rest of this talented and beautifully-chosen cast (a hallmark, I suggest of Nunnally Johnsons' films, since he co-produced as well as writing the script). This is not a film about someone being old; it is a wistful and intelligent look at being human, using the fantasy of a mermaid who is decidedly real as a symbol of youth itself--Mr. Peabody's youth--in which others believe or do not depending on their attitude to selfhood and individual desert. I find this film a touching and memorable screen achievement, thanks to all concerned.

Funny. Thoughtful. Great script. Incredible dialog. Wonderfully cast.You might guess that I like this film. William Powell has never been as warm and funny. Ann Blyth is every man's unattainable beauty. And Nunnally Johnson has never written a better script. This is high comedy with a heart.I cannot imagine a more perfect cast. Even the minor roles hold their own.There are many movies we see when young that don't hold up as well as we get older. This one gets even better. If you can't find a copy of it, then petition AMC or TCM to broadcast it. You won't be sorry you did.