That was an excellent one.

Absolutely Fantastic

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It's the timeless story of Dick Johnson, a young man returning home from war who doesn't want to sing opera like his dad or marry his social-climbing fiancée. Instead he wants to sing in a nightclub and romance a beautiful swimmer. We've seen it all before.A tired musical comedy that's more of a showcase for Jimmie Johnston than Esther Williams. Technicolor goddess Esther does get in the water a few times but there are no lavish swimming numbers here. Jimmie Johnston is as bland and vanilla as they come. In some scenes he looks less like an actor and more like a tourist who just wandered onto set and seems awestruck by the lights and cameras. Not surprising this is the biggest role of his career. Jimmy Durante provides the film's laughs. Child actress Sharon McManus steals every one of her scenes. The music is fine. "S'No Wonder They Fell in Love" is the best number. It's worth a look for Esther completists or anyone who might giggle every time they hear Dick Johnson.

Lauritz Melchior's rich tenor voice, especially at the beginning and end of this 1947 is worth the price of the entire film.The plot is quite simple. An over zealous man and woman announce the engagement of his son to her daughter, respectively. Problem is that the guy, Johnnie Johnston, has found love with Esther Williams, who entertained him at a convalescent home for war-injured soldiers.We have an all-star cast here. Jimmy Durante is Esther Williams's piano player who immediately distrusts Johnston. As a family friend, he favors the producer of the show she works at. The original cast includes Dame May Witty, quite inquisitive as the grandmother of Williams, but with her austere look in color, she has that facade as she did in Mrs. Miniver, but in a comical way.

This movie is a waste of talent and time - yours if you watch it. The script often makes no sense - nor does the title, as one reviewer pointed out - and it sinks the whole enterprise. Esther Williams' swim numbers aren't at all interesting, nothing like those in movies like Jupiter's Daughter. Melchior gets to sing a lot, but he doesn't sing very well - it's often just loud, as in M'appari. He is much better in Thrill of Romance. The best performance in the movie is, to my mind, Durante's - though it's not one of his better movie appearances. The best number is his The Lost Chord, and that's not a great number.All of these performers have given much better performances elsewhere. Go watch those, and leave this unfortunate mistake to rest in peace.

This film is an enigma because, while it is a properly light-hearted musical (but weren't they all), it also boasts a great many oddities- starting with the strange title (exactly what in the film is "for keeps?"). Esther Williams plays a properly likable, properly beautiful, water ballerina whose relationship with Jimmy Durante (a legend whom I've always enjoyed) should have been that of a father and daughter, but instead is something a tad stranger. Thankfully, this isn't ignored in the film, as her actual love interest (Johnnie Johnston), whom Durante relentlessly 'protects' from Williams, challenges his interference in the film's 11th hour. (While Durante seems to have a bothered conscience about this, it is never confirmed or denied.) Co-starring with Williams and Durante is the very genteel and old-school tenor Lauritz Melchior as Johnston's meddlesome (and somewhat annoying) father. The musical numbers are delightful, if a tad uneven in quality. I wasn't particularly fond of Durante's "Lost Chord" routine, but it appears to be legendary with most listeners. I prefer Johnston's "Easy To Love," the various Xavier Cugat pieces, and most of all, the provocative striptease and swim of "Ten Percent Off."