I referred to this film, without naming it, in a review of PARLOR, BEDROOM, AND BATH the other day.
Red Skelton is a successful composer, and he is smitten when he meets swimming champ Esther Williams. He intends to marry her, and this puts a crimp in the plans of Skelton's producer "friend" Basil Rathbone. Rathbone manages to sabotage Skelton's wedding, causing a furious Williams to toss him aside and return to her old female college to resume her job as an athletics instructor. Skelton finds he is not allowed (by the rules of the college) to visit Williams, and that she won't meet him outside. So, he signs up as a student. The rest of the plot follows the course as Skelton tries to win back Williams, complicated by her anger at him, the machinations of Rathbone to prevent this reconciliation, and the desires of the college President and Board of Trustees to force Skelton out (hopefully by a violation of the strict rules of the college).
Let's face it, like many musical comedies it is a silly plot. It is interesting that in 1944 they would tackle the issue of single sex colleges (like Mount Holyoke or Bryn Mawr) in America - but tackle it with one of the female schools, instead of looking at the issue of the male dominated colleges. However, the plot dictated a female school.
Esther Williams has several fine displays of her swimming abilities in the movie, and Skelton is wisely out of these until the clincher shot in the end (when she rescues him, but he finds the water a perfect shield for some last minute privacy). I should add that the Technicolor stock of the film is high grade, and a pleasure to look at.
Rathbone had played comedy well before this. Usually he could show a cynical sense of humor (in IF I WERE KING, for example, his King Louis XI of France - the historical "Spider King" - has some nice zingers, courtesy of screenplay writer Preston Sturges). In the Bing Crosby film RHYTHM ON THE RIVER, Rathbone had a very funny role as a self-deluded composer who lost his abilities to compose when he lost his girlfriend (his sidekick Oscar Levant keeps undercutting this self-pity by reminding Rathbone the girlfriend he mourns married a Pasta manufacturer and got fat!). Unfortunately here Basil has only one or two brief funny moments of dialog with Skelton, and he is fleeing an angry Skelton at the conclusion, but it is not enough. He was better served as Danny Kaye's partner in THE COURT JESTER.
Skelton does nicely in his role, and I recall that one scene that is in this film that reminded me of the scene in PARLOR, BEDROOM, AND BATH. The powers that be at the university (and Rathbone) realize that they can expel Skelton if he violates curfew. He has been trapped inside someone's home, and there is a dog watching the outside that won't let Skelton out. So he stands a good chance of violating curfew.
Buster Keaton, aside from an occasional film part, was mostly a gag writer at this time, and he used a variant of the BEDROOM, PARLOR, AND BATH, gag regarding the door of the closet that briefly conceals Charlotte Greenwood in that film. Here, Skelton notices the hinges of the front door can be lifted out. He removes the hinges and then lifts the door so that an opening on one side allows the dog to come in, while an opening on the other side allows Skelton to go out. Then he slides the door back so the dog can't follow him. The scene ends with the confused dog barking at the closed door, while a happy Skelton heads back to his dormitory.
I'm not sure if this was the first time Keaton was assigned to work with Skelton, but they would have a very fruitful and successful collaboration into the early 1950s (far better than Keaton's nightmare with Groucho Marx on GO WEST), with such films as A SOUTHERN YANKEE and WATCH THE BIRDIE (a remake of Keaton's last great film THE CAMERAMAN) to their joint credits.
