Ann's Mermaid Swim

Ann Blyth in an underwater shot publicity photo as Lenore the Mermaid in Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid (1948).  The warmer days have many of us wishing to go swimming, but perhaps not like the conditions under which Ann went for this swim in the studio set pool.  From my book, Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star.:

Lead weights were placed in the bottom of the tail by her feet—some references say thirty pounds, some say fifty pounds—to keep the rubber tail, and the person wearing it, from floating to the surface of the water.  Sounds as ominous as stories of mobsters fitting their victims with “cement shoes.” 

...[Co-star Andrea] King recalled that though the tank was supposed to be heated, the water heater malfunctioned and the water was quite cold in the tank.  “So we tried anyway for about half an hour, but Annie and I just went numb.  I think she got terribly sick after that.”

If you have the good luck to go swimming soon, leave the fish tail at home and don't forget the sunscreen.

Ann and Mr. Powell, or Mr. Peabody, go for a sail...

Here is mermaid Ann Blyth sailing with William Powell in a delightful publicity shot from Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid (1948).  This is not part of the Turner Classic Movies library and doesn't seem to get much play on the retro channels, but happily the VHS version is still available and this movie came out on DVD in 2014.  Many of Ann Blyth's movies are not shown on TCM - as most were from Universal and a certain legal quagmire has kept them from us - but bit by bit, more of her films are slowly being released on DVD.  If you haven't seen this one, I hope you can soon.

From my book, Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star:

It was a pinnacle of a kind, and the beginning of new trail. After a string of six heavy dramas that gave her intense roles to prove herself a major up and coming actress, her last film before Red Canyon, Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid, was a complete change that charmed the public and clued-in the studio that Ann was also athletic, and that her beauty was as much an asset to selling a film as her acting skill. Her trim body, also, could lend itself to more than posing in a crisp noir wardrobe.

It also reminded the studio that she was young. In those dramas, from Mildred Pierce through Another Part of the Forest, Ann’s characters were increasingly poised, knowing, sophisticated, and wore a mantle of worldly experience even though in real life she was still some years away from being old enough to vote. Her characters were restless, mean, sad, tragic.

Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid, because of her fanciful character and its exotic costuming, her silent communication through her expressive face, and the joyful silliness of the plot, actually managed to re-set the clock on her screen sophistication. She was suddenly much younger again.