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.

Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid - a summertime sail

A leisurely summertime sail with Ann Blyth as the mermaid and William Powell as Mr. Peabody in Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid (1948).  Powell plays a man facing a mid-life crisis who catches the lovely mermaid while fishing, and so begins his ethereal, and hilarious, adventure.

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

William Powell is so entertaining and so sweet in his role, which is basically comic, but lends it such skillful depth and poignancy.  Ann Blyth’s work here is luminous and captivating.  It is a non-speaking role, but there is remarkable and touching eloquence in the way her eyes roam over his face, as if trying to read him, trying to understand his words and his facial expression.  Middle-aged Mr. Peabody is wondrous and fascinating to her, and her unlikely crush for him alone adds another level to the comedy, and the poignancy.  We can see why he might take a fancy to her, but her radiant and achingly silent adoration of him is charming.

Fortunately, the movie is apparently now available on DVD from Olive Films, but you can see it here on YouTube at the moment.