On an Island With You

Tonight's lineup on TCM is a bunch of movies set on tropical islands. This includes one that's been on my DVR for a little while now and that I've never reviewed before: On an Island With You, overnight tonight at 12:45 AM (so technically July 17 in the Eastern time zone but late in the evening of July 16 in the more westerly time zones of the US).

The movie opens in lovely Technicolor with a Pacific-sounding song that sounds like it could be a stand-in for "Aloha Oe". At the end of the opening and credits, a woman dives from one of the trees into the lagoon below, that woman being Rosalind Reynolds (Esther Williams). The scene, however, is one that's part of a movie-within-a-movie, as Reynolds is an actress making a movie in the islands together with her fiancé, Ricardo Montez (Ricardo Montalbán). Montez is playing a character who is a navy officer, which seems like miscasting considering Montez's accent. The character is loved by Reynolds' character, but also by another character played by Yvonne Toro (Cyd Charisse). What nobody knows yet is that Yvonne Toro is also in love with Ricardo Montez.

Since the movie-within-a-movie is about the US Navy, the studio has brought in a technical advisor whose job it is is to make certain that everything is done the way it would be done in the real US Navy. That advisor is Lt. Kingslee (Peter Lawford). But Kingslee has some rather odd ideas about how to be an advisor, which are down in part to the fact that some years back (I'd assume during World War II, as the war had been over for less than three years when On an Island With You was released) Kingslee had seen Reynolds in the flesh when she was doing one of her USO tours. She even invited a serviceman on stage for one of her routines, and that serviceman was Kingslee. This is also why Kingslee seems vaguely familiar to Reynolds, although she can't place him. This is actually logical; the non-famous person would remember the meeting with the famous movie star, while the movie star would likely only remember having invited a ton of servicemen on stage over the course of a slew of USO shows.

Kingslee is still infatuated with Reynolds despite the fact that she's engaged, and he decides to show it first by suggesting that Montez is handling a navy romance all wrong, offering to step in for one scene and how Montez how to do it, if only as an excuse for Kingslee to be able to kiss Reynolds. Later that evening, when Xavier Cugat (obviously playing himself) is the bandleader at the hotel floor show, Kingslee asks Reynolds for a dance, and is a total dick about it when Reynolds politely but firmly declines. So much a dick that he keeps insisting she dance with him, to the point that the assistant director Buckley (Jimmy Durante, mostly there to provide comic relief) offers to dance with Kingslee.

But Kingslee isn't done being a jerk. One scene involves flying over the set. Since Kingslee is a Navy pilot (which one would guess is how he got the dual job to be technical advisor), he flies Reynolds over the set, but then flies off with her to an island several hundred miles away so that he can have some alone time with her. This to me seems like kidnapping and going AWOL, both of which would be offenses deserving of a court-martial. And indeed, when Kingslee and Reynolds are finally rescued, his commanding officer is extremely displeased.

But the worst of all things is that Peter Lawford is billed above Ricardo Montalbán, which implies that Lawford's character is the one that's supposed to end up with Williams in the final reel. Cyd Charisse's character having the hots for Montalbán is, then, obviously in the script so that Montalbán can end up with her as the "right" match. But Lawford's character is just such a total jerk, and he's so violating the Hollywood Production Code, never mind military law, that you wonder how he's going to get away with it in the final reel.

As you might guess, the huge problem for me with On an Island With You is the plot that just doesn't work. None of this is Williams' fault. Once again, she gets to do aquacade numbers that are well choreographed and look lovely on screen. Jimmy Durante is the same sort of character he usually is, while Xavier Cugat as himself is as much of an acquired taste as is Durante's humor. Some people will like them, some won't.

So, if I were to recommend Esther Williams to people, I'd start with something else before On an Island With You. But there's enough here that people are going to like the visuals.