Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Spoonatects Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

TheLittleSongbird One of my least favourite films/musicals featuring Esther Williams, along with 'Texas Carnival' and 'Jupiter's Darling'. All three watchable but very flawed. 'Skirts Ahoy!' is not a sinking dud, but considering the talent involved (as well as Williams, there's Vivian Blaine, Debbie Reynolds, Bobby Van and songs penned by Harry Warren and Ralph Blane) it should have been better, much better.Williams herself is captivating, she has a graceful charm and sassiness, while her swimming talent and aquatic skills are enough to make one green with envy. She is well supported by a polished and energetic turn from Vivian Blaine, while Billy Eckstine and Emmett Lynn are suitably sincere and Debbie Reynolds and Bobby Van lighten up the screen and really liven things up.'Skirts Ahoy!' looks nice enough, the costume and set design are not elaborate or lavish but handsome and colourful enough and the film is photographed very nicely. The songs are all pleasant, though only one is properly memorable and that is the modest hit "What Good is a Girl (Without a Guy"). The way the numbers are staged is energetic and graceful and enthusiastically performed, Williams' water ballet and "Oh By Jingo" performed with terrific gusto by Reynolds and Van.However, there is no chemistry between Williams and Barry Sullivan. Sullivan further has the indignity of having next to nothing to do and coming over as bland. Joan Evans struggle with the singing and dancing, the inexperience really shows, and also struggles to bring any likable qualities to a character that can border on the desperately annoying.Despite some nice light, funny and endearingly fluffy moments, too much of the script is soggier than very watery cucumber sandwiches. The story is wafer thin, flimsy doesn't cut it describing the thinness of it, with pacing that really plods in the non-song and dance sequences (where the film comes to life) and an improbable resolution. 'Skirts Ahoy!' further suffers from being overlong, due to too much of its basic narrative content being as thin as it was that was difficult to overlook, and for being over-stuffed in other parts. Direction is indifferent.Overall, not a bad film but never fully leaves the deck. Most of the cast and some nice moments keep it afloat but the story and script threaten to sink it and almost do. 5/10 Bethany Cox

utgard14 Diverting bit of fluff from MGM about three women who join the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) to get away from their respective man troubles. One (Joan Evans) was left standing at the altar, one (Esther Williams) left someone standing at the altar, and another (Vivian Blaine) never got to the altar. The women go through training, singing and having fun along the way, until they get down to the important business at hand: landing a man.Vivian Blaine keeps things moving with her energetic performance. Joan Evans starts out being a terribly depressing character but she has a good turnaround about a half-hour in. Esther Williams seems to be going through the motions; not bad but not remarkable in any way. Barry Sullivan plays her love interest. The two have no chemistry at all. The DeMarco sisters are fun to watch. Debbie Reynolds has a cameo in a dance routine. Emmett Lynn is a scene stealer as Pop the plumber. The song and dance numbers are nothing to write home about. At least one of them ("What Good is a Gal without a Guy?") is downright embarrassing. Still, it's a hard movie to dislike. Everything is light and frothy with an enjoyable trio of stars. The highlight of the whole thing is (not surprisingly) Esther's big swimming scene, this time with a couple of cute kids.

charlytully The Harold Warren\Ralph Blane tune lyric quoted in my summary more or less sums up the attitude of MGM's 1952 Esther Williams vehicle SKIRTS AHOY! regarding the relationship between men and women. All three of the featured characters begin their nine weeks' stints at Chicago's Great Lakes Naval Training Center after matrimonial snafus. With a "50:1" male:female ratio, most of the recruits seem hell-bent upon attaining the rank of "Mrs." Other memorable lyrics include "It takes a whole lotta water to make a WAVE; it only takes a little bit of water to make a squirt" (sung during a chicks-get-wet-on-stage sequence that precedes FLASHDANCE's similar spectacle by decades) and "what use is a moonlit night, without a guy to hold you tight?" In between the singing, SKIRTS AHOY! viewers pick up such bon mots as "plumbers know everything there is to know about EVERYTHING--plumbers and garbage men."Perhaps the nautical highlight, as least for Esther Williams' swim fans, is when this diva of wetness cavorts underwater with a pair of urchins (played by Russell and Kathy Tongay) with a number of yellow props, including a wooden ladder and hula hoop prototypes. Unlike TOP GUN, these trainees are never thrust into a "hot zone," however.

michael.e.barrett Isobel Lennart wrote "Skirts Ahoy," which is apparently a minor musical in Esther Williams' catalogue. True, it's not dominated by flashy, brassy, spectacular numbers with fountains and trapezes to distract us from the inconsequential story--but rather by the character-driven story with a few modest, distracting numbers. Like Lennart's other scripts I've noticed, including "It Happened in Brooklyn," it's characterized by modesty, sympathy and intelligence. In fact, it looks like someone at the studio decided it needed spicing up because there's a gratuitous number dropped in that looks like it was shot later; it stars an unbilled Debbie Reynolds, Bobby Van and Keenan Wynn.Lennart's scripts are about co-operation and consideration among characters, instead of external conflict and egocentric desires. Three diverse women become WAVES and learn to look out for each other as "good shipmates." It's kind of a bildungsroman where the girls grow up to be new mature adults. The message is spelled out at their graduation when the commander says "You've learned what many girls never have a chance to learn, that there are other people in the world besides yourself, that women don't have to be dependent weak sisters, catty, backbiting, or the natural enemy of each other. In other words, that women can be friends." She's really speaking less to the women than to the film audience. You might think that's a typical wartime message, but it's quite different from how it might have been put: pulling together for the good of the country so our boys can do the tough fighting, etc. The point is about the nature of women and what it means for them, and nothing "larger" than that.Most pertinent is the education of the male lead, Esther's boyfriend, who's almost a supporting character. His conflict is typical of a thousand other movies. He resents Esther's forwardness, he feels his masculinity threatened, and he even speaks in terms of being the hunter chasing rabbits. At this point, in any other movie, she would get in a huff, then learn her lesson and either switch roles demurely, resigning herself to being feminine, or at best "subvert" the lesson by pretending to let him think he's in charge. What does Lennart have her do instead? She takes no for an answer, drops it and never comes near him again. Then at the end, to "finish it" and clear the air before she ships out, she gives him this speech: "I came to apologize. I've been a nuisance and I'm sorry. You see, I thought all you had to do was ask for something and you'd get it. It's always worked before." He says "I wish the whole thing had happened differently." And she says "But I wouldn't have acted any differently. I thought for a while that I could change, that I could try being coy and run and maybe you'd chase me. But I'm really hopeless, completely unteachable, cause if I could get you that way, I wouldn't want ya. I'm not apologizing for the way I acted. That it bothered you, that's what I'm sorry about. I still believe in asking for what I want. What I've learned is not to count on getting it. But that's a lot to learn. It makes things, well it makes things more interesting, if not much fun. Well, goodbye." Of course, this brings him to his senses.Now I ask you: how often do you hear a woman saying something that mature and self-possessed in a studio musical? She's not playing any game, getting emotional, saying she did anything wrong or asking him to forgive her. It was amazing to hear. It indicates that the movie is as much or more about his (and the audience's) education as the gals'. This is aided, as usual, by the helpful behavior of minor characters whom you might think would be antagonistic--the female commander, a gruff officer in a theatre and Esther's uncle. Lennart's world is a warm, supportive one.A typical Lennart grace note is Pop, the old plumber who has four scenes. His entire function as a plot device is served in his first scene, when Esther asks his advice about something. Then she runs across him again in the hall when feeling lonely and out of the blue asks him to dance, so they waltz gently around the corridor.