An Esther Williams Memorial Celebration (Or, That Time I Invited Myself to an Esther Williams Marathon)

I was 13 years old when Esther Williams passed away. I read in the paper that TCM was doing a 24-hour marathon of movies in her honor, and knew I had to participate. We didn’t have that channel at the time, so I did what any self-respecting teenager would do: I called up my friend, casually asked if she had TCM, and finagled an invitation to her house so that I could watch the marathon. My poor mother was horrified by my bad manners and pulled the plug on that plan immediately. 

June 6th will mark the 11th anniversary of Esther’s passing, and I’ve still never had myself a proper marathon. But I think it’s about time, so I’m declaring June “Esther Williams Month!”

I’m very excited that I was able to find the lineup for that TCM marathon they showed in 2013. I’ll be using that as my guide, and plan on watching as many movies as possible over the next few weeks. I know it’s cheating a little bit to space them out instead of doing a proper marathon, but I want to really enjoy them instead of worrying about moving on to the next one immediately afterwards. Maybe 11 years from now I’ll recreate the marathon exactly. Mark your calendars for 2035!

Thanks to thrift stores and library bookstores, I own almost all the movies on this list. A friend is graciously loaning me a couple as well, so the only ones I know I won’t be watching are Andy Hardy’s Double Life and The Hoodlum Saint. To make up for those two, I’m adding a few that aren’t on the list: Take Me Out to the Ballgame, Duchess of Idaho, Easy to Love, and Jupiter’s Darling.

If you’d like to join me for this month-long memorial celebration, here’s the original TCM lineup! (1:45 am start time optional.) I don’t have a set schedule, so you can choose your own adventure and watch one, two, all, none… the world is your oyster!

Thursday, June 13

8pm: Bathing Beauty (1944)

10pm: Neptune’s Daughter (1949)

11:45pm: Million Dollar Mermaid (1952)

Friday, June 14

1:45am: Dangerous When Wet (1953)

3:30am: Andy Hardy’s Double Life (1942)

5:15am: Thrill of a Romance (1945)

7:15am: Easy to Wed (1946)

9:15am: The Hoodlum Saint (1946)

11am: Fiesta (1947)

1pm: This Time For Keeps (1947)

3pm: On an Island With You (1948)

5pm: Pagan Love Song (1950)

6:30pm: Texas Carnival (1951)

Living Mostly Vintage’s Extra Picks

Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1949)

Duchess of Idaho (1950)

Easy to Love (1953)

Jupiter’s Darling (1955)

Where can I watch these? Almost all of these are available on streaming services via pay-per-view or with a subscription. Your local library might also have the DVDs. (At the time of this writing, Fiesta is the only one available to watch for free, via Crackle or Plex.)

Here are links to four different DVD sets you can purchase online, too. There’s a lot of overlap, so you can pick based on your budget or which movies you want! (The prices for new copies are outrageous, but they’re not too bad used):

TCM Spotlight Volume 1

TCM Spotlight Volume 2

TCM Greatest Classic Film Legends Volume 1

TCM Greatest Classic Film Legends Volume 2

(I own the Spotlight Volume 1 and Greatest Classic Film Legends Volume 2 collections, which cover all but four movies from the marathon: Andy Hardy’s Double Life, The Hoodlum Saint, This Time For Keeps, and Texas Carnival).

Not included in any of the sets are Texas Carnival, Duchess of Idaho, Jupiter’s Darling, or Take Me Out to the Ballgame (the last three aren’t part of the marathon but I’m adding them 😉)

You can see subtitle options for various DVDs by searching for the title on the LMV Caption Guide.

Which Esther Williams movies will you be watching this month?