User Reviews

Fred Mace takes his niece, Mabel Normand to the seaside for some bathing. However, when they get there, Mabel shocks him by wearing a one-piece suit and diving off a board.

It had been just four years since Australian swimming star Annette Kellerman had been arrested in Boston for wearing a one-piece suit; at times it seemed that there wasn't anything you could do in Boston that wouldn't get you arrested for public indecency. The funny part of this movie is Fred Mace's fuddy-duddy reaction to his niece's innocent hi-jinks... and the audience got a bit of cheesecake along the way, with Mabel showing off her young shapely form It's a mild comedy, fairly typical of the sort that Mack Sennett would turn out for Biograph. The next year he would get his own studio, Keystone, and take a lot of his crew with him. There he would take the same incident and turn out THE WATER NYMPH and movie comedy would never be the same.

If you adore Mabel, then you'll simply love this chance to see Miss Gorgeous in her very un-edwardian swimsuit. In 1911 this skimpy bathing gear was regarded as almost pornographic, and when the churches began their assault on Mabel's character in 1924 they quoted this appearance as evidence of her debauchery. However, compared with Olympian swimmer Vera Thulin's sexy look of 1912 (replete with protruding nipples) Mabel appears somewhat tame by comparison. We might suspect that genius DW Griffth ordered the then voluptuous Mabel to be 'strapped down'. Mabel was filmed (supposedly) nude in 'Mickey' in the same year that Annette Kellermann went fully nude in 'A Daughter of the Gods. In all honesty Mabel was an Edwardian prude, and evidence for her allegedly diving into a ship's pool naked is lacking, although she often appeared (shock, horror!) on screen in pajamas and once in her undies (actually just a full length underdress).

This film is a good short by 1911 standards and gives Mabel a chance to exercise her fast-changing facial expressions (laughter to grimace, to pout) as well as her diving prowess, which is considerable. The message of the picture from director Mack Sennett is 'Stand aside you old maids and let the bright young things do their bit'. Of course, Mack Sennett realized the financial capital to be made from Mabel's lightly- covered body and later produced the similar (but with more story-line) film The Water Nymph.

The church might have thought Mabel obscene, but she was never on friendly terms with outright sex-bombs like Clara Bow. Mabel named her dog 'It Girl'.