Vintage Mermaids

There is something particularly charming about a vintage mermaid costume, be it for a movie, pageant or floor show. It combines pinup sexiness with demure innocence, in a mystical fantasy package. here are a few of my favorite examples of mermaids from yesteryear.

In this movie a middle-aged Bostonian captured a mermaid and takes her home to live in his bathtub.

Ann Blyth plays the mermaid who is mute but whom Mr. Peabody names Lenore.

[IMDb] [TCM] [Wikipedia]

In this movie (1948 was a good year for mermaids) Miranda rescues and becomes enamored with a doctor. Unlike Mr Peabody and the Mermaid (a US production) Miranda was filmed in the United Kingdom.

The mermaid is played by Glynis Johns.

Her tail was made by the fashion house Donlop at the cost of $18000.

[IMDb]

A sequel called "Mad About Men" was released in 1954.

[IMDb]

This movie stared Diane Webber as the mermaid queen, amongst a whole school of mermaids that help a diver discover treasure.

The movies was re-edited and released several times with varying levels of topless exposure.

[IMDb]

A trade show mermaid posing, appropriately enough, on a Plymouth Barracuda.

The photograph features in a book about auto-show models by Margery Krevsky. The author says: "I have yet to find out who that model was. I'd love to know, and I keep hoping that someday someone is going to come up to me with that name".