Personal Film Festival at your place- keep it clean

Home Film Festival Theme:
Male Bathing Beauties

Gene Wilder, Donald Sutherland
Original 8x10" Photo
Start the Revolution Without Me 1970

Planning a living room film festival? What's your theme?  How often do you and your friends have movie parties?

Even if you're just hosting the next film fan discussion, it can be good to choose an unusual theme.  

Here are some movies that have some of the best, the funniest, the most unforgettable bathtub scenes in them. 

In this set, there is a man in the tub. You shouldn't see anything here that you wouldn't see at the beach.

I've included a list bathtub films in different genres. These are just guys so you won't find any of the three incarnations of The Women listed, for instance, with the amazing bathroom in that film. Thanks to all who contributed. 

A list of films with women in the tub would be longer. What films do you remember, regardless of the gender of the actor(s)?

This time of year there are so many awards shows celebrating recent films. We get to see celebrities on red carpets around the world in amazing gowns and tuxedos. 

Bets are placed on who will be nominated and then on who will win. If you want to promise your friends a really clean evening, this is a fun and funny idea for a group of films to gather. Serving bathtub gin? Be sure to invite Ernie, his rubber duckie and SpongeBob SquarePants.

Some Like It Hot Movie Poster 1959
(11 x 14 Inches - 28cm x 36cm) French Style C
Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis
Jack Lemmon, George Raft, Pat O'Brien, Nehemiah Persoff

How about having a Gentlemen in the Bath Film and Television Festival? There are a few other movies that you could include, or at least look for to include. These films aren't necessarily for kids, as you may have guessed by the theme.

In the summertime, you can show the movies on an outdoor screen, the inflatable ones are really portable. Guests can wear robes and flip flops. 

Serve something special, maybe floating island or fondue? Something of the era of one or all of the movies. Think about where and how you'll be watching them though. What's easy to eat while you watch?

Where's Waldo? The 1944 film Laura opens with newspaper columnist and radio host Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) in a bathtub typing on his typewriter. (Talk about multitasking! Was he inspired by seeing Tallulah Bankhead's typing in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat?) Dana Andrews comes to talk to Lydecker about Laura, (Gene Tierney.)

The Billy Wilder film, Some Like it Hot with Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe would be a hit at just about any gathering. It's got comedy, it's got music, it's got pathos, it's got some of the truth about those high heels.

Key Largo with Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall and Edward G. Robinson is another classic film. It is a 1948 film noir also featuring Lionel Barrymore and Claire Trevor. Robinson's character, gangster Johnny Rocco, takes a chance bathing right next to an electric fan.

Martin Sheen in movie tub

Start the Revolution Without Me is a 1977 film with two sets of identical twins, played by Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland who were accidentally switched at birth.

It contains narration by Orson Welles. You may be surprised to hear Welles being funny.  The movie is set during the French revolution. 

As with any high-class festival, you would want to put together bath or shower-themed swag bags for your guests and maybe even have some giveaways or prizes for certain lucky attendees. 
  

Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry made a series of P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster in the 1990s. It's available on DVD or to stream instantly. This is a segment of Cow Creamer episode where a telegram arrives while Bertie is in the bath.

Hugh Laurie was Bertie Wooster, Stephen Fry played his valet, Jeeves.
Season 2, Episode one: Jeeves Saves the Cow Creamer. Hugh Laurie is well known as Dr. House from his show House M.D.

The episode includes a much sought after silver cow creamer, Aunt Dahlia, the irascible Sir Roderick Spode, Madeline Bassett and Gussie Fink-Nottle. Gussie, you may recall, collects newts.

Scenes with men in the bath in films tend to be different from similar scenes with women in movies. When men are having a bath, the scene is often played for humor or it gets pretty sexy pretty quickly. Was he just there for a bit of beefcake? Was it really a plot point? 

In My Favorite Year, Peter O'Toole wears a tear-away suit so if he's partied too much he can be put into the tub at a swanky hotel in a flash! O'Toole was nominated for an Academy Award for this role.

Check out Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski. Marlon Brando in The Missouri Breaks. He stars alongside Jack Nicholson. In Monte Walsh (1970) with Jack Palance and Lee Marvin, the guys force the cook to take a bath. He's so irritated that he had to take a bath that he puts something in their food that makes their stomachs violently ill.




In this trailer for Robin Hood Men in Tights you'll see Richard Lewis (Prince John) in a very specialized bathtub. Very clever. 

Think about the scenes in general. He could be a gruff character being forced to a bath for some reason against his will. Then the audience gets to see some attractive actor shirtless. Maybe it's ceremonial or he is somehow changed after the bath. As with everything, this changes over time, depending on the style of movie and it's different culturally. 

If you see woman in the bath, it can be easier or harder to determine what the point of the scene was. Was it there to wake up the audience? Does the scene really move the story along? Is she somehow vulnerable?

You can probably think of many more scenes with women in the bath or shower. 

Regardless, choose movies that have the actors, the storylines, whatever it is you want featured.

Coogan's Bluff, Clint Eastwood, Tisha Sterling
24X36 Poster print

Coogan's Bluff Original British Lobby Card
Clint Eastwood

Coogan's Bluff, 1968. Clint Eastwood plays deputy sheriff Walt Coogan in Arizona. The film was directed by Don Siegel and features Lee J Cobb, Susan Clark. 

It came after his films Dirty Harry and Two Mules for Sister Sara but before Escape from Alcatraz.

Coogan is sent to New York to extradite an escaped felon. 

This is only one of Eastwood's bathtub movies. 

John Lennon's in the tub in the Beatles film A Hard Day's Night, 1964. The DVD has special features.

In 1978 David Bowie starred in Just a Gigolo. Also in the film were Kim Novak and Marlene Dietrich, who came out of retirement to make an appearance toward the end. 

I read that Bowie never actually met Dietrich. There is a scene with the two of them. She sings the title song. 

I've yet to find a source of the film in the US, outside of some VHS tape copies. You can find posters and copies of the soundtrack.

The Big Bang Theory Simon Helberg with Katee Sackhoff in a large bathtub. Sackhoff is from Battlestar Gallactica. Don't forget episodes of favorite TV shows. 
 
Until September is a 1984 film about an American tourist (Karen Allen) in Paris who falls in love with a French banker, played by Lhermitte. Karen Allen Thierry Lhermitte snuggle in Until September.

Paul Newman looks a little uncomfortable
8x10 Photo

Groundhog Day is a fun film with Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. Some people like to watch it every February second. 

Murray is famous for his Soap on a Rope shower routine on an early season of Saturday Night Live. As a greenskeeper in Caddyshack, there's a famous bit where he enters an empty swimming pool. 

In Groundhog Day his character attempts to off himself in the bathtub. This is a fantasy film where he's living the same day over and over and over.

 

House M.D. in a Tub of Pill Bottles
photo with Hugh Laurie Autograph
Remember from one
Fry & Laurie sketch,
"Don't be dirty."

He cannot end the cycle under any circumstances or so it seems.  

Dead characters in bathtubs would be a whole sub-genre of this idea and you can go there as much as you want. 

The movies Godfather Part 2 and Charade have characters die (or at least get discovered) in bathtubs under different circumstances. 

In horror movies such as, I believe Wes Craven's New Nightmare, you can find bathtub scenes. Freddy Krueger wants in on the action. If that floats your bathtub, The Shining and Nightmare on Elm Street have scenes.These will have to be double checked.

No one did it better than Mr. Hitchcock in Psycho with his ultimate shower scene. 

Enjoy Mel Brooks' High Anxiety for a swell double feature. It has an, uh, similar shower scene. Apparently Hitchcock said that Brooks had used the wrong number of shower curtain hooks, though. Hmmm. Otherwise Mr. Hitchcock was flattered and pleased with the homage.

In My Man Godfrey, a wet Carole Lombard as Irene Bullock dances around and sing, "Godfrey loves me! He put me in the shower!" William Powell is Godfrey, the one who not only put her in the shower but who'd requested that Ms. Lombard have that role.  

1936 was the first year that supporting categories were introduced at the Academy Awards. My Man Godfrey was the first to be nominated in all four acting categories. A great era at the movies they didn't win any Oscars.

For your swag bag, guys might like some bathroom travel items. Choose items as clever as the films you're showing.


Just let him (or you) choose from a selection of Bath Kits for Men                               
The Portable Waterproof Bluetooth Mini Music Speakers

Cary Grant - North by Northwest
Glossy Photograph

The Howards of Virginia with Cary Grant, Martha Scott, Alan Marshal, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Richard Carlson. Also there is his final film in 1966, Walk, Don't Run for an onsen or public Japanese bath with Jim Hutton. When you're Cary Grant and aged the way he did, walking around naked at  the age of 62 (when he had a new baby on the way as a matter of fact) wasn't a problem.

In The Black Rose (1950), Tyrone Power is given a bath in China after being sent to see the Empress.

The Howards of Virginia takes place during the Revolutionary War and is not one of Cary Grant's more well-known films. The scene is somewhat transformative for his character. 

Mr. Grant also gets into a bathtub for Ann Sheridan in I Was a Male War Bride. It's a film where he is squeezed into more than one tight place.

Shower scenes are much more common. If you extend the definition of the festival into broader terms, you can have many more films. 

Films with great shower scenes or generic bath scenes open up the idea to allow many more movies into the mix. 

When I've mentioned this topic to friends, male and female, they have been pretty enthusiastic and had ideas. Major Updates to this page will be dated.

You also get to appreciate set designers from different eras. And don't forget the sound engineers who have to deal with splashing water over dialogue. A possible conflict.

China Sky Anthony Quinn
1945 Original 8x10 Photo

China Sky was based on a novel by Pearl S. Buck. The film came out in 1945. Quinn starred alongside actress Ruth Warrick, well know to daytime drama fans as Phoebe Tyler on All My Children. 

Alan Hale Jr had a bath scene in a movie.


English Leather is just one version of Soap on a rope the new men's Soap on a Rope.
Bill Murray would love this for his birthday. :)

Gathering friends together to talk and watch movies is always fun. Get others' ideas for what their favorite movies are. Maybe do a film festival at their place next time. Pillow Talk shows a split screen bathtub scene with Rock Hudson and Doris Day. The film also features Thelma Ritter and Doris Day as the stars fuss over sharing a party line on their phones.

Someone tells me that in The Truth About Cats and Dogs, Janeane Garofalo and Ben Chaplin also have a splitscreen telephone call, each in a their own bubble baths. This was 1996.

Mick Jagger with Michele Breton
Performance 1970

You can view Mick Jagger's film Performance on DVD or stream it (rent or buy) instantly.


Question for the fans: 

Please leave a comment.

John Cleese 8x10 glossy Photo

Can you tell us what films the photos of Paul Newman, Martin Sheen, Alan Hale and John Cleese come from?

A Bathtub List

******* Romance
1959 Pillow Talk; Rock Hudson/Doris Day split-screen
1990 Pretty Woman Richard Gere, Julia Roberts
1990 American Beauty Kevin Spacey, Mena Suvari
1996 The Truth About Cats and Dogs, Janeane Garofalo and Ben Chaplin; split-screen
1999 The Best Man

******** Gangster/Noir
1944 Laura  Clifton Webb
1948 Key Largo, Edward G Robinson
1963 Charade George Kennedy 
1974 The Godfather Part II; Michael V. Gazzo
1983 Scarface; Al Pacino

******** Horror/Suspense 
1971 A Clockwork Orange Malcolm McDowell (Singing in the Rain) with Patrick Magee 
1980 The Shining; Jack Nicholson
1984 Nightmare on Elm Street;Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund -Freddy Krueger 
1994 Wes Craven's New Nightmare on Elm Street 

******** Fantasy
2003 Big Fish; Jessica Lange and Albert Finney
2005 Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire Daniel Radcliffe visited by a ghost

******** Comedy
1937 Personal Property, Robert Taylor
1939 Some Like it Hot, Tony Curtis
1942 Star Spangled Rhythm; Bob Hope
1964 What a Way to Go, Paul Newman
1964 A Hard Day's Night; The Beatles John Lennon
1966 Walk, Don't Run; Cary Grant, Jim Hutton
1971 Pretty Maids All in a Row; John David Carson, Angie Dickinson
1972 Avanti! Jack Lemmon
1977 Start the Revolution Without Me; Donald Sutherland
1979 The Jerk Steve Martin
1982 My Favorite Year Peter O'Toole
1993 Groundhog day Bill Murray
1993 Robin Hood: Men in Tights; Richard Lewis Prince John
1995 Billy Madison; Adam Sandler
1998 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; Benicio Del Toro w/ help from Johnny Depp
1998 Out of Sight; George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez
1998 The Big Lebowski; Jeff Bridges
1989 Turner & Hooch Tom Hanks and Beasley the Dog
2004 Napoleon Dynamite; Efren Ramirez as Pedro

******** Drama
1936 Hearts Divided; Claude Rains
1940 The Howards of Virginia; Cary Grant
1941 How Green Was My Valley; Donald Crisp
1945 China Sky Anthony Quinn
1950 The Black Rose, Tyrone Power
1958 The Gypsy and the Gentleman; Keith Michell
1960 Spartacus Tony Curtis and Laurence Olivier
1961 Gold of the Seven Saints, Clint Walker
1962 The Spiral Road Burl Ives
1963 Cleopatra, Richard Burton
1963 Drums of Africa; Torin Thatcher
1964 The Fall of the Roman Empire; Christopher Plummer
1965 The Cincinnati Kid Steve McQueen w/Tuesday Weld
1965 Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders; George Sanders
1965 Genghis Kahn; Telly Savalas and Omar Shariff
1966 Alvarez Kelly; William Holden
1967 You Only Live Twice; Sean Connery
1968 The Secret War of Harry Frigg. Paul Newman
1970 Performance Mick Jagger
1972 The Call of the Wild, Charlton Heston, Michele Mercier
1972 Diamonds Are Forever; Sean Connery
1974 Little Big Man Dustin Hoffman and Faye Dunaway 
1978 Just a Gigolo David Bowie
1978 Moment by Moment; Lily Tomlin, John Travolta hot tub
1979 North Dallas Forty Nick Nolte, Mac Davis
1984 Until September; Thierry Lhermitte
1988 Rain Man; Tom Cruise
1989 Brenda Starr; Tony Peck
1999 Fight Club; Brad Pitt Edward Norton
2008 Slumdog Millionaire; Bathtub of money
2012 Hitchcock; Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren
Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh, Jessica Biel as Vera Miles

******** Western
1944 The Story of Dr. Wassell; Gary Cooper
1958 The Wonderful Country, Robert Mitchum
1959 The Wild and the Innocent; Audie Murphy
1966 El Dorado; Robert Mitchum
1967 Waterhole No. 3; James Coburn
1968 Will Penny; Charlton Heston
1968 Coogan's Bluff, Clint Eastwood
1969 Sam Whiskey; Burt Reynolds
1970 Monte Walsh (1970) Skimpy Eagans (Ted Gehring)
1973 High Plains Drifter; Clint Eastwood
1976 Missouri Breaks; Marlon Brando
1994 Maverick; James Garner

Links to Related Pages of Interest:

Mermaid Movies Ann Blyth, Glynis Johns Have a Mermaid Film Fest

See a photo of Desi Arnaz Jr., Robert Carradine, Anne Lockhart and Melanie Griffith enjoying a hot tub in the 1977 movie Joy Ride. Remember Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live: James Brown Celebrity Hot Tub Party?

Rotten to the Core with Kenneth Griffith,
Eric Sykes and Charlotte Rampling

Join Amazon Prime - Watch Over 40,000 Movies We chose Amazon Prime because we prefer their wide selection of movies and documentaries to other streaming video sites, and the yearly price is about the same. But you get added benefits to joining Amazon Prime.

We found more documentaries, foreign films, more British television shows and many more old color and black and white films on Amazon. 

Having several of the videos free to watch with Amazon Prime and different search options is great. 

There are always movies you want to pay to rent or own. There seems to still be some special films we want to own on DVD.


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Big thanks to all who contributed to the list of films!