A young married physician discovers a mermaid, and gives into her request to be taken to see London. Comedy and romantic entanglements ensue.
Acting
Glynis Johns invented the manic pixie mermaid—decades before that was a thing.
Costume
That tail! Practical effects so good you'll forget CGI exists.
Director
Ken Annakin
Glynis Johns
Miranda Trewella
Googie Withers
Clare Martin
Griffith Jones
Dr. Paul Martin
John McCallum
Nigel
Margaret Rutherford
Nurse Carey
David Tomlinson
Charles
Yvonne Owen
Betty
Sonia Holm
Isobel
Brian Oulton
Manell
Zena Marshall
Secretary
Stringer Davis
Museum Attendant
Hal Osmond
Railway Carman
Maurice Denham
Cockle Vendor
Gerald Campion
Lift Boy (uncredited)
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Released during postwar austerity, this escapist fantasy let exhausted Britons flirt with impossibility. Mermaids as metaphor for 'anything but this.'
Glynis Johns performed her own swimming sequences, and the tail was so heavy she needed four men to lift her out of the tank between takes.
US
GB
