Paul Martin (Griffith Jones), a wealthy doctor, leaves his wife Clare (Googie Withers) at home and takes a bachelor holiday to the seaside. There he meets Miranda, a lonely mermaid (Glynis Johns) and agrees to take her to London, disguised as an invalid patient. As she is attractive, enthusiastic, flirtatious, and lacking in the norms of polite society, all of the romances around her suffer. She is aided by eccentric Nurse Carey (Margaret Rutherford), who is the only other person who knows what she is.
An enchanting comedy, filled with romance and foolishness, Miranda has the slightest of plots so it can keep the focus on character. Everyone is a touch silly and equally pleasant. Peter Blackmore’s screenplay, based on his own play, has the kind of wit that is more common on the stage and he makes each character charming.
Of course none of them, be it befuddled Paul, sophisticated Clare, obsessed butler Charles (David Tomlinson), or even the gleeful nurse (with Rutherford in full scene-steeling mode) can be as charming as Miranda herself. Glynis Johns was always compelling, with her deep, sexy voice, and in 1948 she was at the height of her substantial beauty. She makes her mermaid both innocent and oozing with lust such that I completely understand the havoc she causes around her.
This is a surprisingly risqué film for the time and I doubt it could have been made in Hollywood. Sure, it isn’t edgy now, but it is delicious to see how much is slipped in just below the surface.
There’s just enough going on that I could talk about class satire and the war between the sexes, but really Miranda isn’t trying for deep themes. It’s happy to nod in those directions, but keep the comedy about character, and it works.
Johns would return to the role six years later in the sequel, Mad About Men.
The tendency for films of a similar nature to come out at the same time is not new; in the same year, Hollywood released Mr. Peabody & The Mermaid with William Powell and Ann Blyth, though with a less talkative mermaid and comedy built around a man’s midlife crises.
Glynis Johns and David Tomlinson would reteam sixteen years later for Mary Poppins.