Radio stations have been banning “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” so I decided to go back to the source, Neptune’s Daughter (1949), where the song was performed by Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban–and Betty Garrett and Red Skelton. Yes, TWO couples sing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside in this movie. More on that in an upcoming paragraph.
Prolific song-writer, Frank Loesser, wrote “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” in 1944 as a song for him and his wife, Lynn Garland, to perform at parties. According to the Loessers’ daughter, Susan Loesser, the song is flirty. She said the reference to what is in the woman’s drink–interpreted today as a “date rape” drug–signified only that having an alcoholic beverage was cool. The female singer’s repeated insistence that she needed to go is halfhearted, as she too wanted to stay, Ms. Loesser asserted.
In Neptune’s Daughter, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” starts in Ricardo Montalban’s apartment. Esther went to the apartment mistakenly looking for her sister (Betty Garrett). Esther searches the apartment, but her sister isn’t there. Embarrassed, Esther accepts a drink from Montalban and he starts singing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” despite the fact that it’s SUMMER! Meanwhile, in another apartment, Betty Garrett as Esther’s aggressive sister, sings the “male” lines to Red Skelton, who she is trying to seduce! Skelton then sings the “female” lines of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” as he tries to escape.
My opinion about “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is that it is NOT a “rape” song. “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” won an Oscar as Best Original Song. It’s been a standard for almost 70 years. Yes, Neptune’s Daughter is a silly movie with too much Xavier Cugat and His Orchestra, but watching Esther Williams frolic in the pool makes it all worth it! What do you think about the “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” controversy? GRADE: C+