Anyone going to Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid expecting William Powell to be anything like he was in The Thin Man is going to be disappointed. For one thing: He’s sober. Sadder than that: He sure ain’t married to Nora Charles.
His wife, Polly (Irene Hervey), doesn’t start out so bad, but she quickly starts to pick on him for turning 50, giving him backhanded compliments like how she doesn’t have to worry about his leaving her now. Little does she know Powell’s no peach, either. He mopes around for most of the film, but that would be okay if not for how he deals with it.
When he accidentally snags a mermaid (Ann Blyth) while fishing, he kidnaps her and takes her back to live in his lavishly deep fish pond right under his wife’s nose. Polly suspects something’s up, but she thinks he’s having an affair with a local hussy. Not that Polly has a lot of moral ground to stand on, since she’s been having secret lunches with the village cad.
It’s a depressing marriage you can’t really blame poor Powell for wanting out of, but it’s weird and creepy that he picks a mute, childlike (albeit heartbreakingly beautiful) mermaid to cheat with. When he seduces her by teaching her to kiss, it’s more Humbert Humbert than Captain Kirk. Although he goes back to Polly at the end — mermaids don’t have vaginas — you can’t help feeling that nobody gets a happy ending in this one. —Michael May