Sexy Beast
One of the finest opening sequences in British cinema features retired gangster Gary “Gal” Dove (Winstone) baking on a lilo in his pool under the Spanish sun, underscored by the Stranglers’ “Peaches”. The gold trunks are the crowning glory in director Jonathan Glazer’s stylistic tour de force, creating an idyll of brash-Brits-abroad bling, one that’s about to be shattered by Ben Kingsley’s arrival. The Costa del Crime poolside look received another boost in 2005 when Nick Love’s The Business put Danny Dyer’s “casuals” in Björn Borg tennis tops and Tacchini tracksuits Photograph: PR
Our Girl Friday
Joan Collins claims to have worn the first-ever bikini on the big screen in this 1953 light comedy (known in the US as The Adventures of Sadie), in which she co-starred with Kenneth More, George Cole and Robertson Hare as a snooty heiress shipwrecked on a desert island. She fashions a bikini by ripping up More’s sailor shirt and sports it for most of the film. “I was quite a resourceful little thing,” Collins told me in a recent BFI interview about her film career. She had another memorable swimming pool moment, dangling from a swing in The Stud in 1978, wearing very little Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive
Blue Hawaii
To the dismay of his music fans, Elvis’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, moved his boy into movies after the soaraway success of the Blue Hawaii soundtrack in 1961. It became Elvis’s biggest-selling album during his lifetime, containing the hits “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and “Rock-a-Hula Baby”, all worked into a plot about Elvis returning from the army and wanting to hang out with his surf buddies at the beach instead of working at the family pineapple plantation, much to the horror of his mum, played by Angela Lansbury. The success of the film inspired the “beach party” movie genre Photograph: Allstar Picture Library
Dr No
Bond girls have given us plenty of highlights over the years. Sex bomb Barbara Carrera displays frighteningly high-cut 80s creations as Fatima Blush in Never Say Never Again. But Ursula Andress emerging from the sea clutching shells and singing “Underneath the Mango Tree” as Honey Ryder in 1962’s Dr No is probably the screen swimwear moment of all time. Halle Berry referenced it in orange in 2002’s Die Another Day but you can’t beat Ursula’s belt with brass buckle and the frankly erotic touch of the scabbard and knife on the left hip. The bikini was auctioned at Christie’s for £35,000 in 2001 Photograph: Cinetext /Allstar Picture Library
Goldfinger
The Bond movies offer boundless swimming scenes. Daniel Craig revived the franchise in a pair of blue swim shorts in Casino Royale, creating a buff Bond for a new era. Sartorially speaking, Roger Moore’s safari suit in Live and Let Die is a classic, but I’m opting for this extraordinary piece of movie leisurewear – a blue, terry-towelling playsuit that Connery sports at the beginning of Goldfinger. It’s the detailing of patch chest pocket, zip front and gold belt buckle that do it for me, perfect for appearing unruffled in Miami Beach hotel lounges - licensed to chill, you might say Photograph: PR
Atonement
White bathing suits seem impractical to me, but cinema loves them. Grace Kelly sports two memorable ones, in To Catch a Thief and High Society. But as vintage swimwear goes, I’m taken with Keira Knightley’s ensemble in Joe Wright’s Atonement (2007). The hat’s an adorable flourish from costume designer Jacqueline Durran, accentuating the impenetrable hauteur of Knightley’s character, Cecilia. Arguably, this stylish 1930s lakeside bathing look is outshone by the star’s emerald green backless dress from the same film, both costumes summing up the pristine veneer of British aristocracy before the second world war Photograph: Rex Features
Point Break
Surf movies offer countless opportunities for swimwear parades, from the buff Jan-Michael Vincent in Big Wednesday to the lithe Kate Bosworth in Blue Crush. Kathryn Bigelow’s action thriller starred Keanu (the name means “cool breeze’ in Hawaiian) Reeves as a cop who goes undercover to infiltrate a gang of extreme-sports-loving robbers, led by Patrick Swayze. Bigelow’s camera observes the ensuing machismo with a mix of anthropology and eroticism, particularly the beach scenes, with their wet suits and spray, ushering in a new era of sturdy watersports gear as fashion item Photograph: Rex Features
Inferno
A Frenchman invented the bikini in 1946 and Brigitte Bardot was its most famous adopter, creating a stir by wearing one on the beach at Cannes in 1953 and then in films such as ...And God Created Woman (1956). Perhaps the greatest French bikini film was made in 1964, although no footage was ever seen until 2009, when a documentary was made out of the unfinished reels of Inferno, by Henri-Georges Clouzot. In it, the delightful Austrian-born star Romy Schneider plays a waterskiing siren who, sensual in her black and white bikini, drives her new husband (Serge Reggiani) to jealous rage at their lakeside hotel Photograph: PR
Million Dollar Mermaid
A former competitive swimming star - she would have represented America at the 1940 Olympics but for the war - Esther Williams swam alongside future Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller as part of the Aquacade show. Spotted by MGM, she became one of the studio’s most bankable stars, inspiring a genre of “aquamusicals”, involving big numbers and synchronised swimming sequences, often devised by Busby Berkeley. She swam with Tom and Jerry in Dangerous When Wet but found her greatest role in Million Dollar Mermaid, playing Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive
Plein Soleil
Boats offer a wide variety of swimwear styles. Nicole Kidman all in black in Dead Calm, Elizabeth Hurley oiling herself (all in white) in Bigelow’s The Weight of Water, Kelly Brook in Piranha or the lithe Jolanta Umecka in Polanski’s debut, Knife in the Water. But for sheer yachting magnetism, French star Alain Delon, shirt off at the wheel as Tom Ripley in René Clément’s 1960 thriller, is surely unbeatable. The film was remade as The Talented Mr Ripley in 1999, featuring Jude Law’s finest hour (and it was just an hour) as the golden Dickie Greenleaf, tanned and resplendent on the Amalfi coast in his 50s beach shorts. Photograph: PR
