Search for Beauty (1934)

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

American swimming champion Buster Crabbe and British diving champion Ida Lupino co-star in Search For Beauty about two Olympic champions who get themselves involved with con artists Robert Armstrong and James Gleason who publish a salacious magazine with their girl Friday Gertrude Michael who gives both of them a reality check every so often.Crabbe comes off little better than Abner Yokum who's been weaned on that famous Yokumberry tonic since he was an infant. He's got the muscles, but little desire for female companionship. I mean this boy is simply interested in improving the human species of which he and his fellow athletes are the prize specimens. Lupino as his Daisy Mae comes off little better.I have to say though Armstrong and Gleason are quite a pair. Armstrong is poaching on Pat O'Brien territory and had Searching For Beauty been done at Warner Brothers, O'Brien would have done this without a doubt.Anticipating Hugh Hefner by a generation the guys always make sure that articles of interest accompany the photographic layouts of the scantily clad males and females. The scene in the editorial room was a highlight of the film for me. You won't have to look hard in Search For Beauty, it's all over the place to appreciate.

It's hard to find a reason for this film. My best guess would be a as candidate for the race before the decency laws came into existence but that's only a guess. All those men and women in bathing suits haven't aged very well. They all look - er - the same after a while. I suppose an exposed ankle a few centuries ago sent men into rapturous poetic expanses so it's probably best to apply tolerance for the test of time. After all the film is in its 70's and things do creak. Imagining Leni Riefenstahl a few years later in her Olympiad married to "Triumph of the Will" with an extremely unfunny subplot sprinkled with very sub sub-Busby Berkley and that about ties things up.Curtis Stotlar

Part of the recent Paramount box set of pre-Code films, this is a fascinating film that's about the sexiest film I can remember seeing. The whole film is about sex disguised as a health and exercise magazine that hucksters Robert Armstrong and Gertrude Michael put over by duping Olympic athletes Buster Crabbe and Ida Lupino into lending their names to it.Amazingly frank attitude toward sex actually shows several naked men (butts) in a locker room, women showing their crotches (in underwear and bathing suits), etc. Dozens of men and women run around in skimpy, tight bathing suits throughout the film, including a massive production number. There are many scenes of men ogling the scantily clad women, and a jaw-dropping scene where Gertrude Michael zeroes in with binoculars no less on Crabbe's crotch while he's competing in the Olympics.Crabbe is surprisingly good here; 20-year-old Lupino, in her American film debut, is totally unrecognizable with curly blonde hair and Dietrich eyebrows. Armstrong and Michael (always underrated) are solid. We also get James Gleason, Toby Wing (in her best film role, dancing in skivvies on a tabletop), Bradley Page, Nora Cecil, Bert Roach, etc. Ann Sheridan and Lynn Bari are among the beauties, who include Gladys Willar from Worcester, Massachusetts.There's a hilarious sequence where they decide to build the perfect woman for advertising (think *Page Miss Glory*) by gathering models who are famed for their specific parts.... one for lips, one for hair, etc... and then there's Fanny....

What a great idea for a movie! 'Search for Beauty' assembles some dazzling young specimens of physical perfection (both female and male) and places them in a smart-aleck comedy that's downright hilarious! Real-life Olympic swimming champion Buster Crabbe plays an Olympic swimming champion (but gets almost no swimming footage), and Ida Lupino plays an Olympic high-diving champion ... who emerges from the pool with her lipstick intact. I'm pleased to see Crabbe exhibiting real acting ability in a role that doesn't involve rayguns or loincloths.This movie parodies the career of Bernarr MacFadden, a crackpot who made a fortune publishing 'health' magazines that were full of fad diets, copper bracelets and plenty of photographs of scantily-clad women and men.Robert Armstrong plays a confidence trickster, partnered by Gertrude Michael as his Jean Dixon-ish wise-cracking moll. By the way, I really dislike the movie cliché of the female companion who is constantly insulting her male partner. If she really has so little respect for him, why does she stick with him? James Gleason is on hand here too, as another swindler. Surprisingly, Gleason's character is completely subordinate to Armstrong's. Gleason nearly always played the brains of the outfit, but here his character is largely Armstrong's yes-man. Still, Gleason gets off some splendid wise-cracking dialogue, including the word 'gazype' ... whatever that means.There's an excellent montage sequence featuring actual footage from the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, and there are a couple of production numbers with lissome female athletes clambering on top of beefcake specimens. The comely Gwenllian Gill shows great appeal in her brief role. Silent-film comedian Leo White does one very funny slapstick bit, and Gleason's performance is more physical than usual. For one long sequence, we see the runty Gleason stripped down to a pair of gym trunks. Gleason gets the last gag in the picture, a cheeky joke that seems more typical of Lou Costello. 'Search for Beauty' is hilarious from start to finish (except for Toby Wing), and this film is definitely a pleasure to look at. I'll rate it a perfect 10 out of 10.