Search for Beauty (1934)

Pre-code 1930s:
A Bevy of Bare-chested Bois
Search for Beauty (1934)
Studio: Paramount Pictures • 78 min B&W • AR 1.33:1 • US: 2 Feb 1934
Re-release: Universal Backlot Series (Apr 2009)
Series: Universal’s Pre-code Hollywood Collection (3-DVD)
Starring: Ida Lupino, Buster Crabbe, Robert Armstrong, James Gleason, Gertrude Michael
Dir: Erle C Kenton

Just out of prison doing time for another scam, Larry Williams (Robert Armstrong) hooks up with fellow con artist Dan Healy (James Gleason) and Larry’s some time accomplice Jean Strange (Gertrude Michael); they buy a failing health magazine and a resort property that goes with it. Deciding that sex sells better than anything else, the trio get the idea to populate the magazine (and resort) with ex-Olympic athletes from around the world to titilate, tantalize and beat into shape the readers and wealthy resort patrons. They sucker (er, engage) Olympic stars Barbara Hilton (Ida Lupino) and Don Jackson (Buster Crabbe) to build a team of hot, handsome men and vivacious, fit women to grace the pages of the magazine and train the patrons at the resort. However, the scheme-ers are scammers, after all, and comedy and come-uppance result.

According to the box, Search for Beauty was heavily censored and was never re-issued or re-made. It was so hot, to echo promoter Williams, “you could fry an egg on it!”. And bodies galore there are, with eye-popping eye-candy that would not be seen on film again till the 1970s.

The film didn’t hurt anyone’s careers, in spite of the production code coming into effect several weeks after this film hit the theatres. For Ida Lupino, this was her 7th film of dozens (she later became an important director) before graduating to television. She was 19 when the film was made and was stunningly “fit”. Buster Crabbe had already made Tarzan the Fearless and went on to do many roles where Beefcake and B-ness was more important than acting talent. For director Erle Kenton, this was already nearly his 100th film as director; he’d started out as a member of Mack Sennett’s comedy troupe in 1915. He’d go on to direct 50 more, between B movies at Columbia and Universal and then television in the 50s. It’s not hard to imagine this was Kenton’s thumbing his nose at the prudes of his day.

Print and sound are excellent. Clips from the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics are a nice touch to set the stage but it’s the bare-chested boys and admirably athletic and revealingly clad ladies that makes this piece of fluff more entertaining than it might otherwise deliver.