blanche-2 The difference between films from their start to the early '30s and the post-1934 era is astounding. In the '30s, you have femininely dressed women, single, dating, ogling men, and having sex. In the '40s, the clothes are stiff, tailored, the women are single and we're told they are unfulfilled and unhappy. Such was the code, which dictated morals to the movies and possibly to a lot of naive and unsophisticated people across the country. I know because my mother was one.This film is precode at its most outrageous. During the 1932 summer Olympics in LA, some con artists (James Gleason, Robert Armstrong, and Gertrude Michael), convince top athletes to endorse their health and fitness magazine. In order to find the best of the best, as a publicity stunt, they stage an international competition. They send one of the endorsing athletes, Don Jackson (Buster Crabbe) out to find the athletes and get their consent to be part of a magazine spread.While Don is conveniently out of the country, the cons publish the magazine they really intended to -- a tawdry cheesecake rag with lurid stories and plenty of sex.When one of the athletes, Barbara (Ida Lupino) finds out what they're up to, she summons Don. To appease him, a deal is made whereby Don is given a farm that he and Barbara can turn into a health farm.Well, the health farm as far as our erstwhile publishers are concerned is nothing more than a high-class bordello. This is a fast-moving, fun film with men showing their naked butts, and women drooling over mens' bodies, (with one set of binoculars focused on Crabbe's crotch) and plenty of suggestive clothing.Robert Armstrong and James Gleason are a couple of old pros and handle the dialogue well. Buster Crabbe was a gorgeous man, almost pretty, who was a two-time Olympic medalist in swimming, but he wasn't much of an actor. He played a lot of comic book heroes like Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, and Captain Gallant, and did dozens of adventure films and westerns. This was an early American film for Ida Lupino, who plays a star swimmer. She still has her British accent and sports the style of the day, platinum blonde hair and penciled in eyebrows. She is barely recognizable but she does a fine job. The question is, was this film ahead of its time or was this the way things were? Well, my opinion is that this is the way things were in places like Hollywood and New York among the film and theater communities. I don't think the whole country was this way, nor do I think in the '40s the whole country was all THAT way. After all, men were going to war and might never see their girlfriends again. It was all somewhere in the middle, though the code would have had us believe differently.Fun, and really needs to be seen to be believed.

LeonLouisRicci One of the Last Pre-Code Movies to Exploit Film Freedom with Cheesecake in the Busby Berkeley Fashion and Beefcake (rarely seen) with Verbal Gags and Innuendos. It is a Film Version of the Real Life Girlie Magazines that were Popular at the Time, some Using a Come On that it was All About Health and Fitness (wink wink).It is Full of Eye Candy for Both Sexes and is Really Nothing but an Excuse for Bawdy Pageantry. Unlike the Berkeley Movies that were Infinitely Better, this Uses the Male as well as the Female Form to get a 1930's Audience Aroused. Couples who went to the Theatre in 1934 to See this "Musical-Comedy" Spoof, Probably couldn't wait to Indulge in a bit of Post Movie Petting.Ida Lupino (a role against type) is Unrecognizable as a Platinum Blonde Eye Filler and Buster Crabbe at the Beginning of a Tarzan, Flash Gordon-Buck Rogers, Cowboy Career that would Span Decades and Give Him a Substantial Place in B-Movie and Television History is in this Bit of Fluff.Also On Hand is Robert Armstrong (a year after King Kong) and James Gleason. They are the Non-Pretty Actors here and Provide the Comedy Relief with Some Racy Dialog. Overall, if You are an Oggler of the Female or Male Physique, and Find this Type of Spicy Stuff Fun, Enjoy.

bkoganbing 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.

evanston_dad Goofy film about two Olympic athletes (Ida Lupino and Buster Crabbe) who are hired to bring some respectability to a fitness magazine that is using sex as its major selling point.People who want to see an example of some pre-Code raciness will find much to like about this movie. Its overt treatment of sex as something people actually like instead of something covert that must never be mentioned is by itself enough to make this movie stand apart from the more sanitized films of the succeeding decade. But beyond that, it revels in images of the barely dressed human body, male and female, and includes a shot of bare butts in a men's locker room, and a jaw dropper of a production number in which all of the women are wearing sheer athletic tops with their breasts and nipples clearly visible.Funny enough, for all of its reputation now as being representative of a certain kind of moral looseness in early 30s films, the movie's attitude about sex is as pure as freshly fallen snow.Grade: B