Search For Beauty (1934)

• Director
  • Erle C. Kenton
• Writers
  • David Boehm(story by)
  • Maurine Dallas Watkins(story by)
  • Frank Butler(screen play by)
• Stars
  • Buster Crabbe
  • Ida Lupino
  • Robert Armstrong

  Back in the 1930s, the "Search for Beauty" contests were designed to scout the hinterlands of America and England for beautiful girls and handsome men who might qualify as movie contractees -- though most the winners were drawn from the ranks of Hollywood residents. These contests, coupled with a play by Schuyler E. Gray and Paul R. Milton, formed the basis for this 1934 comedy. Real-life "Search for Beauty" winners Larry "Buster" Crabbe and Ida Lupino (both of whom had already appeared in a few films) head the cast in this story of a contest staged by a two-bit "physical culture" magazine. When the winners, Don Jackson (Crabbe) and Barbara Hilton (Lupino), realize that they've been hired exclusively to pose in bathing suits for the pin-up trade, they leave for the greener pastures of a legitimate health farm. The magazine's crooked publishers try to extort money from Don and Barbara, but they're foiled by a local justice of the peace (Frank McGlynn Sr.) who turns out to be an agent of the U.S. Department of Justice!