Stick with Ida Lupino Every Time
Search for Beauty (1934)
directed by Erle C. Kenton
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
From the director of one of my very favorite horror films comes this health oddity and cheesecake introduction to fascism. Three criminals team up to bring a fitness magazine back into production, then hire two Olympic champions to front as honest editors. Tensions flare when the Olympians discover that the criminals are making use of their good names to publish racy stories and scandalous photographs of models in skimpy clothing.
Ostensibly, we root for bland Barbara and Don to give the ex-cons their comeuppance, but it's clear that the "healthy living" the Olympians preach amounts to a quest to open their own exercise summit on a private estate in the countryside. The ex-cons, in a bid to party with the pretty boys and girls that Don and Barbara bring in as counselors, wind up prisoners at a boot camp, unable to smoke a cigarette in peace or, frankly, escape to freedom. It's cute until the credits role and you realize that they'll probably die there.
Kenton's sympathies, in spite of the fate he decrees for Larry, Jean, and Dan, lie with the criminals, who are loyal to one another through a brief stint in jail and don't beat around the bush as to what they're after: money and a date for Friday nights. They're sleazy but not cruel. The same can't be said for Don and Barbara, who seem like good sorts, but like everyone who, in the immortal words of Kenny Powers, wants to "be the best at exercising," are complete creeps.
directed by Erle C. Kenton
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
From the director of one of my very favorite horror films comes this health oddity and cheesecake introduction to fascism. Three criminals team up to bring a fitness magazine back into production, then hire two Olympic champions to front as honest editors. Tensions flare when the Olympians discover that the criminals are making use of their good names to publish racy stories and scandalous photographs of models in skimpy clothing.
Ostensibly, we root for bland Barbara and Don to give the ex-cons their comeuppance, but it's clear that the "healthy living" the Olympians preach amounts to a quest to open their own exercise summit on a private estate in the countryside. The ex-cons, in a bid to party with the pretty boys and girls that Don and Barbara bring in as counselors, wind up prisoners at a boot camp, unable to smoke a cigarette in peace or, frankly, escape to freedom. It's cute until the credits role and you realize that they'll probably die there.
Kenton's sympathies, in spite of the fate he decrees for Larry, Jean, and Dan, lie with the criminals, who are loyal to one another through a brief stint in jail and don't beat around the bush as to what they're after: money and a date for Friday nights. They're sleazy but not cruel. The same can't be said for Don and Barbara, who seem like good sorts, but like everyone who, in the immortal words of Kenny Powers, wants to "be the best at exercising," are complete creeps.
posted by NPK at 8:51 AM
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