You have to admit that Connie Francis is a trooper. She gives energy to her role, no matter how ridiculous the sets, music, talent, dancing, etc., that they surround her with."Looking for Love" is another of those young-woman-frantic-to-find-love stories. It is certainly not one of the best. The script is sophomoric. Only a cast of towering talent could save it, so Francis was lucky she shares the screen with luminaries like Jesse White and Jim Hutton. Then they added Johnny Carson, George Hamilton, Danny Thomas and others, playing themselves--so many that this might be the first reality show.This film is a reminder of the tacky decorating sensibilities of the early sixties, but it can be fun to revisit the silly styles, just like the dance "the twist".To be fair, some of the music is good. But the story is the huge, uninteresting elephant in the room. No one could really care what happens to the characters. Watch it as a period piece to enjoy the kitsch and the corniness of its time.

After a great opening credits sequence, our story begins. Attractive telephone operator Connie Francis (as Libby Caruso) wants to make it big in show business, get married and have babies. With her figure and singing voice, this shouldn't take too long. To prevent clothing from wrinkling overnight, Ms. Francis invents the "Lady Valet" which garners her an appearance on "The Tonight Show" starring Johnny Carson. He thinks her invention looks like a "blind date for a Martian," and invites Francis to sing. She's another Caruso, but goes unnoticed by tall Jim Hutton (as Paul Davis)..."Looking for Love" finds Francis in good voice, and improved as a comedy star. She's not paired well with Mr. Hutton, which was the story's point, but still… Best friend Susan Oliver (as Jan McNair) and bass player Joby Baker (as Cuz Rickover) round out a romantic quartet. The title track reached #34 on the "Cash Box" pop chart and the soundtrack LP sold moderately during The Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night" onslaught. MGM and Francis continued the formula for one more film, with decreasing returns. They really should have been producing a TV variety series, with singing and skits.**** Looking for Love (8/5/64) Don Weis ~ Connie Francis, Jim Hutton, Susan Oliver, Joby Baker

Connie's third of her four musical comedies for Metro and the only one that doesn't have the word 'boy' in the title. By 1964, Hollywood had pretty much thrown in the towel as far as television was concerned and began openly sleeping with the enemy. Not only is the film crammed with popular personalities of the day (Johnny Carson, Danny Thomas, Jesse White, Joby Baker), and cute (overly-rehearsed) on-set mishaps, the structure, pace and composition are strictly small-screen. It's easy to understand how screenwriter Flippen (wife of Jay C.) would eventually write on such ground-healing 60's pigswill as "The Brady Bunch" and "The New Scooby Doo Movies." What's truly tragic is that these TV-safe anamorphic frames, crowding characters to the center, were lensed by Minnelli mainstay Milton Krasner.Stardom eluded Libby Caruso (Francis) for an entire month, so she decided to get out of the music business and snare a man. Aside from her voice and her Lady Valet, a glorified clothes hanger she invented, Libby's only talent is sniffing out Mr. Right. Enter Jim Hutton, a co-worker into TNT (Tall 'n' Top-Heavy) who lands Libby a spot to tout her creation on the Tonight Show. It's a flop, but her singing connects and for another hour we watch Libby slalom her way around a light powder of familiar supporting players in search of true love.The film was made to cash in on the success of earlier Francis/Hutton vehicles, most notably the enormously entertaining, guiltiest of all guilty pleasures, "Where the Boys Are." As sociologically and cinematically backwards as that film is, it plays like a sophisticated Lubitsch romp compared to this set-bound stiff. We briefly get to visit a neon drenched sixties supermarket only to be shuttered back in the studio after one establishing shot. "Where the Boys Are?" alumni George Hamilton, Yvette Mimieux and the vastly underrated Paula Prentiss appear, adding little more than name recognition to the poster.Connie Francis was a firecracker. She had the neurotic frailty of a young Judy Garland, Ethel Merman's pipes and the comedic traction of a Danny Thomas. Well, two out of three ain't bad. Pert and delightfully ditsy in the light comedy (comedy-lite?) passages and capable of showing her range even in trash like this, she could have been a contender had it not been for that tragic night in a Howard Johnson's motel room.Director Don Weis has come through in the past, but this time he's simply punching Metro's time-clock. Impress me once, good for you. Disappoint me after an imposing start and I'll probably still keep giving you the benefit of the doubt in hopes of a return to form. Who do you think brought me to junk like this?

Another movie that seems like play like an Elvis movie, sans Elvis, this time featuring the effervescent Connie Francis. Oddly enough, despite the dumb script and sort of weird presentation of the star as a second banana, one gets a vague hint than in an alternate universe Connie Francis could've been a dramatic actress. She manages to project desperation in a few scenes in a sort of scary way.This movie is also a curiosity for the fake late show TV appearances -- Johnny Carson and Danny Thomas -- in the era when Jay Leno appears in every third movie that comes out, hard to remember the beginnings of crossover promotion.The plot is a typical romantic cross, and it didn't shock me too much to find the screenwriter, Ruth Brooks Flippen, was a writer on both the Gidget movies and the TV show, (as well as a few other notables, e.g. Bewitched) sequeing later to the Odd Couple. It made me want to learn a bit more about her.If you already like Connie Francis, this will be a delight, and if you're interested in the mating habits of your parents (at least superficially), there are worse ways of spending an hour and a half.