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.

Not nearly as racy as many pre-codes this is an innocuous trifle starring a virtually unrecognizable Ida Lupino. New to Hollywood they were trying to make her over into an English Jean Harlow fortunately it didn't work and the ultra blonde thin eyebrowed look she is saddled with here disappeared within a short period. Still buried beneath all the gunk she gives a nicely flinty performance foreshadowing the tough broad persona to come. The same can not be said for Buster Crabbe, an extremely fit and handsome man but an actor of little ability. James Gleason is the only other actor to offer up any kind of distinctive work, he's not remarkable but does his standard hot tempered wiseguy part well. Ann Sheridan makes her screen debut here, unbilled and without lines, as the Texas winner of the Search for Beauty contest but unless you knew it was her the two tiny bits she is in sail right by. The story is paper thin and aside from a few references to drugs and a couple of bare male bottoms in a locker room scene nothing you wouldn't see after the code went into place. The big production number, to Sousa music yet, is a clunky mess designed solely to show off the fine physical attributes of the winners. As such it works but it is eye rollingly awful in every other way.

Well, what can I say other than YIPPEE! Slipped through just before the may 1934 deadline of the Hayes Code this is almost the superlative risqué extravaganza for sex and nudity in a 1930s movie. One astonishing scene in a mens locker room even has full male nudity! Unheard of outside Nazi beauty films of the later era and certainly an eye-full of sassy rudeness both in picture and dialog. Other posts here will tell you the story but since this film features two of the most beautiful actors ever on screen BUSTER CRABBE and IDA LUPINO (in blonde 'do) and then peppers the screen with gorgeous women and men parading and exercising and grabbing each other...! THE SEARCH FOR BEAUTY is everything you might hope for in a pre-code sex comedy and wow does it deliver! Hilarious rude and deliciously nude rude and funny. And cheer breathtaking Toby Wing dancing on a table in a negligee!

This film must rank among the most overrated films on IMDb with an amazingly inflated score of 7.6 as of this date. To top it off, I even noticed some reviews that gave this film a 10!! So, if these folks are to be trusted, it would seem to say that this film is on par with CASABLANCA, THE GODFATHER and GONE WITH THE WIND!!! It is not, I repeat, is NOT a good movie. No matter the hype, this is a very poor B-film. The only reason anyone might want to watch it is to marvel at the Pre-Code sensibilities--including a lot of sexual innuendo and a scene in the men's locker room where bare butts abound! Even for a Pre-Code film, SEARCH FOR BEAUTY is a shocker.As for the rest of the film, it's really quite terrible. Part of the problem is that young Buster Crabbe is fresh from the Olympics and really isn't much of an actor yet. The same can be said for a barely recognizable Ida Lupino. I say barely recognizable because she later had one of the biggest makeovers in Hollywood history--and if you didn't know better, you'd swear that it wasn't Ida! Unfortunately, she, too, can't act yet. Given more experience and time, she would become a heck of a talented lady, but here she is pretty flat.The rest of the problem with the film is that the plot, while appearing very sleazy and sexually charged, is amazingly dull and impossible to believe. Now following the naked butts which abounded at the beginning of the film, you'd think that the rest of the film would be that adult. However, the plot involving a con man (Robert Armstrong) who wants to publish a skin magazine SOUNDS pretty hot, but he photos and sin-sational articles are so tame by modern standards that you really can't get particularly excited or interested in the film. The most salacious thing about the last 3/4 of the film are that some of the costumes worn by the athletes late in the film are rather transparent--surprisingly so. So I guess pervs could watch just the beginning (at the Olypmics) and the end (when the health resort is opened) and skip the rest!!Overall, despite some cheap thrills in a film that, believe it or not, claims to be anti-pornography in its message, it is just not all that interesting or believable. In fact, after a while it's a real chore to keep watching it.