Release calendarTop 250 moviesMost popular moviesBrowse movies by genreTop box officeShowtimes & ticketsMovie newsIndia movie spotlight
    What's on TV & streamingTop 250 TV showsMost popular TV showsBrowse TV shows by genreTV news
    What to watchLatest trailersIMDb OriginalsIMDb PicksIMDb SpotlightFamily entertainment guideIMDb Podcasts
    OscarsEmmysToronto Int'l Film FestivalIMDb TIFF Portrait StudioHispanic Heritage MonthSTARmeter AwardsAwards CentralFestival CentralAll events
    Born todayMost popular celebsCelebrity news
    Help centerContributor zonePolls
For industry professionals
  • Language
  • Fully supported
  • English (United States)
    Partially supported
  • Français (Canada)
  • Français (France)
  • Deutsch (Deutschland)
  • हिंदी (भारत)
  • Italiano (Italia)
  • Português (Brasil)
  • Español (España)
  • Español (México)
Watchlist
Sign in
  • Fully supported
  • English (United States)
    Partially supported
  • Français (Canada)
  • Français (France)
  • Deutsch (Deutschland)
  • हिंदी (भारत)
  • Italiano (Italia)
  • Português (Brasil)
  • Español (España)
  • Español (México)
Use app
  • Cast & crew
  • User reviews
  • Trivia
  • FAQ
IMDbPro

Search for Beauty

  • 1934
  • Approved
  • 1h 18m
IMDb RATING
6.0/10
802
YOUR RATING
Buster Crabbe and Ida Lupino in Search for Beauty (1934)
ComedyCrimeRomance

Three con artists dupe two Olympians into serving as editors of a new health and beauty magazine which is only a front for salacious stories and pictures.Three con artists dupe two Olympians into serving as editors of a new health and beauty magazine which is only a front for salacious stories and pictures.Three con artists dupe two Olympians into serving as editors of a new health and beauty magazine which is only a front for salacious stories and pictures.

  • Director
    • Erle C. Kenton
  • Writers
    • David Boehm
    • Maurine Dallas Watkins
    • Frank Butler
  • Stars
    • Buster Crabbe
    • Ida Lupino
    • Robert Armstrong
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.0/10
    802
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Erle C. Kenton
    • Writers
      • David Boehm
      • Maurine Dallas Watkins
      • Frank Butler
    • Stars
      • Buster Crabbe
      • Ida Lupino
      • Robert Armstrong
    • 25User reviews
    • 21Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Photos21

    View Poster
    View Poster
    View Poster
    View Poster
    View Poster
    View Poster
    View Poster
    + 14
    View Poster

    Top cast65

    Edit
    Buster Crabbe
    Buster Crabbe
    • Don Jackson
    • (as Larry 'Buster' Crabbe)
    Ida Lupino
    Ida Lupino
    • Barbara Hilton
    Robert Armstrong
    Robert Armstrong
    • Larry Williams
    James Gleason
    James Gleason
    • Dan Healy
    Toby Wing
    Toby Wing
    • Sally Palmer
    Gertrude Michael
    Gertrude Michael
    • Jean Strange
    Bradley Page
    Bradley Page
    • Joe Garrett
    Frank McGlynn Sr.
    Frank McGlynn Sr.
    • Rev. Rankin
    Nora Cecil
    Nora Cecil
    • Miss Pettigrew
    Virginia Hammond
    Virginia Hammond
    • Mrs. Archibald Henderson-James
    Eddie Gribbon
    Eddie Gribbon
    • Adolph Knockler
    James B. 'Pop' Kenton
    • Caretaker
    • (as 'Pop' Kenton)
    Roscoe Karns
    Roscoe Karns
    • Newspaper Reporter
    • (scenes deleted)
    Monya Andre
    • Second Author
    • (uncredited)
    Stella Bailey
    • New York Beauty Winner
    • (uncredited)
    William Bailey
    William Bailey
    • Cement Foreman
    • (uncredited)
    Malcolm Ball
    • Georgia Talent Contestant
    • (uncredited)
    Lynn Bari
    Lynn Bari
    • Beauty Contestant Entrant
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Erle C. Kenton
    • Writers
      • David Boehm
      • Maurine Dallas Watkins
      • Frank Butler
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews25

    6.0802
    1
    2
    3
    4
    5
    6
    7
    8
    9
    10

    Featured reviews

    8Darroch

    A real treat from pre-Code days

    I have to weigh in on this deliciously fun, kitschy movie. Perhaps one needs a historical perspective to appreciate the fun and absurdity of this very game film. The detracting comments have missed the boat. The appreciative comments have laid out the story and gimmicks well. I'd like to add that the big production number, which looks like the concoction of marching band instructor from a military background who saw a Busby Berkeley movie while stoned, has to be seen to be believed. And, yes, the nudity and sexual innuendo seems risqué enough for the time to be very entertaining. Though short on talent, Buster Crabbe is fun to watch, as is a young Ida Lupino who certainly made good from this unpromising start. For me, James Gleason is the treat. Though not nearly as sharp as later performances -- particularly his great drunk scene in MEET JOHN DOE -- it's interesting to see a pro finding his sea-legs on film in 1934. A diamond in the rough!
    7gbill-74877

    Entertaining pre-Code fare

    This is not a particularly good film, but it's pretty entertaining, and I mean that in a bonkers kind of way, even by pre-Code standards. The premise is that a man fresh out of prison for his last scheme hatches a plan to run a fitness magazine ostensibly to promote health, but in reality to make money off of photos of beautiful young men and women, with some salacious stories mixed in. He and his female partner convince a publisher to front the money after they show him they've landed a couple of Olympians to work on the magazine, with the publisher's interest being further aroused by a blonde cousin who's along for the ride. The rub is that the Olympians are squeaky clean and truly want to promote exercise, and this central conflict proceeds from magazine to a 'fitness farm' that they begin to run.

    Part of the fun of the film is the casting, as a young Ida Lupino plays one of the Olympians, and it's notable that she only turned 16 two days after it was released. Late in the film to protect her cousin (Toby Wing) from a lecherous crowd, she gets up on top of a table and shimmies around in her silky pajamas, which on its own is worth the price of admission. Buster Crabbe, fresh off his gold medal in the 1932 games, plays the other Olympian, and there are a large number of real-life beauty contest winners from various American states and the British Empire, including Ann Sheridan in her first screen appearance. The three people out for money over decency are played by Robert Armstrong, Gertrude Michael, and James Gleason, and the banter between them has good pep to it.

    One of the most notable things about the raciness in the film is that the objectification is equal opportunity, and in fact there is probably more ogling of the male body here than the other way around. There are bare butt cheeks in a shower scene, and a woman training her binoculars on a swimmer's crotch and purring "ooh baby, you can come to mama!" There are countless scenes with muscular young men wearing nothing but shorts, and exchanges like this one from a group of women looking at photos of them:

    "We're using those boys in an idea we're working on - outdoor sports with indoor trimmings." "As far as I'm concerned, outdoors, indoors, or behind doors." "Think your customers might give him a tumble?" "Tumble? If they were like me, they'd give him a double somersault." "Give me a look. Might turn a couple of handsprings myself." (studying pictures) "Mmm, haven't seen anything like that since...well, just call it since."

    Somewhat out of left field, the film also includes an ensemble dance number with men and women in bathing suits prancing and jiggling about for five and half minutes near the end. The choreography is not up to the gold standard that is Busby Berkeley, but it's not bad, and definitely had me smiling. What a nutball of a movie this is, I was thinking while hoping no one would notice me watching this scene.

    It's also interesting how the film kind of thumbs its nose at the morality police, those who would begin enforcing the Production Code in the middle of 1934, five months after this was released. For one thing, there's the cynical exchange between the women talking about the magazine story "I Loved an Artist," where one says that unhappy endings that serve as morality lessons are "baloney," and that in real life women probably get ahead in life for their dalliances. The protagonists in this story are Crabbe and Lupino's characters to be sure, but it's interesting that the fitness farm they run gets a bit fascist in how they crack down on partying and force guests to abide by their rigorous schedule. The ending, with the tight shot on the old publisher's butt as he's forced to touch his toes and the words "The End" scrolling onto the screen, one word per cheek, had me chuckling too. While low-brow, I liked the silliness and audacity in the face of the looming end to the pre-Code era.
    6evanston_dad

    Nudie Revue

    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
    7ptb-8

    I found it!

    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!
    8goblinhairedguy

    Jaw-dropping, good-natured pre-code antics

    You really have to see this one to believe it! Not many movies flaunt their pre-code liberty so blatantly and lightheartedly (not unlike the Busby Berkeley extravaganza "Gold Diggers of 1933"). At the same time, it's very successful in its own right as a fast-paced comedy satirizing health-product hucksters and wealthy debauchees.

    Inspired by the L.A. Olympics, a trio of con artists lure some prize-winning athletes into endorsing their newly-acquired fitness magazine. They stage an international publicity stunt to find the healthiest young bodies in the English-speaking world. While the athletes are out scouting for specimens, the three rogues turn the magazine into a lurid cheesecake rag (their lascivious board of censors is a hoot). This spins off into a health farm, which they try to turn into a high-priced knocking shop for Hollywood swells out to exploit eager young talent.

    As the con artists, Robert Armstrong and James Gleason have plenty of fancy, word-mangling patter. And Gertrude Michael holds her own, needling them mercilessly, as well as slinkily seducing all-American hero Buster Crabbe. Crabbe practically plays himself, while an unrecognizable bleached-blonde Ida Lupino is his pert female British counterpart.

    Not only are the dialog and situations pretty risqué, but there are plenty of suggestive visuals. Michaels enthusiastically ogles Crabbe's crotch through binoculars; there's a shower scene with bare-assed young men flitting about, and a production number which has the busty and muscled contest winners bouncing around in tight outfits, simulating Olympic events (male and female flesh are flaunted equally in this film). Berkeley favourite Toby Wing has a plumb role as Lupino's fun-loving underage cousin, who almost suffers a fate worse than death at the climactic wild party (not that the filmmakers seem to be too worried about it!). Lupino has to save her by taking her place in a grinding table-dance. Skinny Gleason, in jogging shorts, provides a very low-comedy fade-out gag.

    Modern viewers will guffaw at the naive concept that health-conscious athletes would rather stop an orgy than join in. And like most 1930s Paramount films, the set direction is marvellous (just check out Armstrong's dowdy office!).

    Even if you can only find a jittery video transfer, it's well worth checking this one out. More Paramount Olympic satire can be found in "Million Dollar Legs" (1932 version), and the magazine-exploitation angle was revived for the Don Knotts extravaganza "The Love God?".

    More like this

    Hot Saturday
    6.5
    Hot Saturday
    Torch Singer
    6.6
    Torch Singer
    Murder at the Vanities
    6.5
    Murder at the Vanities
    The Story of Temple Drake
    7.1
    The Story of Temple Drake
    Merrily We Go to Hell
    6.9
    Merrily We Go to Hell
    The Song of Songs
    6.8
    The Song of Songs
    Employees' Entrance
    7.2
    Employees' Entrance
    Broken Lullaby
    7.5
    Broken Lullaby
    Moontide
    6.8
    Moontide
    Red-Headed Woman
    7.0
    Red-Headed Woman
    The Bitter Tea of General Yen
    6.9
    The Bitter Tea of General Yen
    Story of G.I. Joe
    7.2
    Story of G.I. Joe

    Related interests

    Will Ferrell in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
    Comedy
    James Gandolfini, Edie Falco, Sharon Angela, Max Casella, Dan Grimaldi, Joe Perrino, Donna Pescow, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Tony Sirico, and Michael Drayer in The Sopranos (1999)
    Crime
    Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca (1942)
    Romance

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Buster Crabbe plays an Olympic swimmer in the film. Before entering acting, Crabbe was a two-time Olympian, a bronze medalist in 1928 and a gold medal winner in 1932.
    • Quotes

      Dan Healy: [to Larry] You couldn't sell fresh fish to a starving seal.

    • Crazy credits
      With the 30 winners in the International Beauty Contest

      chosen from England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and the United States.
    • Connections
      Referenced in Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood (2008)
    • Soundtracks
      I'm a Seeker of Beauty
      (uncredited)

      Music by Arthur Johnston

      Lyrics by Sam Coslow

    Top picks

    Sign in to rate and Watchlist for personalized recommendations
    Sign in

    FAQ15

    • How long is Search for Beauty?Powered by Alexa

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • February 2, 1934 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Campeões Olímpicos
    • Filming locations
      • Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA(Studio)
    • Production company
      • Paramount Pictures
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h 18m(78 min)
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.37 : 1

    Contribute to this page

    Suggest an edit or add missing content
    • Learn more about contributing
    Edit page

    More to explore

    Recently viewed

    Please enable browser cookies to use this feature. Learn more.
    Get the IMDb App
    Sign in for more accessSign in for more access
    Follow IMDb on social
    Get the IMDb App
    For Android and iOS
    Get the IMDb App
    • Help
    • Site Index
    • IMDbPro
    • Box Office Mojo
    • License IMDb Data
    • Press Room
    • Advertising
    • Jobs
    • Conditions of Use
    • Privacy Policy
    • Your Ads Privacy Choices
    IMDb, an Amazon company

    © 1990-2025 by IMDb.com, Inc.