Beauty for the Asking

The beautiful Lucille Ball and she was back in her salad days gets jilted by Patric Knowles in Beauty For The Asking. Our heroine is down but not out. She manages to market the tricks of the beautician trade into a cosmetic empire and she can buy and sell Knowles and Frieda Inescourt the rich woman Knowles did marry.

Lucy does well in this role which has some comic and dramatic elements. But Knowles really comes out best in this story. Knowles was never a lead, he's probably best known as Will Scarlett in the Errol Flynn Robin Hood film. But he could occasionally be a villain and he does excel here.

Donald Woods is here, always reliable as the second lead. But he's always kind of bland and he really isn't given much to work with.

Lucille Ball fans should like this.

I really enjoyed this movie. At the beginning, I thought this movie would be predictable and formulaic, but it surprised me, especially at the end and I loved the ending.

Flora was my favorite character by far. I was sympathetic toward her at the beginning and really enjoyed seeing her transformation. And it was so fun to see Frieda Inescort play a character so different from the usual ice queen roles I've seen her play.

Lucille Ball was pretty and good in her role, but nothing to write home about. Patrick Knowles was good in his role as a character who doesn't realize what a huge jerk he is.

But, Inescort shines in her role as Flora. She is what made this movie good and different.

Beautician Jean Russell (Lucille Ball) gets dumped by Denny Williams who marries wealthy Flora instead. On top of that, she loses her job. She tries to launch her face cream with the help of ad man Jeffrey Martin. They get backing from Flora who doesn't know Jean's previous relationship with Denny. Denny has since become a kept man. Jean wants him to work again and puts him in charge.

This could work if Jean is more obsessive in her love for Denny. Lucille Ball may not have the range. She needs more desperation. She needs to be pathetic in loving such a jerk. She is too self assured to play that. If she has the desperation, she could break down and get saved by Jeffrey. That's the romantic move. That's the melodrama. As it stands, it couldn't reach quite that level. Also Lucille Ball is not using her funny bone. It's nice to see her do something else but this doesn't have much juice.

I enjoyed this movie. The review of it in "The RKO Story" was not very flattering and I was expecting something fairly dire. But I was surprised when I began to view it and felt compelled to watch it through.

While it does have a conventional story line and predictable ending, the acting is believable, the script is believable and the direction moves the story along. I enjoyed the efforts of the Lucille Ball character in getting to the top, and helping her counterpart in beautifying herself. The Lucille Ball role (and Lucille herself) reminded me of Ginger Rogers for some reason. I thought she was good as a woman struggling between heart and mind. I didn't go much for the Donald Woods character however - too sappy except for at the start.

Thin production courtesy RKO Pictures has a plot-line that Lucille Ball's Lucy Ricardo would positively envy. Ball plays the inventor behind a pricey face cream for high society customers; she makes a fortune with it and draws a former flame back into her life. Relatively low-keyed comedy from the era of the screwball farce, relying on cynical jabs at the beauty business rather than sight-gags. Script was worked on at different times by five writers (Grace Norton, Adele S. Buffington, Edmund L. Hartmann, Doris Anderson, and Paul Jarrico), none of whom provides that much-needed hilarious set-piece. Some leisurely laughs along the way, mostly forgettable. Lucy-addicts will raise the rating a notch. ** from ****