An MGM musical classic, initially overlooked but reclaimed in later years on the strength of its cinematic daring, 1952’s Lovely to Look At stands as one of Hollywood’s Golden Age’s most forward-thinking pictures. Impossibly slick with all the baroque and neoclassical trappings to accent a thermonuclear color palette, this Mervyn LeRoy-directed film one-ups the power-couple vehicles of Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner by employing the talents of six very charismatic actors to help make the comet-tail of this musical marvel burn brighter.
Musical romances are a dime a dozen in Hollywood. Lovely to Look At, however, profits from its visual designs that stack color, shape, and genre-bending stylistics upon one another like the stratums of a layer cake.
Based on the 1933 Broadway play Roberta (which in turn was based on Alice Duer Miller’s novel, Gowns by Roberta), Lovely to Look At is the story of Broadway producers, Al, Tony, and Jerry (Red Skelton, Howard Keel, and Gower Champion, respectively), who decide to put on a new show. However, in the current climate of their business, they lack the necessary funds to do so.
Lucky for them that Al (Skelton) has just come into some property by way of inheritance. Said property is a Parisian fashion salon that was once owned by his aunt, Roberta. With that promising lead, Al hauls Tony (Keel) and Jerry (Champion) to France with him in hopes of selling the salon to raise the needed money.
The problem is, Al has only inherited one-half of the salon. The other half is owned by Stephanie (Kathryn Grayson) and Clarisse (Marge Champion), sisters who work in the salon. The men work hard to convince the two women to sell their half, but the salon is in debt. Meanwhile, as business deals are being formulated between these hapless five, romances begin to develop between Stephanie and Tony, and Jerry and Clarisse.
To complicate matters even more, Bubbles, Tony’s former lover finds herself in Paris and, as jealousy rears, works to drive a wedge between Tony and Stephanie. As flummoxing as their collective predicament stands, the six work out their frustrations through a few sublime song and dance numbers.
Lovely to Look At is a film that might not know where to aim – at the head or the feet – but it doesn’t suffer for its indecision. Bathed in the splendor of its rococo furnishings and vibrant atmosphere, the film offers an ordinary magic generated by the simple provocation of a song or a dance. Indeed, it makes such magic seem commonplace; as the story segues into its musical numbers so effortlessly, it would seem like the most natural thing in the world to burst into song and dance during a business deal.
Written and directed with an understatement that serves to uphold a credible story (but not overshadow it), Lovely to Look At‘s musical component weaves equally with the overall storyline about love and commerce under the grand awnings of show business. Insouciant voices, rich vibratos, and slicing sopranos are dispensed into the natural manners of speaking voices; it’s like hearing people in the next room break out into song over coffee and a discussion about last night’s televised political debate.
Such unaffected airs can be put down to the players’ smooth, silver-tipped performances. Each possesses a dependable charm to hold viewers’ attention. In Skelton’s case, his comedic abilities, highlighted in a tack-sharp standup routine performed midway through the film (playing a dumb-as-rocks comic), lift the story onto another plane for the few minutes he is in his element. Like many other moments, the scene helps curve the narrative’s form into a shape that has already absorbed so many other influences, giving it its unique design.
A particularly down-to-earth and slyly suggestive song and dance number performed by the two Champions, Gower and Marge, gives way to yet another musical number, this time one of optical magic: these two lovers dance in the artifice of a lapis-blue dancehall and floating sparks of light to make us believe that for those three minutes, they dance among the stars in heaven. It’s gorgeous stuff, and the colors bleed so richly and profusely that they spread across the frames like melted crayons.
As the shenanigans become thornier with every flirtation and business transaction, the narrative makes yet another about-turn in its final third; a strange junction of MGM spectacle and Dadaist aestheticism, Lovely to Look At fans its peacock tail into a thoroughly modern and vanguard fashion show in which the actresses parade across the screen in Chalayan-esque evening gowns. Heaping style upon substance, the film ensures a fashion-forward schema to arrest the wandering eye that roves the frames brimming with visual stimuli.
A Warner Archive Collection release, Lovely to Look At’s Blu-ray package might not get the royal treatment in terms of bells and whistles, but its transfer is absolutely resplendent in its color tones. A deeply lush and vivacious color scheme is rendered with astonishing clarity; the picture is infused with such intensity of color that the world onscreen positively glows. The images are crisp and clear, and free of any distortion.
Where the quality takes a slight dip is in the audio; the music rings sharp, but the dialogue is a touch flat and occasionally gets lost in the ambiance (though such occurrences are few and far between). The Blu-ray features two supplements: a Tom and Jerry cartoon and a Pete Smith short film from 1947 entitled Have You Ever Wondered?
Oddly overlooked for nominations of any importance (not one nod for a much-deserved Art Direction credit), Lovely to Look At may have escaped the collective attentions of moviegoers and even cinephiles, who’ve kept their copies of Singing in the Rain at close hand. However, this MGM production is a wondrous creation; as ground-breaking as it is traditionalist, and with enough daring and moxie to push beyond a few populist boundaries, it gains some real edge. Even when the narrative dynamics play to the more typical conceits of movie-making convention, the film can always rely on the defining and all-purpose ingredient of any true Hollywood musical: the vital sugar of radiant color. Nothing outside of that could be sweeter.