Looking for Love (1964)

User Rating:

5.6/10   

Director:

Don Weis

Writer:

Ruth Brooks Flippen (writer)

Release Date:

27 November 1964 (Finland)

Genre:

Musical

Plot:

Libby has spent a whole month trying to get into show business with her singing, and has not made it...

Plot Keywords:

Beautiful Woman

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Connie Francis	...	Libby Caruso
Jim Hutton	...	Paul Davis
Susan Oliver	...	Jan McNair
Joby Baker	...	Cuz Rickover
Barbara Nichols	...	Gaye Swinger
Johnny Carson	...	Johnny Carson
George Hamilton	...	George Hamilton
Yvette Mimieux	...	Yvette Mimieux
Paula Prentiss	...	Paula Prentiss
Danny Thomas	...	Himself
Charles Lane	...	Screen Test Director
Joan Marshall	...	Miss Devine
Jesse White	...	Tiger Shay
Jay C. Flippen	...	Mr. Ralph Front

Runtime:

85 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Finland:S | Sweden:Btl

Company:

Euterpe

Trivia:

Of Joe Pasternak's 57 MGM productions released between 1942 and 1966, this movie was only the second which did not receive a contemporary New York Times review. The previous film was The Strip (1951).

Movie Connections:

References "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" (1962)

Soundtrack:

Let's Have a Party

Rags to Riches to the Ring

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.