BEAUTY FOR THE ASKING (1939)

This second feature romantic drama is notable more for its themes and its conclusion than for its mediocre execution. Lucille Ball works at a beauty parlor but has a plan to go into business for herself with her own revolutionary cold cream formula. She has been waiting years for her beau, Patric Knowles, a cosmetics salesman, to marry her, but as the movie opens, we see him accepting a marriage proposal from the wealthy but older Frieda Inescort. Of course, Ball is upset when Knowles breaks the news to her, but it gives her the impetus to finally get her business off the ground. With the help of ad man Donald Woods, she embarks on a clever PR campaign to get investors, and the primary one winds up being Inescort, who doesn’t know about Ball's previous relationship with her new husband. The company is a success and Ball gets rich; when Inescort tells Ball that she's afraid she’s losing her husband's affections, Ball oversees a strict regimen aimed at getting Inescort fit and lovely. This twist of the former mistress giving romantic advice to the wife seems straight out of Lubitsch's pre-Code comedy THE SMILING LIEUTENTANT. Eventually, Knowles decides he's still in love with Ball, but he balks when, to assuage her guilt, Ball offers to give all of his and her profits to Inescort. The rather surprising (for the 30's) ending has Knowles rejected by both Ball and Inescort, who become good friends and remain successful business partners.

The rather fuzzy portrayal of Knowles (he never seems fully sympathetic, but never completely unsympathetic either) seemed like a writing or acting flaw until the ending when I realized it was planned that way. (BTW, he winds up marrying a minor character named Eve Harrington!!) Ball is bland, though she looks ravishing in an early scene where she does a glamour pose for Woods--she looks a bit like a plainer, unfinished Jean Harlow. Olivia de Havilland or Myrna Loy would have been much better choices for the role. The feminist theme of women working together is interesting--supposedly the story is based on the life of beauty magnate Helena Rubenstein--as is the seed of an idea about the importance of PR in the success of a product; it's basically admitted that Ball's cream is a hit because of marketing (a fabulous container) and pricing (at one point, Ball says she doesn’t mind overcharging women for it, because otherwise it wouldn't sell). The re-igniting of sparks between Knowles and Ball is abrupt and unmotivated, a fault of the script. The direction is lackluster and the movie is too short to properly develop its ideas. It was still worth watching, if only for its modern ending. [TCM]