Lovely to Look At (1952)

(On Cable TV, August 2021) Now that I’ve seen most of MGM’s biggest musicals of the 1950s, I’m left to track down the rest of them, and Lovely to Look At certainly isn’t one of their best. You can tell a lot about a film’s status by how it looks when it’s shown on standard-bearer TCM, and in this case you’ll have to struggle through a 1.37:1 TV-like aspect ratio (apparently the original shooting ratio) and a terrible blurry image quality that suggests that the film hasn’t been on anyone’s recent restoration schedule. Still, even a second-rate musical from the best years of the genre does have its qualities. It opens on a rather good musical number, “I’ll Be Hard to Handle” that features a splendid later-day appearance from Ann Miller in a leggy purple outfit. The cast includes not only Kathryn Grayson (almost as beautiful as Miller), but Red Skelton doing his usual comic mugging for the camera, and a feature film debut for Zsa Zsa Gabor (as “Zsa Zsa”). Vincent Minelli reportedly directed the fashion show toward the end of the film, although then-veteran Mervyn Leroy is the credited director. The premise and music are taken from the early Fred Astaire vehicle Roberta, but the details are very different from the start. Alas, this doesn’t necessarily lead to anywhere very interesting — sure, the romance and the comedy work, but little of it sparks in the way other MGM musicals of the time did. It’s still not bad (the craftsmanship, comic acting and overall tone are enjoyable no matter what), but Lovely to Look At is one of those films that’s best approached by those who have already seen better examples of the form and can appreciate the details even when the whole is lacking.