Film

Lovely to Look At

Name: Lovely to Look At
Genre: Comedy, Music, Romance
Released: 1952
Cast: Kathryn Grayson, Red Skelton, Howard Keel, Marge Champion, Gower Champion

Comedy
Light-hearted

A 1952 Technicolor musical about three broke Broadway producers who inherit a Parisian fashion salon and attempt to save it by staging an extravagant show. It's a breezy, gorgeously shot vehicle for song-and-dance numbers, built on the reliable formula of putting on a show to solve everyone's problems. Perfect for anyone craving pure, uncomplicated entertainment and stunning costumes.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love old-Hollywood musicals built on lavish costume numbers, brisk slapstick and romance that is more fizz than heartache, the kind of gloss MGM poured into its Technicolor fashion fantasies.

Skip it if you find the comedy broad and the plot a loose clothesline for the songs, or you tire of dance numbers that stop the story cold so the stars can show off their footwork.

What it asks of you: Settle in for just over an hour and forty minutes of bright, mostly light entertainment, with music and dance arriving often and the pace kept buoyant rather than contemplative.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Singin' in the Rain1952

The gold standard of Hollywood musicals: three charismatic leads, songs you'll hum for weeks, and dance sequences so inventive they feel like discovering a new art form. Pure joy.

But If you're after plot or character development, you'll be disappointed. It's spectacle first, story a distant second.

An American in Paris1951

Gene Kelly in Paris, lavish production design, a Gershwin score, and that legendary extended dance finale. It captures the same postwar euphoria and European glamour as Lovely to Look At.

But The romance plot is thin, and the film drags in places. The spectacle doesn't sustain it for all 115 minutes.

Easter Parade1948

Fred Astaire and Judy Garland in a jewel-box musical about a washed-up dancer and a chorus girl. Charming, intimate by comparison to bigger productions, with Irving Berlin's best songs.

But It's decidedly small-scale, which is partly the point. After the grandeur of Lovely to Look At, it might feel slight.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Lovely to Look At

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Funny Face1957

Both use haute couture and European glamour as visual anchor; both are essentially 80+ minutes of organized fantasy, but Funny Face has sharper writing and better chemistry between leads.

Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn in a Gershwin-scored love letter to Paris and fashion photography. It has the same glamorous European setting and fashion obsession as Lovely to Look At, but with wit, sophistication, and one of cinema's greatest dancers opposite one of its greatest actresses.

But It's dramatically slight and the May-December romance reads uncomfortably by modern standards. The plot exists mainly to hang beautiful images on.

The Band Wagon1953

Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Oscar Levant, and one of the sharpest Hollywood musicals ever made. The dancing is transcendent and the script is clever without being pretentious.

But It's more about the show-within-the-show meta-narrative than straightforward romance. Needs engagement rather than passive watching.

Royal Wedding1951

Fred Astaire and Jane Powell in a frothy, beautifully designed musical with some of Astaire's most playful dancing, including that famous gravity-defying number in a ship's cabin.

But The plot is gossamer-thin, and Powell's singing can feel thin too. It coasts entirely on charm and Astaire's wizardry.

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers1954

A musical with actual narrative momentum: the famous barn-raising dance sequence is justly legendary, and the score is infectiously cheerful. Much better constructed than most of its era.

But The gender politics will make modern viewers squirm. It's a product of its time in ways that feel actively uncomfortable.

Kiss Me Kate1953

Kathryn Grayson (who you'll know from Lovely to Look At) and Howard Keel headline this Cole Porter adaptation. It's witty, the dancing is stellar, and the backstage chaos is genuinely fun.

But The Shakespearean framing device is awkward, and some of the comedic bits haven't aged well. It's uneven in tone.

Torch Song1953

Joan Crawford in a rare musical outing as a demanding stage star who falls for her blind accompanist. It's melodrama dressed up in sequins and jazz, and it completely commits to the bit.

But It's overwrought and the tone lurches between camp and tragedy. If you want subtlety, look elsewhere.

The Pirate1948

Gene Kelly and Judy Garland in a delirious, visually inventive Cole Porter musical. It's playful, the choreography is imaginative, and it doesn't take itself seriously for a second.

But Some find it too odd and too much. It's genuinely strange in places, which won't appeal if you want traditional romance.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes1953

Both are built on fantasy (show business will save everything; love and diamonds solve all problems), but Gentlemen Prefer Blondes winks at its own artifice while Lovely to Look At believes in it completely.

Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell in a brash, deliberately superficial musical comedy that knows exactly what it is. The songs are sardonic, the costumes dazzle, and the humor is faster and sharper than most musicals of the era.

But It's cynical where Lovely to Look At is earnest. If you want sincerity and sentiment, this will feel cheap and mercenary by comparison.

Lili1953

Both traffic in dreams and wish-fulfillment, but Lili achieves it through genuine melancholy and magic rather than glamour and spectacle. A musical about longing, not just pleasure.

Leslie Caron as a naive girl who falls in with a traveling circus and carousel. It's a slim, poetic film with the musical numbers performed by puppets—dreamlike rather than spectacular. Achingly romantic in a way most 1950s musicals miss.

But It's quiet, slow, and relies on your willingness to go along with its strange conceit of sung sequences performed by marionettes. Not what you expect from a musical.