edwagreen
Ridiculous comedy where Connie Francis showed that it was a good thing that she had such a marvelous voice. Other than that, she could forget it.The story is absolutely inane. Is Francis a singer or inventor? They really should have made up their mind. She belts out her tunes in her usual way, and perhaps the film would have been better if she sang her greatest Yiddish favorites.The best part of the picture were the guests she encountered when being on their shows. Danny Thomas was wonderful there and Jesse White is his usual bossy self as her agent.Jim Hutton came across loud as the guy Francis thought she loved. Nice to have seen Jay C. Flippen and Charles Lane as their careers were winding down.The usually sensuous Barbara Nicholls shed that ridiculous voice of hers and came off as a pretty nasty creature.
arsportsltd
There were two popular "Connie's" in the 1960's: Warner Bros. had Connie Stevens and would showcase the lovely star in a series of films and across town MGM had Connie Francis and Leo the Lion showcased the songstress in a series of light, fluffy comedies that do no harm but are not so great either: Follow The Boys, When The Boys Meet The Girls and a true classic Where The Boys Are that featured Paula Prentiss, Jim Hutton, Yvette Mimieux and Dolores Hart ( who would leave showbiz to be a cloistered Catholic Nun). Looking For Love reprises the cast of Where The Boys Are- Prentiss , Mimieux, Hamilton who by the time this film was made had become major stars and co starred Connie Francis with Jim Hutton who had been on a lengthy suspension at MGM and did this film as his release valve from a ironclad MGM contract. Funny to see tall Jim Hutton in romantic clinches with the petite Ms. Francis.Note MGM had two other stars under contract George Peppard and Richard Chamberlain, both immensely famous and likely escaped being cast in this film due to their respective standings at MGMDavid Barra
scorseseisgod-1
Connie's third of her four musical comedies for Metro and the only one that doesn't have the word 'boy' in the title. By 1964, Hollywood had pretty much thrown in the towel as far as television was concerned and began openly sleeping with the enemy. Not only is the film crammed with popular personalities of the day (Johnny Carson, Danny Thomas, Jesse White, Joby Baker), and cute (overly-rehearsed) on-set mishaps, the structure, pace and composition are strictly small-screen. It's easy to understand how screenwriter Flippen (wife of Jay C.) would eventually write on such ground-healing 60's pigswill as "The Brady Bunch" and "The New Scooby Doo Movies." What's truly tragic is that these TV-safe anamorphic frames, crowding characters to the center, were lensed by Minnelli mainstay Milton Krasner.Stardom eluded Libby Caruso (Francis) for an entire month, so she decided to get out of the music business and snare a man. Aside from her voice and her Lady Valet, a glorified clothes hanger she invented, Libby's only talent is sniffing out Mr. Right. Enter Jim Hutton, a co-worker into TNT (Tall 'n' Top-Heavy) who lands Libby a spot to tout her creation on the Tonight Show. It's a flop, but her singing connects and for another hour we watch Libby slalom her way around a light powder of familiar supporting players in search of true love.The film was made to cash in on the success of earlier Francis/Hutton vehicles, most notably the enormously entertaining, guiltiest of all guilty pleasures, "Where the Boys Are." As sociologically and cinematically backwards as that film is, it plays like a sophisticated Lubitsch romp compared to this set-bound stiff. We briefly get to visit a neon drenched sixties supermarket only to be shuttered back in the studio after one establishing shot. "Where the Boys Are?" alumni George Hamilton, Yvette Mimieux and the vastly underrated Paula Prentiss appear, adding little more than name recognition to the poster.Connie Francis was a firecracker. She had the neurotic frailty of a young Judy Garland, Ethel Merman's pipes and the comedic traction of a Danny Thomas. Well, two out of three ain't bad. Pert and delightfully ditsy in the light comedy (comedy-lite?) passages and capable of showing her range even in trash like this, she could have been a contender had it not been for that tragic night in a Howard Johnson's motel room.Director Don Weis has come through in the past, but this time he's simply punching Metro's time-clock. Impress me once, good for you. Disappoint me after an imposing start and I'll probably still keep giving you the benefit of the doubt in hopes of a return to form. Who do you think brought me to junk like this?
Matt Wall
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.