Fun movie that starts to run out of steam towards the end. Robert Armstrong revives his showman type persona used in “King Kong” and Ida Lupino still has her native British accent along with her blonde hair in a movie about con men running a health magazine. The movie also features 30 International Winners of the search for beauty contest as health resort instructors.
Larry Williams (Robert Armstrong) and Jean Strange are released after two years in prison for selling fake oil stock. Their partner Dan Healy (James Gleason) managed to be out of town when they were convicted. Larry gets a great idea.
The trio head for the Olympics in L.A. and nab British diving champ Barbara Hilton (Ida Lupino) and American swimming champ Don Jackson (Buster Crabbe) into joining their Health & Exercise magazine. The original publisher is deceased. Don isn’t happy about the stunts the trio pull that includes using sex to push the magazine under the guise of exercise. They sell ads to quacks and take composite pictures of women to make one ideal female.
They come up with an idea for a worldwide contest to find the healthiest people. To get Don out of the way they send him on a tour to bring the winners back. Barbara calls him back when she finds out they’re putting hot, sex drenched love stories in the magazine. Circulation goes way up.
In another effort to get Don out of their hair they set him up at Health Acres. It’s a run down weed infested country hotel once owned by the magazines’ original publisher. Don and Barbara work on fixing the place up as a resort. They’ll use the contest winners as instructors for guests who are there to lose weight and get fit.
Jean comes out and pretends she wants nothing to do with Larry and Dan and Don gives her three percent interest in the place since she’s a big help in getting it together. Time for the big opening. Larry and Dan show some sexy pictures of the women to some men and Jean does the same thing with male pictures to some women. They pay three hundred bucks a week to stay there. Don has drawn up a list of rules the guests must follow. They include getting up at 6:30am to start a day of exercise.
After a mini beauty pageant by the instructors they’re invited to some parties. Barbara’s cousin Sally is the magazine’s secretary and she’s convinced to go to a party by a man who says he’s a big time Broadway producer. He wants to see her dance and she strips down and gets on a table and shows what she’s got.
Barbara gets her out of there and performs a table top dance of her own but keeps her clothes on. Don finds out about the party and it’s time to put the rules into effect.
It goes along to the kind of ending you’d expect. Overall it’s a bit of light hearted fun.
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