‘The American Adonis’: Search for Beauty (1934) and the Hollywood Olympian Body

Abstract

This chapter explores the connections between the film star body and the modern Olympian body in the early and mid-1930s. It begins with a brief introduction to how aspects of the ancient Olympic Games, and the ancient past itself, were appropriated for the aesthetics associated with the physical culture revival of the interwar period. The chapter then examines how the ideals of physical culture were deployed to promote male stars in this period through discussion of the promotion of Olympic swimmers, Buster Crabbe and Johnny Weissmuller, and particularly the problematic ideals of ‘physical perfection’ repeatedly mapped upon them. Finally, the chapter discusses how Paramount’s risqué pre-Code comedy, Search for Beauty—and particularly its central ‘Symphony of Health’ sequence—offers a complex evocation of the star body and the contemporary Olympian ideal.