Review of The Great American Beauty Contest

50 single girls show up in Los Angeles for the annual Miss American Beauty contest, overseen by a former winner (the implacable Eleanor Parker) and her version of a Bob Barker (Bob Cummings), both desperate to keep the proceedings honest. Spelling-Goldberg TV-movie for ABC portends to have some modern relevance amongst the standard fluff: Miss Oklahoma is really a feminist--planning to use her acceptance speech to shame the archaic institution of beauty pageants--while Miss New Jersey is "a Negro" with a race-chip on her shoulder. Unfortunately, the teleplay is more soap opera than incisive document, and the finale appears to be making a quasi-point when really it's just a cop-out. Farrah Fawcett is a giggly, high-spirited Miss Texas, Louis Jourdan is appropriately shady as a movie producer and substitute judge, but it's Brett Somers who gives the film's best performance as Farrah's seen-it-all chaperone. Not much style, wit or humor, just a run-of-the-mill movie of the week.