Admission: $2.50
Timid department store window-dresser Robert Walker kisses a statue of Venus, who comes to life in the form of Ava Gardner and sets after him in hot pursuit. Based on a musical by S. J. Perelman, Ogden Nash and Kurt Weill, the film's screenplay was co-written by Frank Tashlin, who went on to write and direct some of Hollywood's most scathing slapsticks of the 1950s. UCLA film archivist Charles Hopkins writes, "Ava Gardner was an up-and-coming young star under contract to MGM when she was borrowed to assume Mary Martin's Broadway role.... The producers decided to emphasize comedy over music in their film version of One Touch of Venus, in the end retaining only three of the show's 16 songs: 'It's Him,' 'Don't Look Now,' and the lovely, hypnotic 'Speak Low.'"