Miss Universe 1929

Starz Denver Film Festival Review:

Miss Universe 1929 is the story of Lisl Goldarbeiter, the Austrian Beauty Queen who won the title of Miss Universe in 1929. Told using archival footage from her husband Marci Tenczer, the story follows Goldarbeiter from her childhood through her eighties as she becomes a beauty queen, lives through World War I and II, and refuses to leave her beloved city of Vienna.

The story begins and ends with Tenczer telling filmmaker Peter Forgacs how much he loved Goldarbeiter and how he thought she was the most beautiful woman to ever walk the earth. While the story of Tenczer’s love for Golddarbeiter is romantic, the film fails to go into any real detail about the more interesting parts of Goldarbeiter’s life. This is a woman who lived through two World Wars and survived a concentration camp, yet those details are barely mentioned.

Playing like a well-made home movie, the film seems like it was made for people who already know her life story, so it offers little to viewers who might not be familiar with the details of her adventures. It seems like a story like Goldarbeiter’s deserves to be told in full