Bill,
   I like your practice of looking for corpus examples.  I tend to go 
the other route, to search in my own grammar for possibilities that feel 
OK.  I think it can be comparative:.  "These apples are red, but last 
year's were redder.  Two years ago, we had the reddest apples of all." 
 Or for an example with "seems" (somewhat parallel to your "looks" 
sentence):  "The dress seemed bright red  in  the sunlight."  
    My American Heritage dictionary gives -er and -est as comparatives 
and "redness" as an adjective to noun conversion, though it also lists 
"red" as a noun.  "My favorite color is red."  "Red is a color that 
connotes passion."  (My examples.)
    I think Johanna is right on is saying that some of the combinations 
have taken on the force of a single vocabulary unit. That may explain 
why "bright red" can also act in adjective or noun slots (as can the 
plain red) without being changed.
    All that said, I would currently say bright red is an adjective 
phrase in the noun phrase the bright red dress. We don't say brightly 
red because bright red is one of a group of combinations (like pale red 
or deep red) that seem like a single unit.  
   
Craig



Spruiell, William C wrote:

> Bruce, Johanna, et al.:
>
>  
>
> There are some (possible) additional example sentences which might 
> serve to add more information (I can't really say "clarify matters," 
> since they don't, and I'm not sure if I can get away with a neologism 
> like "murken"):
>
> (1) ....the bright reddish star above center is Betelgeuse
>
>            (example from 
> http://www.cosmographica.com/gallery/portfolio/portfolio301/pages/342-GalaxySouth.htm)
>
> (2) The blood also looks bright red because oxygen isn't being used by 
> the peripheral tissues.
>
>            (example from 
> http://www.bio.miami.edu/tom/bil265/bil265goods/20_lung2.html)
>
>  
>
> While there are exceptions, being able to put -ish on something tends 
> to position it as an adjective, and people apparently do use 'bright 
> red' as an adjectival subject complement. While it would be possible 
> to argue that (1) is to be read as "the bright and reddish star," 
> there's nothing to force that reading (no comma, etc.).
>
> Bill Spruiell
>
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