Are going to watch the CBS movie "LUCY" tonight? (Sunday, May 4. 2003)

No
Yes
Maybe

I just asked you that in your PM! But, yes, I am watching the Lucy movie!

I know I will also be watching the documentry on "Lucy" on CBS this evening, I am really looking forward to watching it.

Eh, I'll take a look at it and see if I like it, but I know it will be hard to watch someone else play as Lucy.

Originally posted by Archie Bunker
Are going to watch the CBS movie "LUCY" tonight? (Sunday, May 4. 2003)

No
Yes
Maybe

How about "probably"? The review for this movie are pretty bad, and I've been unimpressed by the adverstisements I've seen, but I'll probably take a look at it anyway. And then complain afterwards about how horrible it was and how I wasted my time watching it.

I'd be interested to hear your views on this one, not being able to watch it and all. The last biopic, Desi and Lucy, was pretty bad. Reviews here afterwards?!

:wave:

I'm going to tape it and watch it later. I have finals tomorrow, so I need to study. But yes! Do review! I want to know if I should even bother to watch it later.

Originally posted by Archie Bunker
Are going to watch the CBS movie "LUCY" tonight? (Sunday, May 4. 2003)

No
Yes
Maybe

What do you think? Of course, I am going to watch it! :D

I've got my TiVo all set and ready to tape it.

The last Lucy/Desi movie I thought was okay. I hope this one is a little better, but the reviewers are not being nice towards it, lol. I'll watch anyway and make up my own mind.

Reviewers are usually morons. But who knows?

I have a feeling I'm gonna miss chunks of this movie for weather updates. T-Storms are rolling thru and our meteorologists love to interrupt programming.

I'm mad because we are having weather updates too. I think they are fixing to get back to it though. They even cut into "American Dreams" tonight!! :mad:

Originally posted by dawsongirl
Reviewers are usually morons. But who knows?

Exactly. I rarely put much stock into reviews, unless by true fans of course.

I'm watching this at the current moment, but at 10 I'm gonna be watching another show. Anyone know if this will be re-aired for an encore? I'd really like to see the whole thing.

Originally posted by pandora_spocks
I'm watching this at the current moment, but at 10 I'm gonna be watching another show. Anyone know if this will be re-aired for an encore? I'd really like to see the whole thing.

I bet it'll end up on cable somewhere.

Originally posted by dawsongirl


I bet it'll end up on cable somewhere.

The funniest thing I go to watch the other show and tonight it's not on and it usually is. Oh well, at least I'll get to watch this to the end. :)

I just watched the whole movie.

My review...

1) That guy who played Desi did not look like Desi at all but, he did sound like Desi.

2) There were some surprises that I never knew. Like Desi coming into the new California house and saw the dripping water and he had a fit when he saw it. He started tearing up the house. Another thing that I never knew was that Desi bought a yacht. This is something I didn't know either. I never knew that Carole Lombard and Lucy were such good friends. I also never knew that lucy had a black maid.

Overall it was a good movie........

I think they made a mistake. When they showed the silk heart with the show title on it. Wasn't that added after the show went into syndication? I don't have TVLand so I don't know what the credits look like, but I've heard that they have the original stick figures of Lucy and Desi hanging up that sign?

Originally posted by Pitooey
I just watched the whole movie.

My review...

1) That guy who played Desi did not look like Desi at all but, he did sound like Desi.

He looked way too young. It looked ok in the begining of the movie, but by the end where they had the last taping of Lucy, it looked like he could have been her son when he was standing next to her.

I just watched the movie too. I like it. It was nice to see that the movie included other people that were in Lucy and Desi's life such as Lucy's black maid, the writers, ect. I thought it was good movie which pretty much told the whole story of what really happened between Lucy and Desi. But the funny thing is, the movie didn't even mention the movies the couple made together such asThe Long, Long Trailor or Forever Darling. They should have included that as well as many other things.

Originally posted by Original Prankster
I think they made a mistake. When they showed the silk heart with the show title on it. Wasn't that added after the show went into syndication? I don't have TVLand so I don't know what the credits look like, but I've heard that they have the original stick figures of Lucy and Desi hanging up that sign?

I think you're right. Although I favor the heart more than the stick figures, but yeah I believe the stick figures were first. I remember hearing that somewhere maybe it was TV Land because they show them.

I really enjoyed the movie and I like how they re-did scenes from the episodes so that was cool. The lady playing Lucy wasn't too bad she actually made me believe it was Lucy even though I knew it wasn't. ;) She just had that Lucy effect. When I first turned it on I couldn't believe that was Madeline Zima (little Gracie from The Nanny) it was neat seeing her play teenage Lucy.

I watched it and liked it better than I originally guessed I would.

I think that the actors did a decent job of portraying Lucy and Desi, although they don't really look nor sound like them.

And yes, that was an error there that they didn't present the opening credits with the original animated openings

Originally posted by pandora_spocks


I think you're right. Although I favor the heart more than the stick figures, but yeah I believe the stick figures were first. I remember hearing that somewhere maybe it was TV Land because they show them.

I really enjoyed the movie and I like how they re-did scenes from the episodes so that was cool. The lady playing Lucy wasn't too bad she actually made me believe it was Lucy even though I knew it wasn't. ;) She just had that Lucy effect. When I first turned it on I couldn't believe that was Madeline Zima (little Gracie from The Nanny) it was neat seeing her play teenage Lucy.


Yes The Heart came after the original airing of I love Lucy. Carole and Lucy were good friends so they got that part right. I think Rachel York and Danny ( cant remember his last name) had guts to take on this part. I did not like the movie as much as I thought I would though.

I saw the previews,but I did not see the movie. But I can tell you this I would rather see an A & E Biography on Lucille Ball than basically just a movie about just Lucy and Desi. But the way they colorized so to speak I Love Lucy is the main reason why I didn't watch the movie. The original I Love Lucy in B & W is much better than the movie version of it.

I thought it was perfectly awful!! Lolac

Originally posted by *ShortCake*



Yes The Heart came after the original airing of I love Lucy.


But wasn't the heart originally used in the closing credits?

I liked the movie overall, I didn't think that the actor who played Ricky had any comparison to Desi Arnaz at all, he seemed like he was a little too young for the part, and the only resemblance to Desi Arnaz was his accent. I thought the actress who played Lucy looked a little like her, and I thought she really talked like Lucille Ball too.

I'm surprised the story didn't follow to her death, they didn't even mention some of her other shows like The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy, however there wasn't much of a scandal on those shows because Desi Arnaz wasn't involved, Most of her work done on those shows was working by herself or with different actors/actresses.

I like how they remade the scenes from I Love Lucy, the actress who played her did a really good job of impersonating Lucille Ball. I thought it was interesting how they followed her acting carrer, most of the information that was about Lucy's life I never knew before, so I learned something from it.

Ratings for "Lucy."

-Ratings Breakdown:
Although even a biopic about Lucille Ball couldn't top NBC's competing Law & Order: Criminal Intent (9 p.m. 11.0/16; 10 p.m. R 11.0/17), the three-hour made-for notched a competitive 9.3/14 from 8-11 p.m. Too bad the movie wasn't the length it should have been -- two-hours. Earlier in the evening on CBS, perennial time period winner 60 Minutes averaged a 9.4/16 at 7 p.m.

Originally posted by pandora_spocks


I think you're right. Although I favor the heart more than the stick figures, but yeah I believe the stick figures were first. I remember hearing that somewhere maybe it was TV Land because they show them.

I really enjoyed the movie and I like how they re-did scenes from the episodes so that was cool. The lady playing Lucy wasn't too bad she actually made me believe it was Lucy even though I knew it wasn't. ;) She just had that Lucy effect. When I first turned it on I couldn't believe that was Madeline Zima (little Gracie from The Nanny) it was neat seeing her play teenage Lucy.

Yeah! I noticed that right away. I said to my friend who was over "doesn't she look like the girl from the Nanny who had like docter problems at age 5?" lol


Did anyone NOT like the actress playing Vivian Vance? I thought she was HORRIBLE i couldn't watch her read ILL lines, they were so off.

The grape episode did not aire in 1958

If they were going to base the movie around Desi & Lucille's life & Relationship, they should of titled in Lucy & ricky or Lucille & Desi or something, By calling it 'Lucy' they then should of followed Lucys WHOLE career. They didn't even give the dates that she died, i dont think. and if they needed to include all of that, they should of added an hour and made it a 2 day part thingy.

My one friend who watched it and didnt know much about the show, said she was really confused and i agree. I knew alot about what was going on but if i didnt, i dont think i would've gotten some of it.

they should've meantioned alot of other things.

I believe there is going to be a Threes Company Movie on next monday by NBC, and thats about like the scandel of the show... they should've did a movie about ILL like that.

i dunno. It wasnt close to as good as I wanted it to be.

Originally posted by LucyCompanyPhan
Did anyone NOT like the actress playing Vivian Vance? I thought she was HORRIBLE i couldn't watch her read ILL lines, they were so off.

I HATED the actress playing Vivian Vance. Awful.

Originally posted by TVJunkie101


I HATED the actress playing Vivian Vance. Awful.

Ditto.. I didnt like the actress who played Desi's mom either.

Never mind the actress, how about the lines she had to say. Lucy had no class? Well, she didn't frequent whorehouses like her son did, she wasn't an alcoholic or a gambler who couldn't keep any money, and was always talked about in the papers as if HE had no class. Woops, just realized that Mickey's not going to like this one, sorry Mickey, neither one of them was a picnic, i'm angry at the mother not the son, who i always admired for being a good father, a charitable guy and a good business man! That's the key, isn't it? There are two sides to everyone!

I didn't think the movie was too bad. I thought the actor who played Fred looked a little like Bill Frawley. The sitcom episodes were out of order. I did get a kick of seeing the apartment in color. Seeing it in black and white and then a bright color shot seems so new. I did tend to agree they could have greyed desi's hair a bit toward the end. I like the actors playing the writers, madelyn and bob. I didn't know Lucye was close to Carole Lombard. The guy playing Clark Gable didn't look much like Clark
althought I thought the actress playing Carole looked pretty good. There were a lot of blonds in the 1930' to 1940's. I'd give the show a B

Originally posted by pandora_spocks

When I first turned it on I couldn't believe that was Madeline Zima (little Gracie from The Nanny) it was neat seeing her play teenage Lucy.

I really wanted to see her, but by the time I remembered about the movie, CBS was already an hour into it.

Originally posted by Original Prankster


I really wanted to see her, but by the time I remembered about the movie, CBS was already an hour into it.

Yeah, she was only on for like the first half hour, 45 minutes, at most. I TiVo'd it, and I can probably get a few screen caps of her, if anyone's interested?

Originally posted by TVJunkie101


Yeah, she was only on for like the first half hour, 45 minutes, at most. I TiVo'd it, and I can probably get a few screen caps of her, if anyone's interested?

Well I don't want to be a bother to you, but if you have some free time, I'd really appreciate it.

Originally posted by vze3t9q9
I did get a kick of seeing the apartment in color. Seeing it in black and white and then a bright color shot seems so new. I enjoyed seeing the apartment in color too. I never saw the apartment in color before. It gave a semblance of normalcy in a way.

Originally posted by Original Prankster
I really wanted to see her, but by the time I remembered about the movie, CBS was already an hour into it.

Madeline Zima was on for the first 18 minutes of the movie. I looked at the clock after her last scene was over.

You can see the characters in color on the CBS videos and the apartment in color on the Christmas Special, but make sure it's the colorized version, some people taped it off the air when it aired in '91!

Originally posted by SPLAIN
You can see the characters in color on the CBS videos and the apartment in color on the Christmas Special, but make sure it's the colorized version, some people taped it off the air when it aired in '91!


Was the Christmas episode the only one taped in color?

I don't get that, they were all TAPED in COLOR, but aired in black and white, the Christmas show was COLORIZED at one point and aired in color, with some parts still in black and white. Have i confused you enough?

Originally posted by TVJunkie101
I HATED the actress playing Vivian Vance. Awful.

I agree. That actress did not do Vivian Vance justice at all.

Aaaahh! I really did not like that movie! An inaccuracy that I saw was that Lucy called her mother mama but in reality she called her DeDe. I don't know why but that just bugged me. The movie also made her look like a sex-crazed teenager in her early years. Oh, and could someone clear these few things up for me?? There were a couple of things that I saw in the movie that I did not know and believe me I know more than most people about Lucille Ball's life. Okay here they are:

1) Lucy working at a carnival with her Uncle (I think they said it was her Uncle)

2) Desi buying a yacht, and tearing up their new house

3) Lucy having a black maid

I know that you cannot believe everything that they say. Even in some Lucille Ball biography books they tell things that are not true. I read once that Lucy once worked as a topless model ~ and I know for a fact that wasn't true because on her daughter's (Lucie's) website someone asked about that.

I thought that the actor playing Desi was too young and his face was too thin. Desi Arnaz had a stronger chin. But he did sound a lot like Desi. The actress playing Lucille was okay but she bugged me a little bit.

Most of the movie was just a repeat of what I already knew ~ although there were a lot more inaccuracies that I don't want to bore you with right now. Also, they should have done Lucille's full life until she died. They never even mentioned why Lucille did not have a father. (He died when she was 4) If they were just going to show that period of Lucille's life they left out a lot of things.

Oooh and one more thing, I saw the set of I Love Lucy (in color obviously) at the Mall of America during their fiftieth anniversary tour. They even had the Hollywood set. Hehe, I have pictures of it.

Originally posted by Just Popped In



But wasn't the heart originally used in the closing credits?

On TV Land they mentioned that the heart was added for syndication purposes, that what TV Land uses is the original opening, but they added the TV Land logo in place of the original sponsor logos.

Originally posted by TVJunkie101


I HATED the actress playing Vivian Vance. Awful.

I actually got to see it last night! I thought it was a good movie, overall. But, I agree that I didn't like the actress who played Vivian Vance either. I thought the actress that played the young Lucy didn't look like her. But, when Rachel York got the "Lucy look," she looked like her.

I liked the movie. I also liked seeing the apartment in color. They should've shown clips from the original series when they were going into black & white.

I thought the actor who played Desi was pretty good. I agree that he didn't look like Desi, but sounded like him.

Originally posted by LucyCrazy
Oh, and could someone clear these few things up for me?? There were a couple of things that I saw in the movie that I did not know and believe me I know more than most people about Lucille Ball's life. Okay here they are:

1) Lucy working at a carnival with her Uncle (I think they said it was her Uncle)

2) Desi buying a yacht, and tearing up their new house

3) Lucy having a black maid


1. Yeah, but I'm not sure about the uncle thing

2. Yeah

3. And yeah. They at least got that right.

Last night, I finally got a chance to sit down and watch my tape of the movie. I must say, they could have done sooooo much better -- with the script, with the casting, with everything!

The script especially bothered me, with all of its inaccuracies. Why do a biopic if you are not going to get it right? For instance, merging the whole 'red scare' scene with the buying of RKO. The two happened years apart! And at this time they portrayed Desi as a drunk and had Lucy saying that she didn't even know who he was anymore, when in actuality his drinking really didn't become a problem until 1955, two years after the Communist scare. Maybe the writers thought that they could kill two birds with one stone by dealing with both incidents at the same time, but it is things like that that really get to me.

And the things they chose to leave out -- like the reason why they met in the first place ("Too Many Girls"), their second wedding, her illness as a teenager, I could go on -- were surprising, and would have made the movie a lot better. Forget the re-creations of the classic ILL scenes, I could have gone to TvLand to see the originals. It's like they didn't want to do the work to give us a good script with great dialogue (which wasn't even close to great) that gave viewers even a small clue who Lucille Ball was and what her relationship with Desi meant (well, they were able to make time for the 'sleazy' parts). Instead, the writers relied on old ILL scripts to recreate old scenes for the sake of filling in the gaps that they left while doing a half-ass job. They made Lucy's life seem boring. And believe me, it wasn't boring. Just watch "Lucy and Desi: A Home Movie." Just read "Love, Lucy", "A Book" or "Desilu." Then you'll get a better idea of who these two people were. "Lucy" doesn't even begin to show you.

To be fair, some things I liked about the movie....

- the way they chose to show Lucy's movie career status by passing her picture around the big wigs' table at RKO, MGM. I thought that was clever.

- even though I just couldn't get into York as Lucy, she did well with some of the re-creation scenes (but, as I said before, I could have done without them)

- Pino did an excellent job of capturing Desi's voice

- the Red Skelton look-a-like actually looked like him


And that's about it. I think I'll stick to watching documentaries. :wave:

I know i'm harping on this, but us REAL fans won't be satisfied till we see a PBS miniseries or a series of interviews that looks at everything and like you stated, with accuracy!

Thank You Ricardos4ever. I could not have said it better myself. I mean, I had the exact same thoughts floating around in my head but if I wrote them down it would be like four pages long! Before I even watched the movie I knew it was going to be bad. Lol, I just wanted to find the inaccuracies and criticize it :lol: . And yeah, I think I will stick to good 'ol documentaries. I would like to see a new one though. ;)

Well, you can't beat Lucy and Desi a Love story by their daughter, that was excellent.