Lucy Movies

[NOVARick]

Is anyone else watching the Lucille Ball movies airing on TCM this month? A couple observations two of the movies that aired this week. In "Look Who's Laughing!" there is a scene in the airplane where Lucy's character refers to Fibber McGee as Fibber McGillicuddy. Kind of makes you go, hmm. And in the 1938 screwball comedy "Next Time I Marry," a lot of this film seemed Lucyesque. There is a scene where Lucy's character is in the trailer, screaming and bouncing all over the place, that reminded me of "Long, Long Trailer." The very premise of her character paying someone to marry her, then quickly ditching the guy, just so she can meet the terms of her inheritance, seems like something Lucy Ricardo might concoct. There was also a scene where her character tries to make an escape by disguising herself as a man, definitely a Lucy Ricardo-type scheme. Then there's quite a bit of physical comedy, like the scene in the lake. And at one point when she finds herself locked in the trailer when she needs to hurry to the courthouse to annul her marriage before her "husband" gets there, it almost looked like they were going to do a scene where she gets stuck in the window, but they didn't. But then there was that car racing scene where Lucy and her fiance are in one car and her husband is in the other, each car racing to be the first one to reach the courthouse in Reno. It reminded me very much of the car chase scene in the Las Vegas episode of the Lucy-Desi Hour.

[TV DVD Fan]

I caught "The Fuller Brush Girl" with Eddie Albert on Wednesday and I really enjoyed it. It's very possible, Rick, that some of the I Love Lucy script ideas came from some of Lucy's old movies (we know alot of it came from her prior radio career!).

[NOVARick]

Originally Posted by TV DVD Fan

I caught "The Fuller Brush Girl" with Eddie Albert on Wednesday and I really enjoyed it. It's very possible, Rick, that some of the I Love Lucy script ideas came from some of Lucy's old movies (we know alot of it came from her prior radio career!).

It could be. I know some of the "I Love Lucy" were influenced by things that had happened in the lives of the writers, as well as Lucy and Desi's personal life. For example, in "Breaking the Lease," the scene in the bedroom when Lucy and Ricky are getting ready for bed and Lucy wants the window open, and Ricky wants it shut: Lucy opens it, Ricky closes it, Lucy opens it again, Ricky shuts it again. That was based on a real Lucy/Desi indicident (and Bob and Madelyn reused it again years later on the "Here's Lucy" episode with Joan Rivers). And other things that showed up in the scripts, such as the names of Lucy Ricardo's friends -- Appleby, Van Vlack, Marion Strong -- were actual names of friends and acquaintances of Lucille Ball. So the very fact that these things showed up in the "I Love Lucy" scripts must mean there were conversations between Lucy, Desi and the writers that gave the writers script ideas. So I guess it's very possible Lucy might have mentioned to the writers some scene from a movie she had done that gave them an idea.

Something else I have noticed: I'm always interested to read the movie credits. It seems that in almost every early Lucille Ball movie going back to the 1930s, I see names of people (e.g., James V. Kern, Karl Freund, Edward Stevenson) that I recognize from Lucy's TV series. It's well known that she was loyal to her old friends and colleagues, who she would continue employing through the years (Barbara Pepper, for example, whom she had known since she was a Goldwyn Girl in 1933). But I guess I'm a little amazed at the large number of familiar names I see.

One other observation is the great contrast between some of her early characters and her TV Lucy character. In so many of her films, the roles she got was obviously due to her great beauty. The other night, I saw three films in a row in which she either played the other woman, and some woman was jealous of her, or she had two men fighting over her. The typical plot would have some man about to marry a woman, but then he meets Lucy and falls head over heels for her. She was an incredibly beautiful woman, something she played down greatly on "I Love Lucy." Yes, she was very attractive on "I Love Lucy," but on that show, she tried to dress like a housewife. Her attire was very tasteful and classy, but it was still something that would be worn by a housewife. And she wore her lipstick, it seems, more to emphasize her funny expressions than her beauty. It was darker and more exaggerated. The makeup and clothing she wore in most of these early movies was made to emphasize her beauty and sex appeal. And she frequently showed those beautiful legs! I was watching one of these films and was struck by the juxtoposition of the between the striking beauty I was looking at and the "Lucy" image in my head of the goofy faces and crying. It's such a contrast that it's hard to imagine how she got from point A to point B. I can't think of any other actress known for her beauty who took her career in the direction of physical comedy. When you think about it, it was kind of a daring thing for Lucille Ball to do. But of course in hindsight, it was obviously the best move she could have ever made as that's what made her a superstar and extended her career into her later years. But at the time, it was pretty radical and gutsy, just as it was for her decades later to take on the role of of a baglady in "Stone Pillow."