If I say, "Lucille Ball," the opening strains of I Love Lucy probably just started playing in your head. How could it not? Ball is ubiquitous as a television fixture, a pioneering artist of the sitcom form and businesswoman responsible for paving innumerable paths. Much of Ball's evergreen legacy is tied to her wacky high jinks with Ethel - the candy factory, elaborate disguises, getting hammered while filming a commercial, stomping grapes, and so it goes on.
They are indelible and hilarious, yet Ball remains undervalued as a film star. She pops in minor supporting roles in Follow the Fleet and Easy to Wed, steals scenes right out from Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in Without Love, pulls a fast one on the Three Stooges in Three Little Pigskins. We have not even gotten into her beloved Bob Hope pairings like The Facts of Life or appearances in revered classics like Stage Door with Ginger Rogers. Her film work demonstrated a dynamic range, such as her moody femme fatales in films like Lured and The Dark Corner, that reveals her as an underrated performer outside of her widely accepted comedic gifts.
So, I am looking at the various box sets available with Lucille Ball at their core. First up, The Lucille Ball Film Collection. Here is what the description on the back has to say:
"Today, rubber-faced comedienne Lucille Ball
(1911-89) may be best-remembered for her television work on I Love Lucy
and its follow-ups, but she began her ascent to stardom on the big screen, and
continued to topline features through the 1970s, in multiple genres. This box
set showcases five features that include Ball in the cast: The Big Street
(1942), Critic's Choice (1962), Dance, Girl, Dance (1940), Du
Barry Was a Lady (1943) and Mame (1974)."
Largely focusing on her days as an RKO contract player, "queen of the Bs" MGM days, and Mame, for some reason, The Lucille Ball Film Collection is a bit of a mixed bag. 1940's Dance, Girl, Dance is the best film of the lot, an essential work from one of the few female directors of the era, and 1942's The Big Street and 1943's Du Barry Was a Lady are frivolous bits of fun. Let us take a closer look at each of the films individually.
Part of its worth is how singular Arzner’s voice was at the time and remains when revisiting the works of the era. She managed to craft unique ruminations on married life in Merrily We Go to Hell, explored the ways in which a woman’s home and social station could become tombs of their own making in Craig’s Wife, and made films with Clara Bow, Katharine Hepburn, and Joan Crawford that either helped form their star personas or transitioned them into deeper, richer territory. Here, she crafts a story about women struggling to succeed in a man’s world and the ways in which they either bend to those rules or seek opportunities to succeed in spite of them that is by turns humorous, poignant, and reflective.
The film follows the paths of two women, Judy (Maureen O’Hara, the actual lead) and Bubbles/Tiger Lily White (Ball, a supporting player who steals the entire thing with her brashness), as they try to make a way for themselves as performers. Judy believes in her artistry and talent will win in the long run, a form of naïve idealism and narrowly focused vision that is reflective of people who perform because they feel it in their veins. Bubbles, in contrast, sees the score and knows that her ‘oomph’ can be exploited and commodified for her own gain.
Under Arzner, these two distinct impressions and views are not one-note but rather expressed in deeper ways. Arzner views burlesque halls and lecherous older men for the exploitative spaces and dehumanizing practices that they are, but also recognizes the inherent erotic power of watching nubile bodies perform for your pleasure. Dance, Girl, Dance does not present a simplistic worldview but rather a complicated one that never asks us to root for either of the woman but rather to understand how their extraneous circumstances informed their personalities.
While O’Hara is the ostensible lead, Ball walks off with the film in quick succession. Ball sinks her nails into this burlesque diva and gives her everything she’s got as an actress. Not only does she demonstrate great dramatic chops, but the first inklings of her way with sarcastic quips and physical comedy and a sex appeal that is shockingly potent. Her hula audition and two main dance numbers (“Jitterbug Bite,” “Mother, What Do I Do Now?”) spark with a Pre-Code sexuality that feels daring and explosive in comparison to the prime and proper displays of its cinematic siblings in the Hays Code era.
None of this is to say that O’Hara is giving a poor showing, but her character is just less flashy and therefore has less obviously big acting moments. She does get one, and she makes a whole symphony out of the way she delivers it. Late in the film, after suffering as the high-art stooge in Bubbles’ bawdy show, she stops her ballet to putdown the leering, jeering men in the audience. One gets the sense that Arzner and O’Hara are not only telling the men in the cinematic audience something but speaking to the actual audience watching the film who gleefully partake in heavily sexualized images of women for consumption. The dichotomy of projecting youthful innocence and wanton carnality is still an issue that plagues women in the entertainment industry and here is a film from 1940 that proudly, loudly calls it out.
It is like a Damon Runyon story was smashed into a weepy women’s picture. Runyon, of course, was responsible for the original story and produced this film adaptation, but his colorful gangsters and denizens of Broadway’s seedier side, the “Big Street” of the title, are sidelined for the love (?) story between Henry Fonda’s poor sap and Ball’s nasty nightclub singer. The whole thing has a sadomasochistic streak that feels at odds with its lovesick protagonist and glossy happy (?) ending.
Having said that, this is the kind of trash I can watch in a manner similar to consuming comfort food. I know the likes of this do not have major merits but there is something about their strangeness that appeals to me. This is Guys & Dolls by way of Interrupted Melody merged with Of Human Bondage. Ball plays a nightclub singer who runs afoul of her gangster boyfriend, becomes crippled, is nursed and cared for by Fonda’s busboy, then tragically (?) dies in Fonda’s arms as the credits roll and she realizes who has loved and sacrificed for her all along.
Fonda was much better playing the sap straight man to a domineering woman in his previous release, The Lady Eve. This role never gives him a solid foundation to establish a character so the central duo is left sideways as Ball gets a colorful part and Fonda gets nothing. What exactly are we to make of a character who willingly pushes such an aggressive bitch in her wheelchair from Broadway to Miami? Then buys her nice clothes while she shoves him off to the side so she can trick an old flame? I wish I was joking, but these are major plot points.
Ball played diva just as well as she did wacky. She makes this bitter creation into a marvelously flinty wonder. She manages to take the tough, hard character we meet in the beginning and reveal occasional flashes of vulnerability and softness to peak through. She clearly had a methodology to this performance and character, no matter how absurd the narrative twists and turns might be. Ball always felt that her performance was overlooked by Oscar, but I think the bigger issue was that the character and the film containing her were so slippery and ill-defined, so ridiculous yet entertaining that voters probably didn’t know what to make of the whole thing.
However, even at the time critics were kind and on her side. James Agee wrote that Ball “was born for the parts Ginger Rogers sweats over.” He was right. Ball did deserve roles like what Rogers got at RKO and imagine for a moment a world where Ball got to play Roxie Hart or Kitty Foyle. But the studio saw her merely as a second-stringer and didn’t invest in her career as it did with Rogers. Ball reflected of this time, “nothing much seemed to be happening for me at the studio. My $1000 weekly paycheck came regularly, but I was still a regular among the Bs.”
The Big Street was her penultimate film at the studio and she shortly left for MGM. That studio put her in films with lots of its biggest stars (Hepburn, Tracy, Esther Williams, Dick Powell) but again in largely supporting parts. In about six years she would be starring in radio on My Favorite Husband, a series so successful CBS came courting. But first, we need to discuss the last pre-Lucy film in this set.
The actual film is a fun, silly little musical comedy that is overstuffed with incident to disguise how much the Hays Code gutted the original Broadway script. Risqué material still made it into the final film, but much of it is jettisoned in favor of MGM’s homegrown songwriters and comedic bits eating up some of the time. Think of this as a trial run for their then up-and-coming talent.
But the up-and-coming talent featured here is Gene Kelly and Ball. In only his third film, Kelly’s screen persona seems locked into place, and he’s one of the few performers who required no transition from one persona to another before finding something that highlighted his talents the best. He came onto the screen fully formed, and while he doesn’t get too much to do here, he looks handsome as ever and the basic outline of most of his character’s predicaments are falling into place.
Ball, on the other hand, isn’t given too much to do, but she has never looked more glamorous or beautiful. She looks positively stunning, and it is easy to see why both Kelly and Red Skelton are head-over-heels in love with her. It’s a shame that she’s not allowed to let loose and be funny until the very end, but she plays her gold-digger showgirl for all its worth. MGM often cast Ball as a showgirl despite her lack of singing talent. RKO managed to find more believable dubbing for her while MGM’s singing voice is too polished and soft. Ball, by her own admission, could resemble a tougher cigarette girl so a throatier, rougher voice was needed.
Joining them are Red Skelton as the third point in the central love triangle, Virginia O’Brien as the sardonic cigarette girl, and Zero Mostel as a hammy swami. Skelton mugs and fails about doing his typically comedic bits, your mileage may vary but I’ve grown to enjoy some its silliness. A particularly naughty joke involves Skelton and Ball running around a bedroom while he sings about how he’s come there for love and proceeds to give her a gigantic pearl necklace.
The extended dream sequence in King Louis XV’s court provides ample demonstration that Kelly could have easily slotted into Errol Flynn rogue adventurer parts, Ball had more talent and range than the studios knew what to do with, and the whole thing looks quite fetching. What does it all add up to? Not a lot, but I enjoy the loopy journey.
While the script is fairly inconsequential, the cinematography, bold colors and lavish costumes are stunning to behold. It’s a shame they couldn’t graft a better story to all of these lovely details and really made something classic. Du Barry is also smart enough to keep things charging forward at a quick pace, so it never bogs down and it knows it is featherweight entertainment and never aspires to anything more. So taken for what it is – all-singing/all-dancing/all-vaudevillian comedic interludes – it is pretty successful, but it had so many ingredients to be something much more. Ah well, that is discussing the film that could have been made and not the one that was though.
The premise is ripe for an Adam's Rib style battle of the sexes, but no one's interested in dynamic sparks or likable characters. Bob Hope is a self-important theater critic who's quick to tarnish a production and takes glee with getting them closed, only to find his wife has taken up writing a play. He thinks she might be a hack; she might be having an affair with her younger director (Rip Torn, looking hunky and too dangerous for this toothless comedy), and, oh, who cares. It starts middling but passable and quickly dissolves from there. Like cotton candy in water. (Even Ball and Hope thought it was trash given the groans they emitted about it on an episode of Dinah.)
Not even appearances from reliable supporting players like Jessie Royce Landis and Jim Backus can save this thing. Part of the problem is that no matter how valiantly Hope tries to make his character human or saw off some of the edges, he's an irredeemable bastard from start to finish, cruel to Ball, and possessing questionable journalistic standards when we watch him leave one play early that he's reviewing and showing up stinking drunk to the second. This tanks much of the drama, and the sloppily sentimental ending doesn’t add any favors. At least there are a few good jokes sparsely thrown in to keep our interest during the sagging pace (a verbal cat fight between Marilyn Maxwell and Landis is particularly funny for the politeness of their sparring). Oh well, at least we'll always have Ball and Hope's funny skits from their numerous television specials together.
Mame was Angela Lansbury's career-changing show, transitioning the talented actress from reliable film support into grand dame of the theater. She would have been a natural choice to reprise the role, and composer Jerry Herman begged the studio to consider her. Alas, the powers that be thought she didn't have enough box office pull despite a decades-long career and three Academy Award nominations. But Lucille Ball is a towering icon, and on paper not an entirely incorrect choice for the part. But we're twenty years away from the height of I Love Lucy and Ball's power as an actress has dimmed here, and one wonders where her lovable quirkiness has gone off to for the duration of this film.
Ball performs everything at half speed, including her line delivers and comic pratfalls. Even worse is how cigarettes, booze, and time have taken their toll on her speaking and singing voice. Her vocals are stitched together piece-by-piece, preventing the belting that's necessary in certain parts to happen, and making Mame sound eternally winded. By this point, Ball's about fifteen years too old for the role and the gauzy close-ups hammer this point home throughout. She only gets the role right when interacting with Bea Arthur's Vera Charles, a meeting of drunken raspy syllables and backhanded bitchery in sublime gay euphoria.
Arthur easily steals the movie, proving the most essential player and an all-around great performance. "Bosom Buddy" is a gas, with Arthur and Ball trading caustic barbs and lovingly shady quips back-and-forth while arm-in-arm or clinking martini glasses together. Arthur, as any fan of The Golden Girls or Maude could tell you, was magical in giving a caustic glance or a withering stare, and she deploys every comedic strength in her arsenal at the material, enlivening the proceedings whenever she's onscreen.
Arthur's then-husband, director Gene Saks, is another hindrance towards Mame. He was a director of Broadway, primarily, and his lazy directing here sinks many of the musical numbers and comedic bits. A musical needs energy in order to work, and Mame is distinctly sleepy in this respect. Saks merely points the camera and plants it there too often. There's not enough cinematic spectacle, and it feels entirely old-fashioned in an era when movies like Cabaret and All That Jazz were redefining the movie musical.
A notorious bomb in its era, so large that it caused Ball to declare that she would never make another film again, it easily slips in with other curios from 70s musicals, like Man of La Mancha and Star! There is still a certain camp angle to enjoy this film from, but only if you’re a fellow gay boy. I mean, here is Dorothy Zbornak and Lucy Ricardo acting opposite each other, with Arthur going full-on drag queen in a performance that is the definition of someone's work being a film's life support.
Next up is The Lucy and Desi Collection
which is described as "the first couple of comedy in the only movies they
made together!" Short, sweet, and to the point. One of them (Too Many
Girls) was made before their love affair and pop cultural dominance while
the other two were made in the midst of I Love Lucy mania.
While based on a smash Broadway show, the translation to film fell victim to a lot of hit shows of the era: Hollywood stripped the show for parts and left behind the vaguest framework of the material. Ball plays an heiress who wants to attend her father’s alma mater, which leaves him highly suspicious so he hires the football stars to keep tabs on her and report back. Naturally, one of them winds up falling for her (Richard Carlson, very handsome but sacked with the blandest part). Songs and hijinks ensue, naturally.
The thinness of the material shows and it struggles to justify even its brief 85-minute running time. Ball’s singing voice is dubbed throughout, which is not uncommon except for Mame and some brief moments in a few other films, but is particularly noticeable here. Especially when Ann Miller is waiting in the wings to tap and twirl around the frame, which she does not get enough chances to do. The only musical number that stuck with me was “Spic and Spanish,” unfortunately named, but it allows Miller to do one of her trademark rapid-fire tap routines and Arnaz to sing and dance as well.
What is strange about revisiting a lot of Ball’s works prior to her television ascendency is witnessing the studios struggling to figure out what her “type” was or how best to utilize her. She did possess quite a range, but she shined the brightest in comedic performances. Too Many Girls has her giving a modulated, subdued performance and muzzles her comedic chops. She was great in extremes, either comedic or dramatic, so this early effort is a bit disappointing.
Tacy (Ball) and Nicky (Arnaz) are newlyweds who decide to buy a trailer and tour the country for their honeymoon. A perfectly fine premise for hijinks to ensue, and boy do they. Between nosey neighbors, Ball’s patented physical humor, and the unwieldly trailer providing situations to continually arise that either cause destruction or provide an excuse for the characters to argue. The whole thing eventually feels episodic in structure as Tacy and Nicky move from one location to another and meet various eccentrics along the way. Marjorie Main and Keenan Wynn are two of the colorful supporting players that zip in during these various set pieces, and despite being billed just under the marquee stars, they only have a few minutes of screen time between them.
The whole thing feels an odd fit for Minnelli’s sense of sophistication and obsession with luxurious décor, but a few sequences pop along the way. One of them, a minor musical interlude where they cuddle while singing “Breezin’ Along with the Breeze,” is just a sweetly tender moment between the two. A reminder that even in a minor moment such as this Minnelli could make movie musical magic. But even better is the climatic sequence where Nicky tries driving the behemoth vehicle over rough terrain and Tacy futilely makes dinner. This sequence, heightened by Minnelli’s near musical composition and framing of it, allows for Ball to unleash her manic comedic energy at their full force.
The script for Forever Darling had been sitting around since the heyday of William Powell and Myrna Loy. It remained unmade and eventually was thought of as a potential vehicle for Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Again, it was unmade until Ball and Arnaz picked it as their follow-up to The Long, Long Trailer.
Perhaps a better director could have made something at least mildly entertaining out of it, but the resulting film feels like 2/3 of one film and 1/3 of an episode of I Love Lucy. Arnaz brought on writers to punch-up the script, specifically a climactic camping trip, to give the couple more slapstick and try to fix weaknesses with the material. Not enough of an overhaul was completed though as the material is still thin and incredibly weak. In short, where are the jokes?
Excepting Arnaz as a brilliant chemist is a hard stretch and Ball is kept muted for too long. James Mason as the guardian angel is fine enough but he’d do this sort of thing better in 1978’s Heaven Can Wait. Mason went on to call this the worst film of his career, and it is certainly his worst film of the period as it comes between major success like Bigger Than Life, A Star Is Born, and North by Northwest. The only sequence that truly works is the one where Ball and Arnaz go see a Mason film in theaters and Ball starts to imagine herself in the place of the leading lady. (Be warned, that sequence is also prone to some questionable racial politics.)
Moving on, let’s take a look at the Hollywood Legends: Lucille Ball collection. From the back: “America’s favorite funny lady,
Lucille Ball was an actress, comedic genius, top TV executive and loved by all.
Enjoy four of her famed films that showcase her zany comedic talent that made
her one of the most beloved comediennes.” If you think “loved by all” is
hyperbolic, then let me remind you that she not only appeared on the first
issue of TV Guide but continues to be a presence in our popular culture.
Rewrite it a tiny bit and you have got several episodes of Lucy Ricardo trying to finagle her way into Ricky’s act. Here Tone continually invests in a crackpot inventor whose schemes continually go sideways while Ball manages to redirect the company outrage to turn these failures into successes. For instance, a hair removal cream turns into a hair growth tonic.
And so it goes until the crackpot inventor winds up dead with Tone as the primary suspect. Ball once again comes in to save him. Roll credits as the bickering couple learn to love each other and accept her meddling into his career and affairs. It isn’t much but it is an enjoyable piece of fluff. You see why Ball proclaimed herself the “queen of the B’s” during her movie actor tenure. This was clearly drafted as a programmer to play during a double-bill and keep churning out product for the studio.
There are worse ways to spend 84 minutes and it finally appears that Hollywood was deciphering what to do with Ball as a performer. She gets to do some successfully comedic bits, including physical comedy and sardonic one-liners, and is a leading player in the action. So many of these films sack her as the straight player or in the supporting role that do not allow for her skills to shine. It may not be a classic in her filmography, but it is a clear signpost that Ball was finessing the type that would sail her into pop culture infamy with a legacy that lasts well into the present.
We open with Ball in secretarial school as a hopeless student. If her typing weren’t a clear issue then it would be her inability to change the ribbon without getting the ink all over herself. By the end, she looks like she’s done a shift in a coal mine. Without a word of dialogue, Ball manages to make you both laugh at/with and feel for her hapless heroine. This skillset would prove invaluable for making Lucy Ricardo a beloved zany housewife instead of coming across as a mental case.
Holden’s bookie wants to hire a secretary to keep up appearances in his real estate front and asks the school for their worst student. Well, you can put two and two together to figure out what happens. Ball naively thinks the whole thing is legit and starts meddling into the business affairs to get the project off the ground and established.
Hijinks ensue, including several that made me loudly chuckle. A mishap with the concrete means someone has to dig it up so they can start again. Ball acknowledges the mistake happened because of her so she’ll do the work to rectify the issue. Watching Ball operate a jackhammer in broadly comedic strokes was funny enough, but then she stops to take a smoke break and continues to shake like she’s having a cartoonish bodily tremor.
Naturally, Ball’s can-do spunk melts Holden’s cynicism and the two of them eventually fall for each other. They come together, they fall apart, they come back together in time for him to reform and the two of them to get a happily ever after. It goes down easy without too much mental space necessary to process what you just watched. Forgettable, sure, but a pleasant enough 87 minutes that makes their reunion on Ball’s sitcom even better and all the sweeter given their history of performing together.
Tashlin was a few years away from transitioning from short-form animation to live-action directing, but his brand of slapstick and controlled lunacy would have been a perfect visual marriage for this story about a daffy saleswoman who winds up in a murder investigation. Tashlin’s script sets up plenty of comedic bits, including a young kid messing with Ball’s hair setting formula to make the poor ladies start going bald. A late in the film setup finds Ball trying to stop a wine barrel from leaking by drinking copious amounts of it and getting drunk very quickly. It plays like a test-run of her infamous Vitameatavegamin skit.
Actually, a lot of The Fuller Brush Girl plays the closest to a test-run of Lucy Ricardo in this series of films. She means well but keeps finding herself in increasingly elaborate and ridiculous scenarios in which she must either don a disguise or fail her way out of the situation. Ball having to costume herself as a vulgar burlesque performer is a stunner for the controlled chaos she brings to it, including a vocal tic involving the world “pop.” By the time she’s doing a striptease to “Put the Blame on Mame,” the whole thing is an underrated highlight for Ball’s gamesmanship in being wacky and selling it earnestly.
Albert makes for a logical and delightful sparring partner for her. He matches her controlled chaos every step of the way and makes for a believable romantic interest. His mixture of love and exasperation with her marks them as a great screwball comedic duo that never was.
There are so many charming little moments in this, including a Red Skelton cameo and a series of sales calls that go sideways in bizarre ways, that establish this as the clear highlight of the set. It just needed more vibrant character piloting the whole thing. Not bad by any stretch of the imagination, charming and silly, but with the clear potential for more under the right hands.
The behind-the-scenes facts about this film are more interesting than what made it to the screen. Ball owed Columbia a final film in her contract and desperately wanted to play the elephant trainer in The Greatest Show on Earth. She agreed to make this film, complete her contract, then go off and make that film. But she got pregnant with her first child (Lucie Arnaz, for those keeping track) and was unable to take that coveted role. If you pay close enough attention, a majority of Ball’s role is filmed to hide her pregnancy – lots of elaborate costumes, sitting down, hiding behind props.
The whole thing is obviously concocted as a B-picture with a slapdash of Orientalist fantasy and borrowing from better films. Never has a magic carpet ride seemed so dull as it does here. There is just so little to grasp onto besides the colorful scenery. It lacks fun, imagination, and energy. Everyone just seems to be killing time until the next assignment.
It is also an odd choice to include in a set highlighting Ball as a leading lady since she plays a secondary villainous role and gets very little to do. Sure, she looks gorgeous in color as she always did, but that is not enough. She gets top billing but that might have had more to do with her television show taking off around the time this was released given how she disappears at a certain point and never returns for her storyline to pay off.
God knows who would want to watch this more than once, or even once out of curiosity given how half-baked it is, but here it is as the final entry in this collection. Overall, I enjoyed the three previous films quite a bit as they were finally decent vessels for Ball’s considerable gifts even if they were clearly less-than-prestigious works from the studio. Except for the last film, and looking at the offerings from Columbia Pictures there wasn’t exactly much to pick from, this is a minor but enjoyable set.
Let us continue on to The Lucille Ball RKO Comedy Collection. The description on this one is pretty long so here we go:
“Long before she was crowned the queen of TV, Lucille Ball reigned as the "queen of the Bs" for RKO pictures, appearing in over 43 films. This collection brings together three rarely seen treasures from Lucy's RKO days, giving modern audiences a chance to witness a star on the rise. Before she hitched her antics to Vincente Minnelli's The Long, Long Trailer, Lucy joined Joe Penner in 1938's romp Go Chase Yourself. After bank robbers use her husband's camper, Carol Meeley (Ball) sets out to prove her hubby is far too dumb to commit a crime. Lucy moved up to leading lady in Next Time I Marry. In order to claim her inheritance, heiress Nancy Crocker Fleming (Ball) must marry a "plain American Joe." So she does what any self-respecting debutante would do - she hires a husband. Rounding out the collection is 1941's Look Who's Laughing, featuring a now glamorous Lucy. James V. Kern, who would later direct I Love Lucy, pens the tale, while screen pioneer Allan Dwan directs this rollicking satire which also stars Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.”
Think of Penner’s man-child/pea brained antics as the Happy Gilmore/Billy Madison of their day. Your taste for that kind of humor will determine how much mileage you get out of the material. Me? I left that stuff behind in elementary school, so this was a particularly taxing watch.
The entire conceit is that Penner is too dumb to commit the crime, which he is, and his wife (Ball) is in hot pursuit to prove just this. But why is a woman so capable, smart, and wise-cracking sacked with this putz? I spent so much time rooting for her tough-talk and exasperation that their reunion at the end left me sad for that character. Ball deserved better.
Go Chase Yourself only engaged me when it focused on Ball, which was far too rare. We all know she could throw herself around in slapstick and physical comedy bits, but she was also a master of the sarcastic putdown. She maneuvers around gropey men with ease and a wicked tongue. Her trying to outsmart and outwit a lecherous rich gentleman was a highlight and made me wish the movie was just her adventures instead of her being the supportive wife.
The ending comes complete with a runaway trailer and it is a little weird how often she wound up being stuck in them for comedic purposes throughout the course of her career. What really impresses itself while viewing this is the sense that the studios just didn’t know or acknowledge what a goldmine they had with Ball. She would eventually get some much better parts and movies at RKO, and MGM at least acknowledged her leading lady potential with films like Best Foot Forward where she poked fun at her B-list status.
Next Time I Marry is perfectly serviceable and actually provides Ball with quite a bit to do. The problem is that the script, seemingly a screwball about a daffy heiress and the working man she falls for, is ill-shaped. Garson Kanin directs but I wish he (and then-wife Ruth Gordon) had taken a crack at the script to punch it up and make the jokes better. The bickering needed more bite like the still crackling dynamics found in Kanin and Gordon’s scripts for Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.
The European gigolo that Ball is allegedly in love with and wants to actually marry is such a nothing character that I struggle to remember much about him post-viewing. Ralph Bellamy he ain’t, for sure. We know from the start that this handsome couple will wind up together, no matter how much they squabble before realizing they love each other, so this third point of the triangle never supports its weight or adds credible drama to the narrative.
Once again, Ball finds herself stuck in a trailer that tends to go awry. It is really weird how often this happened in her films. Were trailers just that popular between the 30s and 50s? Anyway, we get the earliest glimpses of her comedic chops here as she flings herself around and hurls her voice into that near-screech that would populate episodes of I Love Lucy.
At only 65 minutes, this never overstays its welcome but also never generates quite enough heat to sustain your undivided attention. Kanin was a fine director but this needed a better script to really make it sing. But even at this earliest glimpse of Ball as leading lady demonstrates her creative choices as a comedic actor. She had the potential to rival Carole Lombard as a screwball heroine, or to be the offbeat Madeline Kahn of her day, but the studios just didn’t see the vision that is so clear to us now.
I only know Edger Bergen from a childhood spent watching Fun & Fancy Free where he hosted the wraparound segments with his various puppets and Disney child actors. Oh, and I knew he was Candice Bergen’s dad, but that was about the extent of my knowledge. I get that on the stage and on the radio, we were supposed to pretend that these various dummies were sentient beings with their own distinct personalities, but carrying that over to a small-town film is a bit baffling.
At times the various ancillary characters treat Charlie McCarthy as both a ventriloquist dummy and as his own person. What exactly is he supposed to be? The internal logic is nonexistent so you get scenes where Ball is comforting Charlie for being left alone, or ones where he is talking to a prospective crush on the telephone. Are we in Muppet territory here? Well, not quite as there are other scenarios where everyone treats Charlie as the dummy he is and Bergen as his clear puppeteer.
If you are wondering why I am looking for some semblance of internal logic in this, it is because it had so little else to occupy my attention. Although, a scene where Charlie is hammered on ice cream sodas while Sterling Holloway as the soda jerk looks on in both sympathy and horror is quite a wonder. Was it good? Was it bad? Yes, it was both and neither.
I suppose your tolerance for this material will depend entirely on both Fibber McGee and Molly’s comedy style and Bergen. I don’t mind Bergen, but the Americana corn of Fibber and Molly eludes me. Maybe you just had to be there?
I am unsure why this collection exists as 2/3 of the films don’t actually star Ball but rather feature her in minor supporting roles. If you’re looking to expand your library of Ball cinematic features, then either: skip this one since she’s largely a supporting player, or seek it out if you’re a completist. I guess there is a reason we never got a volume 2, though.
I have saved her entry in TCM Greatest Classic Legends Film Collection for last as it is largely a repetitive affair with 1938's Room Service being the lone new addition. It is an odd choice as Ball is merely a girl Friday to the Marx Brothers. As I have already discussed Du Barry Was a Lady, The Long, Long Trailer, and Forever Darling, I will not be repeating myself here.
Description on the back of the DVD:
Room Service – Ball and Ann Miller join the
Marx Brothers in a riotous romp about a cash-strapped theatrical troupe trying
to nail down a backer for their new Broadway venture.
The plot, and there actually is one here, involves a Broadway producer and his plans trying to mount their show while evading eviction from the hotel they are residing in. Much of the film takes place within their hotel suite leaving the whole thing largely static and revealing its stage-bound origins. Like many post-Zeppo films, the romantic leads are played too straight and are too dull in comparison to the arched brow and wink Zeppo brought to those parts.
The Marx Brothers can never quite seem to bend the material to their will, and director William A. Seiter offers no real help. He keeps the pace slightly lugubrious and never plays the slapstick scenes, of which there are too few, for inventive visual comedy. He just places the camera and lets them riff in the frame when they aren’t being tasked with delivering exposition or playing outside of their own self-inventions. Occasionally Lucille Ball or Ann Miller pop-in to offer support or play the object of affection, but they disappear far too often to make a noticeable impression.
But there are still numerous moments of that manage to burst forth and illicit a hardy laugh. Harpo seemingly being a bottomless pit while shoveling food into his mouth is a wonder both for the physical comedy of it but in how exactly he managed to do it. Same goes for scene where he chases a turkey around their hotel room and smashes the place to bits. Groucho and Chico get a few moments of vocal tics and acrobatics but not quite enough.
Ball seems game when given the chance to join in their insanity but Miller seems awkward interacting with them. Frank Albertson is not one of their better romantic heroes but he is serviceable enough, and far better than The Big Store’s Tony Martin. The whole thing just isn’t daffy enough for the trio but it is a minor success. Emphasis on minor, though.
But there is some historic value to the film, which is not evident while watching it. Ball and Harpo became lifelong friends, and he became one of her comedy mentors. This would eventually play out during his delightful guest spot on I Love Lucy where they recreate the mirror scene from Duck Soup. It was also shortly after leaving RKO for MGM that Ball met with Buster Keaton, by this time working as a gag writer for the Marx Brothers. Keaton saw the vast potential in Ball as a comedienne and nurtured/coached that talent.
And there we have it for Ball’s box sets. Despite having a prolific and vast film career, Hollywood never quite knew what to make of the kooky redhead. Her film career is a wide-range of types, genres, and styles, but rarely given the premiere parts or films to launch her into movie stardom. No surprise she left for the likes of radio then television where she achieved a kind of influence and immortality that is incalculable to articulate or define.
Yet her film work does offer plenty of pleasures. After all, when you primarily know her as the whacky housewife getting into shenanigans continually, seeing her as a tough burlesque performer, a glamorous showgirl, or a spunky go-getter stumbling into criminal cases is a demonstration of what an underrated actress she was. Yes, she was Lucy Ricardo, but she was also so much more. I love Lucy. I really do.
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