
Even though I Love Lucy was still America's top-rated series as it entered its fourth season, the producers -- including Desi Arnaz, who also starred as Cuban bandleader Ricky Ricardo -- decided it was time to freshen up the format a bit with a change of scenery. Thus, Ricky, his zany wife Lucy (Lucille Ball) and their friends Ethel and Fred Mertz (Vivian Vance, William Frawley) leave their familiar Manhattan environs and head Westward to Hollywood, where Ricky is slated to star in a musical movie version of Don Juan. With this in mind, it is only logical that I Love Lucy would for the first time in its existence traffic heavily in celebrity guest stars during its fourth season. Among the Hollywood notables making hilarious guest appearances are William Holden (who struggles manfully to keep a straight face as Lucy sets her false nose afire), Van Johnson, Richard Widmark, Cornel Wilde, and Hedda Hopper. The uncontested high point of this "big star" syndrome is Lucy's unforgettable encounter with the great Harpo Marx, recreating the classic "mirror scene" from the Marx Brothers' 1933 movie Duck Soup. ~ Rovi