William Frawley Movies

Here's a slew of songs taken from the popular I Love Lucy series. Included here are: "Babalu Rap" (Produced by "Weird" Al Yankovic), and Lucy's theme song, the "Friendship" duet, "Cuban Pete," "Straw Hat Song," "Cheek to Cheek," "Babalu," "California Here I Come," "We're Having a Baby." ~ Rovi

This episode is not only a reworking of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour featuring Betty Grable and Harry James, but it also represents the first season-four appearance of Ann Sothern as the Countess Framboise, otherwise known as Lucy's old school pal Rosie Hannigan. Showing up at Lucy's doorstep with plenty of luggage but no money, the countess confesses that her sole possession is a pregnant race horse named Oil Well left to her by her late husband. Instantly, Lucy (Lucille Ball) hatches a scheme to help both the countess and the horse -- with the unwitting aid of Mr. Mooney (Gale Gordon). (William Frawley), the immortal Fred Mertz of I Love Lucy fame, makes his last-ever TV appearance in this episode. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Several changes occurred in the I Love Lucy format during the series' sixth and final season on the air. For one thing, little Richard Keith, a talented six-year-old drummer, was cast in the role of Little Ricky, the son of Cuban bandleader Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz) and his wacky wife Lucy (Lucille Ball) (the character had previously been played by uncredited infants). For another, Ricky had quit his job at New York's Tropicana Club and opened his own nitery, the Club Babalu. With more money coming into the Ricardo household, Lucy and Ricky decide to leave New York City and move into an attractively appointed ranch house in suburban Connecticut. Not surprisingly, the Ricardos' longtime friends Fred and Ethel Mertz (William Frawley and Vivian Vance) likewise make the big move to the 'burbs. The change of locale also permits the introduction of two new characters, the Ricardos' next-door neighbors Ralph and Betty Ramsey (Frank Nelson, Mary Jane Croft). Despite the scenery shifting, I Love Lucy still delivers laughs in its classic, time-tested manner with Lucy hatching zany schemes and getting her family and friends knotted up in a variety of ridiculous situations. One episode, "Lucy Raises Chickens," features the longest sustained audience laughter in the series' history -- proof positive that the bloom was definitely not off the rose for this venerable property. Other highlights of I Love Lucy's final season (at least in its half-hour format) include guest appearance by Bob Hope, Orson Welles, and George Reeves (in his familiar guise as "Superman"); a Christmas episode comprised of clips from earlier seasons, which for many years was removed from the series' syndication package and did not resurface publicly until 1989; and the last I Love Lucy installment, "The Ricardos Dedicate a Statue," in which Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz' real-life son Desi Arnaz Jr. makes his TV acting debut. ~ Rovi

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

America's third most popular TV show during its first season, I Love Lucy skyrocketed to number one during Season Two -- no small thanks to the fact that the real-life pregnancy of Lucille Ball was brilliantly written into the script (though such was TV censorship at the time that the would "pregnant" could never be spoken). On January 19, 1953, Lucy Ricardo was wheeled into the delivery room -- the same night that the actress who played her gave birth to her son Desi Jr. "Lucy Goes to the Hospital" was not only the most-watched TV episode up to that time, but the news of the "double birth" was of sufficient import to knock coverage of President Eisenhower's first inauguration off the front pages of newspapers all over the country! Even without the legendary "Lucy is expecting" story arc and climax, Season Three of I Love Lucy deserves special mention in the record books for yielding one of the series' all-time best and funniest episodes: "ob Switching," in which Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance) end up working the conveyor belt at a candy factory -- with marvelously messy results. In addition to regulars Ball, Vance, Desi Arnaz (as Ricky Ricardo), and William Frawley (as Fred Mertz), the third season of I Love Lucy featured a stellar collection of top character actors including Charles Lane, Hans Conried, and Elizabeth Patterson in her first appearance as the Ricardos' fussy neighbor, Mrs. Trumble. ~ Rovi

By the time the first 35 episodes of I Love Lucy had been shown on CBS' Monday night lineup, virtually everybody in America loved zany redhead Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball), her Cuban bandleader husband Ricky (Desi Arnaz) and their landlords and best friends, Fred and Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance, William Frawley). The series admirably set up most of the standard situations that would endear it to the viewing public within its first two months on the air. In the debut episode "The Girls Want to Go to a Nightclub," Lucy pulls off her first "disguise scene" to fool Ricky; in "Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying to Murder Her" (the first episode filmed, but not the first one shown), our heroine takes a minor misunderstanding to hitherto unscaled farcical heights; and in "The Diet," Lucy makes the first of innumerable attempts to break into show business. Other memorable first-season episodes include: "The Audition," which was actually a remake of the original 1950 I Love Lucy pilot, treating fans to the actual nightclub act in which Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz appeared prior to their TV debut; "The Séance" would be memorable but for the classic line "Ethel to Tillie...Ethel to Tillie..."; "Lucy Fakes Illlness" is highlighted by Lucy's dead-on imitation of Tallulah Bankhead; and "Pioneer Women" features the outrageous "fast-rising bread" gag. Best of all, not to mention one of the most famous individual half-hour episodes in TV history, is "Lucy Does a TV Commercial," in which an increasingly besotted Lucy tries to extol the praises of that miracle concoction "Vitameatavegamin." ~ Rovi

Arguably the most popular TV situation comedy in the known world (and possibly a few worlds beyond that!), I Love Lucy has never stopped playing in rerun form since it originally aired over CBS from October 15, 1951, through June 24, 1957. It can be said without much fear of contradiction that everyone -- yes, everyone -- loves Lucy...and Ricky? and Fred? and Ethel. The first sitcom to be filmed with three cameras before a live audience, I Love Lucy starred real-life husband and wife Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz as Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, who throughout most of the series lived in a modest New York apartment house managed by their best friends, Fred and Ethel Mertz. Cuban-born Ricky was the bandleader at the Tropicana Club; redheaded Lucy was a housewife who yearned to break into show business -- or, failing that, to become fabulously wealthy through some hairbrained get-rich-quick scheme or other, usually hatched in collaboration with her partner in crime, Ethel -- much to the dismay of the easily excitable Ricky and the eternally crotchety Fred. To call Lucy "zany" would be putting it mildly; there seemed to be no end to the ridiculous situations she could get herself into, nor any limit on the wild plans she cooked up on her own or with Ethel. But no matter how crazy things got, Ricky and Lucy invariably ended up in each other's arms, Ricky declaring his undying love and (at least temporary) forgiveness. During its first season on the air, I Love Lucy was the nation's third highest-rated program. Thereafter, it was ranked number one or very close to it. When during the series' second season Lucy Ricardo had a baby (to coincide with Lucille Ball's genuine pregnancy), the episode on which the blessed event occurred enjoyed the largest viewership of any single program up to that time -- and, since both Lucy Ricardo and Lucille Ball gave birth on the very same day (January 19, 1953), the news was of such magnitude that it pushed President Eisenhower's first inauguration off the front pages!

To keep the series fresh from season to season, I Love Lucy's extraordinarily talented team of writers would every so often alter the format, never more spectacularly than in season four, when the Ricardos and the Mertzes headed to Hollywood so Ricky could star in a movie musical version of Don Juan. In keeping with its tinseltown ambience, the episodes emanating from this premise positively glittered with such celebrity guest stars as Richard Widmark, William Holden, Cornel Wilde, and most memorably, Harpo Marx. The "Lucy in Hollywood" format spilled over into the next season, yielding an unforgettable two-episode story arc involving John Wayne. Season Five also saw the four principals heading to Europe, accompanying Ricky's band on tour. The most significant changes occurred during the sixth and final season. Ricky had quit his job at the Tropicana to open his own night spot, the Club Babalulu, and the increase in the Ricardos' bank account enabled the couple and their son Little Ricky (played from the fall of 1956 onward by Richard Keith) to move to an expensive ranch house in suburban Connecticut. Naturally, the Mertzes moved next door, while on the other side of the Ricardo estate there lived another couple, Ralph and Betty Ramsey (played by Mary Jane Croft and Frank Nelson, who also essayed several other supporting roles on the series). Although the half-hour version of I Love Lucy ceased production at the end of the 1956-1957 season, the four stars (and "Little Ricky") went on to appear in 13 hour-long "Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour" specials, filmed between 1957 and 1960. And while Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz divorced in 1960, their production company Desilu remained a prolific TV-series factory for the next decade, turning out such hits as The Untouchables, Mission: Impossible, and Star Trek. On her own, Lucille Ball continued playing the "Lucy" character in two more series, The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy, which though very successful on their own never quite captured the unique chemistry and charm of I Love Lucy. ~ Rovi

Rhubarb is an amusing, if not entirely faithful, adaptation of the H. Allen Smith novel of the same name. When Thaddeus J. Banner (Gene Lockhart), multimillionaire owner of the Brooklyn baseball team, passes away, he wills the team -- and his $30 million estate -- to his pugnacious pet cat Rhubarb. Banner's press agent Eric Yeagar (Ray Milland) finds this hilarious, until he discovers that he's been appointed Rhubarb's guardian and business manager. One of the crosses Yeagar has to bear is the fact that his sweetheart Polly Sickles (Jan Sterling), the daughter of Brooklyn team manager Len Sickles (William Frawley), is deathly allergic to cats. Still, Yeagar must keep Rhubarb with him at all times, especially when the cat turns out to be a good-luck charm for the perennially basement-dwelling Brooklyn ballplayers. Thanks to Rhubarb's inspiration, the team makes it to the Pennant Race, whereupon the plot really thickens. The first two-thirds of Rhubarb adheres to the original Smith novel, culminating with a zany sanity hearing brought about by Banner's disgruntled relatives to prove that the cat is mentally unfit to control the old man's money. But the final reels abandon the novel in favor of a Guys and Dolls-inspired plot strand, wherein crooked gamblers kidnap the cat to prevent a Brooklyn pennant win. As a result, H. Allen Smith's satiric barbs are somewhat blunted in the final scenes -- which, however, is not to suggest that the film is any less funny than before. One of the better baseball comedies of the era, Rhubarb maintains its merriment right to the end, which is capped by a cameo appearance by a well-known actor who happened to be married to leading lady Jan Sterling. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This early CBS-TV show featured a rare appearance by comedian Chico Marx of the Marx Brothers in a situation comedy, Papa Romani. CBS later syndicated the show, and retitled it The Hollywood Half Hour. ~ Brian Gusse, Rovi

This film, which is one of a series based on the characters from the Blondie comic strip, finds Dagwood entering the Army Reserve. Blondie visits, only to discover that he has caused all sorts of problems which lead to numerous conflicts. The ORC Training Center, Fort MacArthur, California was used for the setting of this film. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

When a priceless diamond is stolen from a museum exhibition all suspicion falls upon the notorious Lone Wolf, a former jewel thief who became a reporter. It doesn't help that he was in the museum to write a story on the gem at the time of its theft. Now he and his gal pal must play amateur detectives in order to ring the real crooks to justice. This was the final entry in the "Lone Wolf" series. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi