Lucille Ball Movies
Left fatherless at the age of four, American actress Lucille Ball developed a strong work ethic in childhood; among her more unusual jobs was as a "seeing eye kid" for a blind soap peddler. Ball's mother sent the girl to the Chautauqua Institution for piano lessons, but she was determined to pursue an acting career after watching the positive audience reaction given to vaudeville monologist Julius Tannen. Young Ball performed in amateur plays for the Elks club and at her high school, at one point starring, staging, and publicizing a production of Charley's Aunt. In 1926, Ball enrolled in the John Murray Anderson American Academy of Dramatic Art in Manhattan (where Bette Davis was the star pupil), but was discouraged by her teachers to continue due to her shyness. Her reticence notwithstanding, Ball kept trying until she got chorus-girl work and modeling jobs; but even then she received little encouragement from her peers, and the combination of a serious auto accident and recurring stomach ailments seemed to bode ill for her theatrical future. Still, Ball was no quitter, and, in 1933, she managed to become one of the singing/dancing Goldwyn Girls for movie producer Samuel Goldwyn; her first picture was Eddie Cantor's Roman Scandals (1933). Working her way up from bit roles at both Columbia Pictures (where one of her assignments was in a Three Stooges short) and RKO Radio, Ball finally attained featured billing in 1935, and stardom in 1938 -- albeit mostly in B-movies.Throughout the late 1930s and '40s, Ball's movie career moved steadily, if not spectacularly; even when she got a good role like the nasty-tempered nightclub star in The Big Street (1942), it was usually because the "bigger" RKO contract actresses had turned it down. By the time she finished a contract at MGM (she was dubbed "Technicolor Tessie" at the studio because of her photogenic red hair and bright smile) and returned to Columbia in 1947, she was considered washed up. Ball's home life was none too secure, either. She'd married Cuban bandleader Desi Arnaz in 1940, but, despite an obvious strong affection for one another, they had separated and considered divorce numerous times during the war years. Hoping to keep her household together, Ball sought out professional work in which she could work with her husband. Offered her own TV series in 1950, she refused unless Arnaz would co-star. Television was a godsend for the couple; and Arnaz discovered he had a natural executive ability, and was soon calling all the shots for what would become I Love Lucy. From 1951 through 1957, it was the most popular sitcom on television, and Ball, after years of career stops and starts, was firmly established as a megastar in her role of zany, disaster-prone Lucy Ricardo. When her much-publicized baby was born in January 1953, the story received more press coverage than President Eisenhower's inauguration. With their new Hollywood prestige, Ball and Arnaz were able to set up the powerful Desilu Studios production complex, ultimately purchasing the facilities of RKO, where both performers had once been contract players. But professional pressures and personal problems began eroding the marriage, and Ball and Arnaz divorced in 1960, although both continued to operate Desilu.
Ball gave Broadway a try in the 1960 musical Wildcat, which was successful but no hit, and, in 1962, returned to TV to solo as Lucy Carmichael on The Lucy Show. She'd already bought out Arnaz's interest in Desilu, and, before selling the studio to Gulf and Western in 1969, Ball had become a powerful executive in her own right, determinedly guiding the destinies of such fondly remembered TV series as Star Trek and Mission: Impossible. The Lucy Show ended in the spring of 1968, but Ball was back that fall with Here's Lucy, in which she played "odd job" specialist Lucy Carter and co-starred with her real-life children, Desi Jr. and Lucie. Here's Lucy lasted until 1974, at which time her career took some odd directions. She poured a lot of her own money in a film version of the Broadway musical Mame (1974), which can charitably be labeled an embarrassment. Her later attempts to resume TV production, and her benighted TV comeback in the 1986 sitcom Life With Lucy, were unsuccessful, although Ball, herself, continued to be lionized as the First Lady of Television, accumulating numerous awards and honorariums. Despite her many latter-day attempts to change her image -- in addition to her blunt, commandeering off-stage personality -- Ball would forever remain the wacky "Lucy" that Americans had loved intensely in the '50s. She died in 1989. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1934
In their fourth two-reeler for Columbia, the Three Stooges are mistaken for college football heroes by a beautiful gangster's moll. The latter was played by a very young Lucille Ball, who would always credit the Stooges with introducing her to "slapstick and physical comedy." According to Jack White, brother of Stooges producer Jules White, Lucille quickly left the studio because "Harry Cohn didn't want to bother with her. He didn't think she had any talent!" ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi
- Starring:
- Moe Howard, Larry Fine, (more)
Brooklyn tugboat worker Eddie (Eddie Cantor), bullied and cowed by his tough-guy stepfather and stepbrothers (a la Harold Lloyd's The Kid Brother), inherits $77 million from his uncle, an Egyptologist. Con artist Dot (Ethel Merman) wants to get her lunchhooks on the money, and to this end offers herself as Eddie's adopted mother (never mind that she's nearly 20 years younger), intending to have her thuggish brother Louie (Warren Hymer) bump off our hero at the first opportunity. The nonsensical plotline ends up with Eddie, Dot, Louie, pompous Southern colonel Larrabee (Berton Churchill), and nominal romantic leads Jerry (George Murphy in his film debut) and Jane (Ann Sothern) trapped in the palace of Arab potentate Mulhulla (Paul Harvey). The better-than-average comic banter includes some funny bits between Cantor and Eve Sully, of the comedy team of "Block and Sully" (her husband-partner Jesse Block is also in the picture, but just barely). Spotted among the featured players in Kid Millions are such "Our Gang" members as Stymie Beard, Scotty Beckett and Tommy Bond, and there's a specialty by the Nicholas Brothers during Cantor's obligatory "blackface" number; and yes, that's Lucille Ball as a blonde Goldwyn Girl in the harem sequence. PS: According to Ethel Merman, the film's elaborate Technicolor ice-cream factory finale, in which Eddie allows dozens of tenement kids to gorge themselves on his tasty confections, posed censorship problems: while producer Sam Goldwyn was allowed to show the little boys with comically extended stomachs, he was not permitted to do so with the little girls, for fear that the audience might think the female moppets were pregnant! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Eddie Cantor, Stanley Fields, (more)
- 1934
In this drama, a fighter's fiancee refuses to marry him until he can overcome his insane jealousy. He does and they marry. The jealousy resurfaces when he finds his wife and her boss in a hotel room. He goes mad with rage and kills her boss. His wife is blamed for the killing. Just before the verdict is announced, the guilt-ridden man confesses and himself receives the death-penalty. Time passes and his finally hour arrives. He asks the attending priest to offer him a 10-count. Just as the priest hits nine, his voice becomes that of a referee and the boxer is seen slowly awakening from being knocked on conscious during a fight. The whole story was but a dream. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Nancy Carroll, George Murphy, (more)
- 1933
In this rough-and-tumble action comedy, Chuck Connors (Wallace Beery) and Steve Brodie (George Raft) are friendly rivals on New York's Bowery in the 1890s. Connors owns a fancy tavern and looks after a streetwise kid named Swipes McGurk (Jackie Cooper), while Brodie is a daredevil willing to do nearly anything to get the better of Connors. When both men fall in love with Lucy Calhoun (Fay Wray), who has fallen on hard times, Brodie takes her under his wing and helps get her back on her feet. Connors is furious that his rival has won her heart, so he goads Brodie into doing something spectacular to prove his love for her -- jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge, for example. Reckless but not stupid, Brodie has no intention of making the jump and plans to use a dummy instead, but when Connors and his henchmen show up to make sure that Brodie doesn't back down, the dare is turned into a wager, and Brodie emerges the new owner of Connors' bar after successfully making the jump. In real life, George Raft and Wallace Beery were not nearly so friendly as their characters: Raft persuaded director Raoul Walsh to hire a number of his underworld cronies as extras, which irritated Beery no end. When the two actors had a fight scene, Beery refused to hold back, and the staged fistfight quickly turned into a for-real battle royale. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Wallace Beery, George Raft, (more)
- 1933
This drama was written by famed radio announcer Walter Winchell. It chronicles the tragic love between a racketeer and a singer. So smitten is he by the chorus girl's charms that he buys her a nightclub. Unfortunately for him, the club's male crooner/bandleader also loves the girl. Realizing that he cannot compete, the crook bows out. However, during her wedding the racketeer lays down his life in exchange for hers when others attempt to kidnap her. He is shot, but survives. In the hospital he listens to the radio and hears that he is considered a hero and that the would-be kidnappers have been killed. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Constance Cummings, Russ Columbo, (more)
- 1933
Easily the best of Eddie Cantor's gargantuan musical comedies for producer Sam Goldwyn, Roman Scandals begins in the middle-America community of West Rome, where our hero Eddie (Cantor) is employed as a delivery boy. A self-styled authority of Ancient Roman history, Cantor bemoans the fact that the local shanty community is about to be wiped out by scheming politicians, certain that such an outrage could never have happened during Rome's Golden Days. After a blow on the head, Cantor wakes up in Imperial Rome, where he is sold on the slave auction block to good-natured tribune Josephus (David Manners). Cantor soon discovers that the evil emperor Valerius (Edward Arnold) is every bit a crook and grafter as the politicians in West Rome, and he intends to do something about it. He gets a job as food taster for Valerius -- a none-too-secure position, inasmuch as the emperor's wife Agrippa (Veree Teasdale) is constantly trying to poison her husband -- and does his best to smooth the path of romance for Josephus and recently captured princess Sylvia (Gloria Stuart). Cantor's well-intentioned interference earns him a session in the torture chamber, but he escapes and commandeers a chariot, setting the stage for a spectacular slapstick climax. On the verge of recapture, Cantor wakes to find himself in West Rome U.S.A. again, where he quickly foils the modern-day despots and brings about a happy ending for all his friends.
Co-written by George S. Kaufman, Robert E. Sherwood, George Oppenheimer and Arthur Sheekman (the soon-to-be husband of leading lady Gloria Stuart), Roman Scandals manages to get off a few clever satirical licks, but essentially it's a "lappy" lowbrow vehicle for Eddie Cantor, and in this it succeeds immensely. The Busby Berkeley-staged musical numbers, written by Harry Warren, Al Dubin and L. Wolfe Gilbert, must be seen to be believed: In "No More Love", Ruth Etting, playing the Emperor's cast-off mistress Olga, sings a plaintive torch song as dozens of enslaved Goldwyn Girls (including Lucille Ball and Barbara Pepper), wearing nothing but long, blonde wigs, are chained to a rotating pedestal; and in "Keep Young and Beautiful", these same maidens gleefully cavort around a Roman bathhouse in the near-altogether while Cantor, in blackface, hops about, rolls his eyes and claps his hands -- just before a jet of steam "shrinks" him, at which point he metamorphoses into midget Billy Barty! The quintessence of Depression-era escapism, Roman Scandals is must-see entertainment. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Co-written by George S. Kaufman, Robert E. Sherwood, George Oppenheimer and Arthur Sheekman (the soon-to-be husband of leading lady Gloria Stuart), Roman Scandals manages to get off a few clever satirical licks, but essentially it's a "lappy" lowbrow vehicle for Eddie Cantor, and in this it succeeds immensely. The Busby Berkeley-staged musical numbers, written by Harry Warren, Al Dubin and L. Wolfe Gilbert, must be seen to be believed: In "No More Love", Ruth Etting, playing the Emperor's cast-off mistress Olga, sings a plaintive torch song as dozens of enslaved Goldwyn Girls (including Lucille Ball and Barbara Pepper), wearing nothing but long, blonde wigs, are chained to a rotating pedestal; and in "Keep Young and Beautiful", these same maidens gleefully cavort around a Roman bathhouse in the near-altogether while Cantor, in blackface, hops about, rolls his eyes and claps his hands -- just before a jet of steam "shrinks" him, at which point he metamorphoses into midget Billy Barty! The quintessence of Depression-era escapism, Roman Scandals is must-see entertainment. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Eddie Cantor, Ruth Etting, (more)
- 1933
Roland Brown's Blood Money (1933) has lost none of its ability to entertain and startle over the seven decades since its release. The title refers to the business of affable, ambitious bail bondsman (and politically-connected grifter) Bill Bailey (George Bancroft), who, in the course of his work, crosses paths with every kind of offender there is, from first-time defendants to career criminals. Among the latter is Drury Darling (Chick Chandler), the brother of Bailey's paramour, nightclub owner Ruby Darling (Judith Anderson). Bailey is popular enough in the criminal world, over his providing the means for gang members to stay in circulation while awaiting trial, and he knows how to spread the money around to make the wheels of government run more smoothly (and not run over any of the speakeasies, casinos, clip-joints, and other enterprises of the gangs to which he is closest). Then, one day, he meets Elaine Talbert (Frances Dee), a thrill-seeking socialite whose penchant for excitement has ratcheted up from shoplifting in the better stores to fast cars and fast men. Bailey doesn't quite know what to make of her -- she's attractive enough, and drawn to him, but her lust for illicit and dangerous diversions runs counter to the common sense that he applies to his life, every place but where women are concerned. His quasi-legal and extra-legal maneuvering is fun for a while, but what she really wants, as she tells Bailey, is a man who will "take charge" and dominate her, physically and in every other way. Eventually, she tires of the middle-aged Bailey and gravitates toward Drury Darling, whose exploits as a bank robber, willing to fight the law head on, are more in line with some of the excitement that she craves. When Darling is arrested, he depends upon her to pass along the money that Bailey needs to bail him out, and that's when the smoothly operating life that Bailey has arranged for himself grinds to a halt. A cache of worthless bonds, a war within the underworld itself, and an assassination attempt on Bailey are just part of the double-dealing and blood-letting that ensues, climaxing with game of pool involving a booby-trapped eight ball (a variation of a famous sequence from Keaton's Sherlock Jr., later re-used by the Three Stooges in I'll Never Heil Again). And the finale for Elaine Talbert is a sequence that might not even have gotten past the politically-correct censors of the 1980's. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi
- Starring:
- George Bancroft, Frances Dee, (more)
- 1932
In director Leo McCarey's film The Kid From Spain, actor Eddie Cantor plays mischievious college boy Eddie Williams, who, with his buddy Ricardo (Robert Young), is kicked out of college for sneaking into the women's dormitory. Ricardo (Young), on his way back to Mexico, suggests Eddie (Cantor) come along. First, however, Ricardo must stop at the local bank for some cash. Unfortunately, the bank is robbed as the two boys are leaving, and the fleeing thieves mistake Eddie for their getaway driver. In a panic, Eddie races off towards the Mexican border in hopes of getting way from them. Realizing that the bank robbers will go after him--Eddie, after all, is the only one who saw their faces--he convinces a skeptical border guard that he, too, is a Mexican. Once in Mexico, he's mistaken for a renowed bullfighter, and plays along with his newly assigned identity in order to avoid the American detective on his trail. Mayhem ensues, and Eddie eventually falls in love with Rosalie (Lyda Roberti), a young Mexican woman with an over-protective father. The musical numbers in The Kid From Spain were staged by a young Busby Berkeley and feature the oldwyn Girls, whose ranks in this film include Betty Grable, Paulette Goddard, and Jane Wyman.
~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi
~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi
- Starring:
- Eddie Cantor, Lyda Roberti, (more)
The Lucy Show undergoes a number of major changes as the series enters it fourth season. For one thing, the show is now lensed in color rather than black-and-white. For another, wacky widow Lucy Carmichael (Lucille Ball) has moved from Danfield, CA to San Francisco -- as has banker Theodore J. Mooney (Gale Gordon), who by transferring to an executive post at Frisco's Westland Bank had foolishly assumed he had rid himself of his longtime nemesis Mrs. Carmichael, whose bank account had been (and would continue to be) in Mr. Mooney's trembling hands. Also, Lucy's longtime cohort Vivian Bagley (Vivian Vance) has left the series as a regular character, though she will continue to show up for several well-received guest appearances. Other regulars missing from season four are Lucy's daughter Chris (Candy Moore) and Viv's son Sherman (Ralph Hart), while Lucy's son Jerry (Jimmy Garrett) has been reduced to "recurring" status. Although most of this season's episodes are set in motion by the friction between Lucy and Mr. Mooney -- especially after Lucy takes a job as Mooney's secretary in order to make financial ends meet -- a trio of guest actresses have been added to the fold to make up for Vivian Vance's absence. Mary Jane Croft is seen in a handful of episodes as Mary Jane Lewis, Lucy's co-worker at the bank and frequent coconspirator in our heroine's zany schemes. And carried over from the previous season for a number of memorable appearances is Ann Sothern as the glamorous globetrotter Countess Framboise, who in an earlier life had been Lucy's school chum Rosie Harrigan -- and who, being as flat broke as Lucy, is forced to accept a job as a real estate agent. Finally, Joan Blondell can be seen in two episodes as another of Lucy's bosom buddies, movie-studio employee Joan Brenner. Season four is distinguished by a number of celebrity guest appearances, beginning with baseball great Jimmy Piersall in the season opener, "Lucy at Marineland" (which also marks the first time that the series filmed an episode "on location" rather than within the walls of Desilu studios). Later episodes this year include "Lucy Helps Danny Thomas," "Lucy Saves Milton Berle," "Lucy and Art Linkletter," "Lucy Discovers Wayne Newton" -- and best of all, "Lucy Dates Dean Martin," which Lucille Ball has cited as her all-time favorite Lucy Show installment. One of these "guest" episodes, "Lucy Meets Bob Crane," is a continuation of a running gag introduced during season five, wherein Lucy supplements her income by moonlighting -- in drag -- as Hollywood stunt double "Iron Man Carmichael." And on at least two occasions, the series' reliance upon guest performances conjures up sweet memories of past triumphs for Desilu studios. "Lucy the Gun Moll" is a broad spoof of the classic Desilu crime drama The Untouchables, with Robert Stack (the former Elliot Ness), Bruce Gordon (the onetime Frank Nitti), and narrator Walter Winchell going through their familiar paces; and on a more poignant note, "Lucy and the Countess Have a Horse Guest," which features the last-ever TV appearance by I Love Lucy's unforgettable Fred Mertz, William Frawley. The changes wrought upon The Lucy Show resulted in some of the series' best ratings, with the series ending its fifth season as America's third most popular program. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lucille Ball, Gale Gordon, (more)
The second season of The Lucy Show finds zany redheaded widow Lucy Carmichael (Lucille Ball) and her more levelheaded divorced housemate Vivian Bagley (Vivian Vance) still enmeshing themselves in comic situations cheerfully reminiscent of the actresses' glory days on I Love Lucy -- and still in glorious black-and-white, due to the fact that the CBS network was still, for all intents and purposes color-blind during the 1963-64 season. The most important development this year is the introduction of Gale Gordon as Theodore J. Mooney, new president of the Danfield National Bank, the institution handling the estate of Lucy's late husband. Mr. Mooney should have been prepared for what he was in for when, in his first appearance on the series, Lucy accidentally locks him in the bank vault -- twice. And yet, Mooney courageously remains in Danfield to handle Lucy's weekly allowance, suffering the hilarious consequences week after week after week. Since Candy Moore and Jimmy Garrett are still in the cast as Lucy's children Chris and Jerry -- ditto Ralph Hart as Viv's son Sherman -- many of the season two plotlines deal with Lucy and Viv's efforts to properly care for their kids. "Care" in their case generally meaning "interfere," especially when they chaperone Chris' beach party, and when Lucy cooks up a variety of lunkheaded stratagems to sneak a visit with Jerry at his military school. However, the season's best episodes eschew the series' "domestic" angle in favor of pure I Love Lucy farce, notably Lucy and Viv's outrageous spoof of the then-current Elizabeth Taylor film version of Cleopatra. Also, the second season finds a handful of guest stars involved in the heroine's shenanigans, notably Broadway star Ethel Merman, singer Roberta Sherwood, character actor John Carradine, comedian Wally Cox, golfer Jimmy Demaret, and even Lucille Ball's husband Gary Morton and her then ten-year-old son Desi Arnaz Jr.. It would, however, be two more seasons before The Lucy Show's "special guest star" policy would shift into high gear. The Lucy Show finished up its second season as America's sixth most popular TV series -- and its fifth most popular sitcom, after The Beverly Hillbillies, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Petticoat Junction, and The Andy Griffith Show. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lucille Ball, Vivian Vance, (more)
Lucille Ball proves that her two-year absence from network television has not in any way blunted her comic expertise as The Lucy Show launches its first season. The episodes herein are pleasantly schizophrenic, with widowed mother Lucy Carmichael (Ball, of course) harvesting new comedy opportunities out of such situations as attracting eligible bachelors, raising money to augment her allowance, and wrestling with the trials and tribulations of single motherhood with daughter Chris (Candy Moore) and son Jerry (Jimmy Garrett), and at the same time capturing the carefree zaniness of the I Love Lucy days, vis-à-vis Lucy's misadventures with best her friend and housemate, divorcée Vivian Bagley, played by Ball's former I Love Lucy co-star Vivian Vance. For her part, Viv Bagley also must be both mother and father to her own kid Sherman (Ralph Hart) -- who, fortuitously enough, is Jerry Carmichael's best friend. On the "dating" front, things get off to a fine start with the series' second episode, in which Lucy and Viv finagle Jerry's math teacher (William Windom) into escorting both of them to a Saturday night dance; in later episodes, Lucy will try to win a guy (Frank Aletter) away from Viv by feigning an interest in classical music, and will go gaga over her new boss (John Vivyan) when she takes a temporary job as a society columnist. (Incidentally, Dick Martin of Rowan & Martin fame is seen throughout this season as Harry Conners, Lucy's next-door neighbor and occasional boyfriend.) As for her money-raising schemes, Lucy inaugurates her well-meaning torture of Mr. Barnsahl (Charles Lane), the banker handling her late husband's estate, when she accidentally writes a donation check for two thousand dollars and then goes to great and hilarious lengths to cover up the gaping hole in her bank account. And in a classic episode reminiscent of I Love Lucy at its best, Lucy and Viv set up a "factory" in their kitchen to mass-produce Viv's caramel corn recipe. Finally, our heroines gently intrude upon their offspring's private lives by making a big production of waiting for Chris' return from a date and becoming a public spectacle while refereeing Jerry and Ralph's football game; and best of all, Lucy imitates Charlie Chaplin in a comedy sketch staged for Chris' classmates. And on a pure slapstick-force level, few of the Lucy Show episodes can match the hilarity of the first-season episode in which Lucy and Viv become volunteer firemen, or the one in which Lucy takes singing lessons from guest star Hans Conried to qualify for a neighborhood barbershop quartet, or the installment wherein Lucy finds herself "driving" a dump truck. The first-season ratings of The Lucy Show proved beyond doubt that America still loved Lucy: her series ranked as the fourth most popular TV show in the country, sharing this honor with the popular Bonanza. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lucille Ball, Vivian Vance, (more)
Season three of The Lucy Show is something of a watershed for the series. To be sure, most of the episodes adhere to the formula established during the first two seasons, with wacky widow Lucy Carmichael (Lucille Ball) and her divorced best friend and housemate Vivian Bagley (Vivian Vance) getting mixed up in zany, farcical I Love Lucy-style situations, and with Lucy and Viv trying their best to be both parents and pals to their children, Lucy's daughter Chris (Candy Moore) and son Jerry (Jimmy Garrett); and Viv's son Sherman (Ralph Hart). However, more and more episodes were devoted to the love-hate relationship between Lucy and bank president Theodore J. Mooney (Gale Gordon), who controlled Lucy's weekly allowance and who was regularly driven to fits of hilarious frenzy whenever Lucy hatched one of her many get-rich-quick schemes or one of her "clever" subterfuges to wheedle more money from the banks. Clearly, it would not be long before The Lucy Show would focus almost exclusively on the misadventures of Lucy and Mr. Mooney -- or at least, it was clear to co-star Vivian Vance, who decided to leave the series at the end of the third season (though she would return for several "guest" appearances over the next several years). The Lucy Show's future heavy reliance upon guest stars was already making itself felt during season three. Both Jack Benny and Bob Hope appear in the episode "Lucy and the Plumber" while future episodes this season bear such titles as "Lucy Meets Arthur Godfrey" and "Lucy Meets Danny Kaye." Also, "Lucy and the Countess" marks the first of several guest appearances by Ann Sothern as Countess Framboise, who turns out to be Lucy Carmichael's old school chum Rosie Harrigan. During the next season, Sothern would be teamed with Lucy as an ersatz Vivian Bagley in a number of comic misadventures. The Lucy Show finished its third season with a 26.6 Nielsen rating, making it America's eighth most popular series. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lucille Ball, Vivian Vance, (more)
Although actress/producer Lucille Ball had gone through her usual song and dance with CBS by insisting that the fourth season of The Lucy Show would be the last, the network came through with enough incentives and perks -- financial and otherwise -- to encourage the actress to continue the series for a fifth season. As before, the show deals primarily with the merry misadventures of wacky redheaded widow Lucy Carmichael (Lucille Ball), whose various efforts to increase her bank account invariably spelled disaster for her boss, bank vice president Theodore J. Mooney. Also, the series' policy of peppering its episodes with top guest stars continues unabated. Typical episodes during season five include "Lucy With George Burns," "Lucy and Paul Winchell," "Lucy and John Wayne," "Lucy and Phil Silvers," "Lucy and Tennessee Ernie Ford," and "Lucy Meets Sheldon Leonard" -- not to mention a brace of story arcs utilizing the talents of Carol Burnett and Mel Tormé. Plus, former Lucy Show co-star Vivian Vance is on hand for the unforgettable episode in which Lucy and her visiting pal Viv disguise themselves as hippies. Finally, in the tradition of the previous season's "Lucy at Marineland," the series' fifth season offers a few more location-filmed jaunts for heroine Lucy Carmichael, to such faraway places as Las Vegas and London. Although Lucille Ball was showing signs of slowing down and wearing out (her already raspy voice had, in the past few seasons, dropped several octives, and her face was ever so slightly beginning to betray her age), audiences still "loved Lucy" with a passion, as witnessed by the year's Top Ten ratings, in which The Lucy Show held strong in a solid fourth place. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lucille Ball, Gale Gordon, (more)
As The Lucy Show entered its sixth season in the fall of 1967, star/producer Lucille Ball had already determined that the show had run its course and would not be returning the following fall. This, however, did not mean that Ball was bidding farewell to series television. Season six offers basically the same mixture as the previous two seasons: wacky redheaded widow Lucy Carmichael (Lucille Ball) inadvertently making life miserable for her boss, bank vice president Theodore J. Mooney (Gale Gordon), with periodic appearances by guest stars. This season's celebrity crop includes Milton Berle, Robert Goulet, Frankie Avalon, Carol Burnett, Sid Caesar, Edie Adams, Buddy Hackett, and Phil Harris -- not to mention Joan Crawford, who sings and dances with Lucy in a '20s-style vaudeville revue. Inarguably the best of the guest-star episode is the Emmy-nominated "Lucy Gets Jack Benny's Account," which is highlighted by a gadget-laden tour of Benny's infamous bank vault. Although The Lucy Show ranked as America's second most popular series at the end of its sixth season (it was beaten out only by The Andy Griffith Show), Lucille Ball was intractable: The series would not return for a seventh season -- at least, not in its familiar form. Come September of 1968, Lucille Ball and Gale Gordon were cast as "new" characters in the "new" series Here's Lucy, which also managed to find places in the cast for Ball's children Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr. -- to say nothing of the whole new battery of guest stars! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lucille Ball, Gale Gordon, (more)
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