DVD Review: Lucille Ball Film Collection

By Frankie Dees Jun 20, 2007, 10:16 GMT

Mame: Stars Lucille Ball, Beatrice Arthur, Robert Preston, Bruce Davison, Kirby FurlongDirectors: Gene Saks Genres: MusicalSynopsis The musical revolves around the antics of Mame Dennis ( Du Barry Was a Lady: Stars Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Gene Kelly, Virginia O\'Brien, Rags RaglandDirectors: Roy Del Ruth Genres: Comedy, MusicalSynopsis Hat check man Louis Blore is in love with nightclub star May Daly. May, however, is love with a poor dancer, but ...more

Apparently Lucille ‘I Love Lucy’ Ball made a few films outside of her enormously popular TV show…who da thunk it? While she never had the success in film that she found on the small screen, WB put together five of her RKO B-pictures along with some MGM and post “I Love Lucy” Warner Bros. work to form a mildly diverting collection that will probably only interest Lucille Ball die-hards only.

Most of her great work in film came in the form of ensembles where she played second banana to Hepburn, Dunne, Astaire & Rogers and even the Marx Brothers. Like 1938’s ‘Room Service’ or 1937’s ‘Stage Door’, she popped in, stole a few scenes and popped out…presumably learning her unique brand of slapstick along the way. While charismatic, she didn’t quite, albeit arguably, pop off the screen like she did in her sitcom. Her pre-sitcom work seemed to always be half-baked with a few exceptions along the way (including some effective dramatic turns) and her post-sitcom work was at best stilted and more often than not rehashed variations of Lucy (i.e. ‘Yours, Mine & Ours’, her three team-ups with Desi) although I’m sure Ball fans will be quick to disagree.

The first film in the set, chronologically, and probably the best of the bunch is “Dance, Girl, Dance”, a 1940 RKO picture directed by Dorothy Arzner and headlined by Maureen O’Hara and Louis Hayward with Lucille Ball only afforded third billing at this point in her career. Virginia Field and Ralphy Bellamy also star. The film’s notable for a few reasons - Dorothy Arzner was the only female director working at the capacity of her opposite-sexed brethren during the 30s and 40s and her pics undoubtedly have an intriguing female slant with actress Maria Ouspenskaya even dressed in openly “butch” costumes.

This is probably the best of Ball’s early work with this film where she also uses her own distinct if average singing voice with the role of Bubbles, a ‘How to Marry a Millionaire’ mentality-derived ballet dancer who doesn’t bat an eyelash to bring in more money as a burlesque dancer which is in direct contrast to her friend Judy (O’ Hara), the young red head complete with her native Irish accent,  who longs to become a serious dancer and doesn’t resort to “selling” herself quite as easily as Judy. Competition and the requisite cat fight come into play when they go after the same man.

While O’Hara has top billing, this is Ball’s show where she definitely shows some of that spark that will pop up more significantly later in her career – her burlesque performances are especially entertaining. O’Hara does have one great scene, though, where she lashes out at a jeering burlesque audience who finds issue with her classical dancing. There’s a good message in this film for women at the time that promotes hanging onto your respect and not taking the easy road of selling sexuality. Presented in full-frame preserving the original aspect ratio, special features include a vintage comedy short ‘Just a Cute Kid’ and a classic cartoon ‘Malibu Beach Party’.

Next is 1942’s rather silly ‘The Big Street’ with Ball costarring with Henry Fonda. Based on a mag story by Damon Runyon of ‘Guys and Dolls’ fame, ‘The Big Street’ tells the tale of a New York busboy Little Pinks (Fonda) who rushes to the rescue of a nightclub singer Gloria Lyons (Ball) when she gets knocked down some stairs by her mobster boyfriend. Pinks, a naïve, hardworking kid, takes her to his rather depressing apartment where he and surrounding characters put up with her ego and cruelty and even take to calling her “your highness”! Gloria remains fairly unlikable throughout the film as Pinks pushes the wheelchair bound Gloria all the way to Miami where…well, I don’t want to ruin it for you. Ball is decent in the role but her character never really became sympathetic for me even when the script is obviously pushing that way and Fonda plays Pinks as such a floormat, that you wanna grab him by the laurels and slap him across the face and tell him to snap out of it…he desperately needs the Gable “Frankly my dear…” line here.

Luckily the supporting cast of Sam Levane, Ray Collins, Eugene Pallette, Agnes Moorehead among others fare quite a bit better in the ‘Broadway’ comedic relief moments such as the argument at the Holland tunnel. There’s some okay spirit in the film but it played borderline ridiculous for me. Presented in the full frame ratio preserving the original aspect ratio, special features include a musical short ‘Calling All Girls’ and a classic cartoon ‘the Hep Cat’.

‘Du Barry was a Lady’ (1943) is another goofy pic that comes up short despite the talent that includes, besides Ball, Red Skelton, Gene Kelly, Zero Mostel, Virginia O’Brien, “Rags” Ragland and cameos from Lana Turner and Ava Gardner. It’s kind of hard to make head or tails of this Roy Del Ruth film that moves at a decent pace but never makes an impression.

Lucille Ball stars as May Daly, the headlining singer at Club Petite, where she enraptures audiences and her co-workers nightly. Two notable examples include Red Skelton’s Louis Blore, the hat check guy and Gene Kelly’s Alec Howe, the piano player. They both are head over cheap heels in love with her but she makes it no secret that what she wants is money, a husband that is able to give her anything she wants.

Louis strikes it rich with a sweepstakes and expectedly marries May, although with one caveat – May makes it clear it’s a business arrangement only. All this works well enough and then the last half of the film steers into an unfunny fantasy sequence. Louis drinks a damn near lethal Mickey Finn, a “Rooney” which knocks him out, and his dreams re-imagine him as the King Louis XV of the French court, Ball as his lady Madame Du Barry and Alec as the dashing villain Black Arrow. Hardy-har, har. 

The film works best in the then contemp setting where all the players get a chance to develop a rapport as opposed to the overlong fantasy sequence which consists of a lot of unbearable mugging. We can also check out the entertaining club acts from Ball and Kelly to the Tommy Dorsey orchestra in the first half hour if all else fails with no such entertaining fall backs later. Skelton has his effective clownish moments, though, despite Ball and Kelly not bringing much to the table. It does look quite good for its age…I can and will say that. Presented in full frame preserving its original aspect ratio with special features including the Oscar-nominated Pete Smith specialty short ‘Seeing Hands’, a classic cartoon ‘Bah Wilderness’ and the film’s theatrical trailer.

From bad to worse, we move onto 1962, post-show, with ‘Critic’s Choice’ which pairs Ball up with Bob Hope. Again. Although their team-up on 1950’s ‘Fancy Pants’ was just a hair this side of competent, they decided to push their luck with 1960’s absolutely unnecessary ‘The Facts of Life’ and then this pic which is even worse.

There’s no denying the comedic talents of both Ball and Hope, but besides the admittedly decent morsel of a funny idea for the script, the actual dialogue is trying it’s hardest to not be funny – and they both seem tired and going through the motions with neither Hope or Ball obviously not improvising at all with the script, which should be a must for these two.

Based on a stage play by Ira Levin and directed by Don Weis, a prolific television director, and co-starring Marilyn Maxwell and Rip Torn, the film has Ball and Hope playing wife and husband. Hope is a stuffy, hard-nosed theater critic that is well respected and hated at the same time. Ball, plays the creatively bored housewife who decides to write a play. One can already see the complications, issues and comedic hijinks before they even happen. He doesn’t like it, he discourages her, she does it anyway, her play picks up steam attracting a young studmuffin theater director (Torn), she flaunts Torn around him, he sees the error of his ways. The End. Everyone go home, nothing to see here. I can’t imagine the play being this banal, but who knows? The early to mid sixties was generally the period of routine sit-comish films and sex safe comedies usually headlined by Doris Day so maybe this was regarded as passable entertainment. The film is presented in a nice anamorphic widescreen transfer, special features consisting of a comedy short ‘Calling All Tars’ w/ Hope, an Oscar-nominated cartoon ‘Now Hear This’ and the films theatrical trailer.

And we end with one of the many films that essentially killed the musical in the disastrous musical run of the mid-seventies to early eighties. ‘Mame’ came out in 1974 as musicals were down spiraling into a flatspin that the genre is still trying to recover from. Directed by Gene Saks, director of the original theatrical run, fav Neil Simon film adapter (‘Barefoot in the Park’, ‘The Odd Couple’, ‘The Last of the Red Hot Lovers’ and ‘Brighton Beach Memoirs’), and who was then married to costar Beatrice Arthur.

Lucille Ball got involved by putting up five million of her own money to be considered for the lead as she thought Rosalind Russell’s performance in the non-musical version 1958’s ‘Auntie Mame’ “borrowed” heavily from her “I Love Lucy” creation. A move that resulted in Angela Lansbury being passed over for the role she won a Tony for with the original Broadway version. Ball also seemed to insist that her own vocals be used…which was a poor decision for this particular role.

All that positioning becomes even more embarrassing as Ball, cast 20 years younger than she was, makes her theatrical swansong a veritable disappointment not showing the drive and guts the role of auntie Mame deserves, and who is outshined by Rosalind Russell, Angela Lansbury and Ginger Rogers who all played the part before her. Revolving around the antics of the titular wealthy, eccentric that has a taste for wit and life that suddenly is plunged into a change of lifestyle with the sudden responsibility of taking care of her late brother’s only child and the advent of the depression, the role demanded a vigor that Ball was just unable to muster up, with the delivery and energy always coming off flat.

Equally unimpressive was her aforementioned vocals, which admittedly was never one of her greatest assets and at her age here becomes squint-inducing. Gene Saks appeared to rub Vaseline on the lense whenever he got a chance which gives the whole film an unattractive aura, especially with the close ups of Ms. Ball which looks unfocused….most likely by request. The score is merely okay, and is a hamper on the original play’s dialogue more than anything else. Luckily, the supporting characters are a bit more solid and don’t make viewing the film a complete waste with Robert Preston, Jane Connell and Beatrice Arthur all providing some great work with Arthur’s Vera Charles belonging to the high points of the film. The film is presented in a nice anamorphic widescreen transfer with a vintage featurette ‘Lucky Mame’ and the films theatrical trailer.

Overall, a fairly mediocre collection of films that WB decided to dust off although I’m sure most Lucille Ball fans will enjoy this set in a casual way and completists will have to have it regardless. The rest of us classic cinema fans are better off renting ‘Dance, Girl, Dance’ and calling it the day. 

Lucille Ball Film Collection is now available at Amazon. As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.