The
Lucy & Desi Collection (Too Many Girls/The Long, Long Trailer/Forever
Darling)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C Films: B-
Lucille Ball was a name movie star and Desi Arnaz was an
up and coming talent. They were
immortalized by television more than any other medium, but they made three
feature films together that are often forgotten. Through Turner Entertainment owning the RKO and classic MGM
catalogs, Warner Home Video has gathered the only three features they made
together in The Lucy & Desi Collection, nicely boxed in three
slender cases.
Too Many Girls (RKO, 1940) starred Ball in the
lead of a story about a rich girl who goes to college and cannot become
independent as her overprotective father has four football players acting as
secret bodyguards. A musical of sorts
with songs by the great Rogers & Hart, the films first scenes deal with
Arnaz’ character trying to integrate into college life. Richard Carlson, Ann Miller, Frances
Langford, some RKO regulars and a then unknown (and uncredited in this film)
Iron Eye Cody (later of the most successful anti-litter TV ad ever made)
co-star in this talent showcase.
Ironically, Lucy & Desi would buy the studio a decade and a half
later from Howard Hughes, turning it into Desilu and building it into a
powerful new empire. The songs are not
bad and the film shows who ambitious RKO was in its heyday.
Their I Love Lucy series (reviewed elsewhere on
this site) debuted in 1951 and as the show set ratings records and broke new
ground, the couple tried a couple of lush feature films at MGM, in its final
years as the top studio in Hollywood.
They managed to land no less than Vincente Minnelli to direct The
Long, Long Trailer in 1954, which tried to take the couple off the set and
put the domestic situation on wheels.
The reversal is simply not as clever as their show, makes for an odd
film and is even interesting to watch when it does not work. The idea of seeing them in color was one
draw, but the problematic script hampers the film and Minnelli’s knack for
melodrama cuts into the comedy and drama.
The cast is a plus, including Marjorie Main, Keenan Wynn, Bert Freed,
Madge Blake and an uncredited Ruth McDevitt.
The final film followed a year later. Forever Darling (1955) involves the
couple in trouble (which turned out to be the case in real life) once happily
married when the bottom started to fall out.
In an odd twist, an angel (played by James Mason) arrives and tries to
save them from divorce. The problem
with this film is that it is the opposite of their hit series and the idea of
trying to make a film about serious domestic unions whether bliss is included
or not was something competing shows like I Married Joan tired and
failed to do to compete with their hit.
Also, it is obvious now that the Arnaz’s were in trouble and maybe
picking this somewhat prophetic project was a bad idea. It becomes a sad, bittersweet, ironic
production Desilu Studios was involved with and they went back to TV for good. Other beneficial casting includes Louis Calhern,
John Hoyt, Natalie (Gilligan’s Island) Schafer, Mabel Albertson and
Nancy (Beverly Hillbillies) Kulp.
At least the couple was trying to offer something
different to the same audience.
The 1.33 X 1 black and white image on Girls was
shot by RKO cameraman Frank Redman, which has its share of grain, but looks
good for its age. The 1.33 X 1 color
image on Long Trailer was shot by the great Robert Surtees, A.S.C., but
the color itself is at issue. The
slendercase the DVD comes in says Technicolor, but MGM was backing the Ansco
Color format too at the time and director Minnelli was using it in his
films. Technicolor was responsible for
the prints, but Ansco Color was a three-strip process itself at one time. By the 1950s, it was a single-strip stock
like EastmanColor and the Technicolor labs were simply doing the lab work that
actually made up for some of the stocks flaws and inferiority to Kodak’s
stocks. The result is slightly
bleeding/shifting color throughout in the fine detail, but in the hands of
Minnelli and Surtees interesting.
Ansco Color came from German Agfa color stocks, which was
a big competitor to Kodak at that time, but has been taken over for second
place by Fuji and Ansco Color was phased out a few years later. Today, Agfa sticks with still photography
for the most part, but the occasional motion picture is shot in their
still-produced motion picture film stock and it has improved greatly
since. See the review of 301/302
elsewhere on this site.
That leaves Darling, also raving about a print by
Technicolor, here in anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 framing shot in
EastmanColor. The color may be more
accurate and refined, but it is also not as rich and complex as Long Trailer,
since director Hall and cinematographer Harold Lipstein were trying for
something more commercial. For whatever
reason, the transfer is no better than Long Trailer either, so it is a
draw and makes for an interesting study of film color either way.
The Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono in all cases is more competent
than expected, though even the good audio transfer on Girls cannot hide
the age of the film. Extras on Girls
includes the original trailer, a live action monochrome Warner music short Frances
Carroll & The Coquettes and a nicely restored Merrie Melodies short Shop,
Look & Listen originally in three-strip dye-transfer Technicolor. Long Trailer has an original trailer,
Ain’t It Aggravatin’? short (anamorphically enhanced 16 X 9/1.78 X 1,
black and white) about people who cannot park or act appropriately and the
always amusing MGM animated short Dixieland Droopy in a good print doing
a decent job of approximating its three-strip dye-transfer Technicolor as
well. Darling includes its
trailer and an excerpt to push the film from the MGM Parade TV series in
black and white.
- Nicholas Sheffo
