The Remake

It's called EASY TO WED, and it's OK, but not on the par of the original.
Esther Williams was certainly no Myrna Loy, and I felt that Lucille Ball was just imitating Jean Harlow.
And while he was certainly beautiful to look at, Van Johnson was woefully lacking William Powell's sophistication and perfect comic timing.
The only really good thing about it is the Technicolor photography.

I find the remake EASY TO WED startlingly good considering Lucille Ball is the only one of the four stars with acting talent and charisma on the level of the original players. It's a fun movie although of course not as superb as the original. I disagree with the other poster though - I find Lucy's take on Gladys quite distinct, more a wacky dame than how Jean played the part. I love them both in the role equally.

As I said on the board for the remake, personally, I think there are only 2 reasons to prefer one over the other: 1. Its era, and 2. its stars. Otherwise, I am puzzled by the big divide over the people who love the original and yet hate this. I mean, it's almost the exact same movie, verbatim! I know, because "Libled Lady" came on TCM last night, and though I was excited to see it at first, when I realized how it's almost exactly the same to this, I thought "Why bother?" and cut it off.

As you may have gathered, I saw this movie first (b/c I'm a Lucy fan). But, after reading all the praise for LL, I find that it spoils my enjoyment of it a little. Although, I never really cared much for this movie, even before discovering it's a remake. So, I don't see how I could like the very similar original much better...

Please excuse typos/funny wording; I use speech-recognition that doesn't always recognize!

In the remake, they tried to get Gene Kelly and Lana Turner for the parts Keenan Wynn and Lucille Ball eventually ended up playing. I think that would have been a stronger movie. With Johnson, Williams, Kelly and Turner, you have all four actors, as in the original, of equal stature. (Keenan Wynn was a character actor and Lucille Ball never really hit it big until "I Love Lucy".)