MovieChat Forums > I Love Lucy (1951) Discussion > The Italian Wig

The Italian Wig

posted 7 years ago by [email protected] (5497)
22 replies | jump to latest

Just love this episode. Lucy looked just gorgeous in that wig and outfit.

Her flirtatious exchange with Ricky was so funny.

"He leered at me and called me honey in a tone I haven't heard since the day before we got married."

Ethel looked good in the wig too, but she couldn't fool Fred. "Hi Ethel!"

I always wondered what was wrong, some kind of blooper, when Lucy sits in the beauty shop chair. The hair dresser says that husbands have "no imagination".

Lucy starts to reply with something but then she is cut off. Was there another line that she spoke that was edited? Just a weird moment.

Ethel "looked like an ad for a trip around the world"! But WHY did she have to wear the geisha wig? Surely there was another wig that would have fit her! Still one of the funniest sight gags ever.

[–] [email protected] (1732) 7 years ago

Yes, clearly there was some editing with the hairdresser. Some trimming, I suspect, to get things down to a 24
minute running time.

One of my all-time favorite episodes.

Only complaint: We're supposed to buy that Ricky doesn't know who Lucy is. For Lucy to buy this, it would've been
much more effective if Lucy wore sunglasses (pulling them down in closeups when Ricky is looking away) and if she
attempted some sort of Italian accent.

Lucy was too smart a character to not realize that Ricky didn't recognize who she was.

[–] [email protected] (5497) 7 years ago

Well, Ricky did know it was Lucy, but Lucy was sure she fooled him with her disguise! I also think Lucy was smart and she would have caught on that Ricky was just messing with her. I mean, calling her "the old battle ax", making a date with a stranger, etc.

We just had to accept that Lucy was fooled. The "costume disguise" shtick was used on ILL right from the start.

Remember the first episode when the girls wanted to go to a nightclub for the Mertz's anniversary and the guys wanted to go to the fights.? Ricky and Fred got dates which turned out to be Lucy and Ethel. They dressed in wild costumes like characters straight out of Lil Abner, but really, the guys didn't recognize their own wives! It was only when Lucy went to the desk to get cigarettes that Ricky realized who she was.

Lucy also tried to fool the game show host Freddie Fillmore with a very lame costume. Remember when she sent a letter to his "Be a Good Neighbor", the game show? She wanted to send "the kindly couple" (the Mertzes) to Honolulu with their dear old mother (Lucy). Lucy's disguise as the old woman was a head scarf with a bit of grey hair sticking out and wire rimmed glasses. Hard to believe she thought she could fool him with that "disguise".

Those disguises wouldn't fool anyone in real life but it was just part of the sitcom shtick.

[–] [email protected] (1732) 7 years ago

I'm well aware that Ricky knew it was Lucy. I just don't buy that Lucy would've been this easily hoodwinked. I think sunglasses and an attempt at an accent would've made it more believable that LUCY would buy it. Even Ethel says, "I'll bet he knew it was you all the time."

[–] [email protected] (5497) 7 years ago

Well, maybe Lucy just wanted to make Ricky "pay" for being such a jerk! lol Yeah ,perhaps deep down she knew Ethel was right, but Ricky just made her so mad, she wanted a little "wifely" revenge.

[–] Daggerboard (581) 7 years ago

Agreed. Good episode, and both Lucy and Ethel looked good in the wig.

[–] [email protected] (1732) 7 years ago

Can't say I agree about Ethel - I think the wig made her less attractive. Her face looked fatter and she looked more
stout.

[–] [email protected] (5497) 7 years ago

Well I didn't think Ethel looked TOO bad in it. It was an interesting look for her, not great, but not as bad as Fred said.
"On you it looks like 'Life with Luigi'. Fred had some nerve commenting on ANYONE else's hair! lol

In all fairness to Vivian Vance, I think the wig was chosen and styled to flatter the star of the show, Lucille Ball. And Miss Ball did look good as either a redhead or a brunette. Vivian Vance looked better as a blonde, imho.

The one time I thought Ethel looked as good as or even better than Lucy was in the charm school episode. She was simply a knockout in her make-over with the leopard print gown.

[–] [email protected] (1732) 7 years ago

Can't say I agree in "Charm School" either. There is a REASON Ethel gets a HUGE LAUGH from the studio
audience when Lucy opens the door - she looks RIDICULOUS. Lucy looks much better.

I think Vance looked her most attractive in the final season with her longer hair. She actually looks more
youthful and cute in the Country episodes than she does in season one.

[–] [email protected] (5497) 7 years ago

Well I think Ethel got a HUGE laugh because the audience was probably prompted with a big sign ( you know, like those APPLAUSE signs). "LAUGH REAL LOUD here!" lol

No seriously, just making that up, but I do think the audience laughed because of Ethel's outrageous pose in the doorway. It was SO unlike Ethel!

But as Ricky said, "This is phony. This is not you." Both women were made up a "tad" too much. But I think that skintight gown showed off Vance's figure. She wasn't fat like Fred was always complaining. And for some reason, I liked that "look" on her, the big earrings, the hair slicked back.

But I will agree that Vance looked very attractive in the last season country episodes. She didn't have to wear dowdy housedresses anymore. In the episode with the baby chicks running amuck, I thought she looked especially youthful in those shorts!

Remember how Lucy had to crank up the heat to keep the chicks warm after little Ricky allowed them to escape from the den? Lucy went for a more comical look with her pants rolled up in the heat. Vivian Vance sported a pair of shorts that showed off a fine pair of legs. I think it was one of the few times Miss Ball allowed Vivian Vance to look better.

[–] [email protected] (1732) 7 years ago

I think the leopard outfit is absurd...however, I might slightly agree that Ethel's eye makeup was becoming, if
a tad overdone. I do know Ball really wanted Vance to look as dowdy as possible. Lucy was the glamorous
star...and an aging one at that.

[–] [email protected] (5497) 7 years ago

Yes, Lucille and Vivian were too close in age for Ethel to realistically look decades older than Lucy. They had to "frump her up." lol

Remember the country episode with Barbara Eden? When the women got dolled up, I thought Ethel looked pretty good. She fixed herself up but didn't go overboard. Lucy tried too hard too pull off a youthful look.

From what I read, the hairstyle that Ethel wore to the dance, as Fred called it "slicked back like a Pekinese", was the way Vivian Vance was wearing her hair in real life. I thought it was becoming and for a follicle challenged Fred, another silly jibe at someone who HAD hair! lol

As for Ethel's leopard skin dress, strange that I'd stick up for that. I have NO animal print clothes and I'd never wear any. I just thought that the style of gown flattered Vance's figure. It was a great sight gag, both women looked way over the top. No way could they keep up that hair and make-up every day.

[–] [email protected] (1732) 7 years ago

Ethel wasn't supposed to be "decades" older than Lucy. In "Lucy Tells the Truth", Lucy says she's
33. In "Ethel's Birthday", Ethel is described (by Fred) as being somewhere between 40 and 50.
Let's go with 41. This is NOT "decades" older, for heaven's sake.

[–] [email protected] (5497) 7 years ago

So my math is not so great! lol Originally they did consider Bea Benadaret for the role of Ethel and she was about fifty when ILL premiered. They did envision the Mertzes as an older couple, not a May/December romance.

The Mertzes were vaudeville performers. I looked it up and it's said that vaudeville basically ended in 1932. Of course Ethel could have been a very young performer.

Yes, regarding Ethel's age, Fred does say, "Let's say it's somewhere between the Speedy Cleaners and Goldblatt's Delicatessen."

But he only SAID, "let's say", that's not actual proof that Ethel is between forty and fifty. And consider the number of times Ethel got angry with Fred! If he said something like, "She's was born before Goldblatt's delicatessen (or whichever one was fifty), Fred would have been in a lot of trouble when he got home! I'm thinking he just fudged the numbers. But now that you mention it, I doubt Ethel was supposed to be more than fifty.

When they were snowed in, in the Swiss Alps, everyone started baring their souls. Ethel confesses to Fred that when they married, "I wasn't 18, I was 19." And Fred says, "You were 23!" Of course that doesn't help determine Ethel's age because the scripts were all over the place with the number of years they were married. First it was 18, then 25, then back to 22 I think.

As far as Lucy "telling the truth", I often had my doubts with her "33, 128 and mousy brown" answer. Okay, I'll go with the hair color! But were they going to put her on a scale or search for her birth certificate? Sometimes I think she gave them "possible" answers.

If you want to "go with 41" as Ethel's age, well you can if you want to. But supposedly the Ricardos moved in the building right after they married. That was thirteen years ago. Ethel would've been 28. Why would a woman in her twenties be so secretive about her age to her new friend?

[–] [email protected] (1732) 7 years ago

Boy, your math really IS bad. In the same opening scene of "Ethel's Birthday", Lucy suggests
Ethel is 53. Ethel's shocked reply - "I am NOT...I'm only..." is clearly indicating that Ethel IS
under 50. This makes Ethel married to a much older man (I take Frawley as to be playing his
real age). With their careers dying...Ethel "settled" and married a much older man and they
purchased that brownstone apartment.

Judy Garland was still in vaudeville in 1935 when she was signed by MGM. Vaudeville didn't
just suddenly end in 1932.

[–] [email protected] (5497) 7 years ago

Not my math, so much as my memory! I knew Lucy made up an age hoping to get Ethel to deny it and reveal her true age. But I couldn't remember the age she said.

For Ethel to deny 53 as her age and say, "I'm only..." doesn't prove she's under fifty. She could have just been turning fifty. Just denying one number does not prove any other number.

As lawyers say, "I object. Calls for speculation." lol

I didn't mean to imply that vaudeville "ended suddenly". But from everything I've read, it was dying out (not totally dead!) because most vaudeville theaters were being replace with moving pictures.

One article I read said that when the Palace Theater in New York, which was the center of vaudeville, switched over to cinema in late 1932, it signaled "the death knell" of vaudeville.

No doubt Fred was older than Ethel by more than a few years! But I do think they were married when they performed in vaudeville. Doubtful that a well bred young lady would be travelling around the country with her male partner and not be married.

Remember how Ethel told Fred that "daddy forgave us for eloping."

Don't know why I'm going on about vaudeville. It doesn't prove Ethel's age anyway! But I don't get the secretiveness Ethel had about her age either. Not wanting her best friend to know it like it was something shameful is odd.

[–] [email protected] (1732) 7 years ago

Sorry, but I don't see Ethel past early 40's. This was Vance's age and this is how she
looked. And I believe Lucy when she states she's 33, because in the script she is
suddenly telling the truth. That was the comedy she came across. Also, in the last
episode of season three, "The Sublease", Ricky states that Lucy is around 34, by doing
the math of how old she was when they moved in ("22") and how long they've lived
there ("12 years"). Surely you realize that Lucy is only supposed to be in her early to
mid-30's. And it's not believable in the least that Ethel is twenty years older than
Lucy. Clearly, Fred is in his 60's. Ethel married an older man. Pretty obvious to me.

[–] [email protected] (5497) 7 years ago

Yes, this all started because I typed in Ethel was "decades older" when I should've just typed "some years" older! lol

As I child I went along with the idea that Fred and Ethel were closer in age. They dressed her older and several times Lucy referred to them as "an older couple." And who can forget "Real Gone with the Wind" when Lucy said that Ethel was "like a mother" to her. Ethel was boiling mad. LOL

It was only when I grew up that I noticed that Vivian Vance looked a lot younger than what I had thought as a child. Since the actresses were roughly the same age, it seemed to me that the whole pretense was to make Lucy seem a lot younger.

Of course not everyone "looks" their true age. Remember the Orson Welles episode when Lucy invited her high school drama teacher, Miss Hannah, to New York? Ellen Corby and Lucille Ball were the same age. Lucy did look a lot younger than Miss Hannah.

Oh yes, I know Lucy was supposed to be a lot younger than Lucille Ball. In one biography I have of the show, they say that Lucy was supposed to be 29 in the pilot episode which seemed a bit of a stretch to me! Or else the author of thebook got some facts mixed up.

Actually the two actresses seemed to age in reverse. Vance got better clothes and hairstyles in season six and looked younger. Lucille Ball's smoking and stress over her crumbling marriage started to make her look older and tired.

I especially thought her short hair style in the Lucy/Desi Comedy Hour instantly aged her.

[–] [email protected] (1732) 7 years ago

I don't think Fred is supposed to be lying when he says Ethel is somewhere between
40 and 50.

The silliest thing in all this is that Lucy and Ethel wouldn't know each other's true
ages! They're supposed to be best friends, they keep this a secret from each
other??? Very 1950's vain.

[–] [email protected] (5497) 7 years ago

Bingo about them being best friends and keeping their ages a secret! As I said before, the Ricardos moved into the Mertz's building over a decade ago. Why would Ethel have been so reticent to admit she was almost thirty?

One episode I forgot about is 'Drafted', when Ricky and Fred are going to do a show at Fort Dix. Lucy and Ethel think the fellas were drafted and the guys think they are about to become fathers.

Fred mentioned several times about being stationed in France in World War One. Ethel could hardly have been his age if Fred thought she was going to have a baby!

[–] [email protected] (1732) 7 years ago

While I count "Drafted" as among the worst of ILL, at least it proves that
Ethel wasn't past menopause if Fred thought she was pregnant!

[–] Gubbio (3893) 7 years ago

at least it proves that Ethel wasn't past menopause if Fred thought she was pregnant!

Now, how do I get rid of the mental image of Fred and Ethel "bumping uglies?" !!!

[–] [email protected] (1732) 7 years ago

Think of that nice shot of Ricky taking off his pajama top in "Bonus
Bucks." Works like a charm for me.