MovieChat Forums > I Love Lucy (1951) Discussion > Restaurant Marathon

Restaurant Marathon

posted 7 years ago by [email protected] (1732)
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My latest ILL marathon was a restaurant theme. I ran four faves, which contain scenes where
Lucy is causing trouble in an eatery:

Lucy Changes Her Mind ("YOU order last!" Lol!)
The French Revue ("One potato-two-potato-three-potato-four...")
L.A. at Last ("Fred, remember....she's 'people, just like you and me...'")
Lucy's Night in Town ("JUST decided. You've been eating like a HORSE for 20 years.")

Had a ball (pardon the pun), as these are all faves of mine anyway. "Night in Town" plays
like something from the third year, while they were all still in NY. Kind of nice to get the
four back into the city.

[–] [email protected] (5501) 7 years ago

LOL Only Lucy can cause that much trouble in a restaurant.

In 'Lucy Changes her Mind' she really drives the waiter up a wall. The wonderful Frank Nelson (aka Freddie Fillmore and Ralph Ramsey) needs a new eraser for his pencil. ha!

'L.A. at Last'...Lucy staring at Bill Holden, buttering her hand, trying to eat a giant piece of spaghetti and tripping a waiter right into Bill Holden. Classic Lucy physical comedy.

In 'Lucy's Night in Town', she tries to delay their meal so they'll be too late to go to the theater since she got matinee tickets. Lucy peels her lima beans. lol
I'd add a few of Lucy's café adventures in Europe. In 'Paris at Last' she wants to explore the city like a native and orders dinner in a café. "There are snails in this food!"

In the Charles Boyer episode, she is sure she has spotted Boyer. Desi intervenes and tells him to pretend he's someone else who just looks like Boyer. Lucy, restaurants and celebrities are always a bad mix.

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

Yes, also the ep where Lucy and Ethel get their BURLAP dresses!

I'm not too crazy about the Charles Boyer ep, as I find Lucy a tad mean to Boyer when she thinks he's an unknown
struggling actor. Ball is brilliant, but it's that mean side to Lucy that I occasionally don't like (same aura to her in
"No Children Allowed", or when she's sooooooooooo childish on that bus trip through Beverly Hills). Plus, the ep is
too derivative of the Dore Schary offering. I find it a bit dull.

Curiously, one of my least fave restaurant eps comes from my very favorite season three: Equal Rights. I used to
love this episode, but in recent years, I find it cruel that Ricky and Fred's egos are so small that they would punish
the girls to THAT level. It's also absurd that Ricky and Fred BEAT the cops to the restaurant (come on!) and the
jerk manager never comes out when all that noise and ruckus is going on in his own kitchen??? It's a good episode,
that I don't care for anymore. Strange.

[–] [email protected] (5501) 7 years ago

'Equal Rights' would be down on my list of favorites from season three. Ricky and Fred WERE pretty mean to take their practical joke that far. Sure, pretend like you're not paying for Lucy and Ethel's dinner. Go outside the restaurant and come back in a few minutes. But Ricky and Fred went HOME and left their wives to do dishes!

Lucy and Ethel did plenty of dishes at home along with cleaning, cooking, laundry and ironing. If that's such easy work, Ricky and Fred could do it themselves.

Never believed the idea that Ricky and Fred got to the restaurant BEFORE the cops! They had to go outside and hail a cab! Just unbelievable.

Also it seems to me that Lucy would've been more resourceful. She had a lot of girlfriends. Why not call one of them and ask if one of them could come down to the restaurant (or send one of their husbands) with money to pay their bill.

"Ricky and Fred are playing a nasty joke on us. Can you come down and pay our bill? We'll reimburse you tomorrow."

And the ending when they go and bail out the guys...Ethel gives Fred a "kiss". It's obvious their lips do not touch! Must've been a difficult moment for Vivian Vance considering how she felt about Bill Frawley. ha!

As for Ricky, if I was Lucy, that would've been the LAST "kiss" or anything else he got for a long time. LOL