MovieChat Forums > I Love Lucy (1951) Discussion > Cuban Pals

Cuban Pals

posted 4 years ago by [email protected] (1732)
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Yet another example of the RANGE of Lucille Ball's comic brilliance. Here, she is gracious
to the Cuban guests, but awkward. Jealous ("You've done pretty well yourself"), childish
(dressing up as a washer woman, then attempting to throw water on Ricky and Renita!),
nasty ("Oh, you think you're so smart!"), sneaky (having Fred drive Renita AWAY from
the club)...and, then, pow: Lucy's just desserts. In that final scene (sans dialogue) she
comes out beautiful, haughty, then looks around totally confused (thinking she's going to
do a rumba!), then turns to total terror. Her facial expressions are so REAL - she genuinely
looks frightened (and, really, would ANY adult be afraid of a guy like that in a musical number?).

What gets me is the way Lucy's thought process was. As if pushing the violinist out of his
chair and attempting to play it (!) would fool that dancer. And then Lucy SMASHES the
instrument on his HEAD (yet he continues to pursue her - hello??). Finally, Lucy trying to
hide UNDER the waiter's tray, and then pretending she's a guest of those startled patrons
(and her little wave "goodbye", as she's carried off). Lucy, of course, kicks and hits the
dancer (with her head!) before screaming and fainting in Ricky's arms.

This is, what, about a 55 second scene? Yet Lucy is so brilliant in it. And, again, NO
dialogue (curiously, her screams were clearly looped - by a different actress. Odd).

[–] [email protected] (5507) 4 years ago

Lucille Ball's range of facial expressions was amazing. She was so skilled at conveying her feelings without uttering a word. She could react to anything so brilliantly.

The only other performer at the time who had such a wide range of expressions was Jackie Gleason. I have a book about The Honeymooners and it says that sometime he didn't have a lot to do in a particular episode. Most of the funny lines went to Norton or Alice.

Jackie Gleason's only question was, "Do I have something to react to?"

He could do sidesplitting comedy with just the expression on his face, much like Lucille Ball.

[–] [email protected] (1732) 4 years ago

You are so right. Gleason, too, was a genius. And it's interesting how he HATED rehearsing, while Ball insisted on
EIGHT straight hours of rehearsing four days a week, even before dress rehearsal. More interestingly, if someone
didn't know this about them, and was asked to guess who had each habit, I'd wager people would instinctively get it.
And that's no insult to either legend. There's a looseness to Gleason, but it works. And there are several episodes
where he goes blank, and the other actor had to adlib back to the script to prompt him. (Can't recall the episode,
but there's one scene where neither Alice or Ralph say their next line, until Jackie adlibs something).

Back to "Cuban Pals": The young actress who played Renita made a little flub. After Ricky tells her he will do
the dance (scheduled for the next evening), Renita says, "Oh, Ricky, I'm so happy you'll be dancing with me TONIGHT."