Lucy Takes a Cruise to Havana
As I've recently purchased the Lucy/Desi Comedy Hour shows (for reasons explained on another
thread), I actually FORCED myself to sit through this elephantine turkey tonight (you know, to
get it over with).
It was pure agony.
I worship Desi Arnaz as a producer, actor, and even (occasionally) as a singer. But his EGO
was on METH when he decided that - against CBS' wishes - that weekly half-hour ILL should
be turned into monstrous, inflated, bloated celebrity-riddled "TV specials." He somehow
managed to get Ford to fork over $350,000 (!) per hour-long episodes to sponsor these
dogs. (Take into account that by the spring of 1957, ILL cost only $25,000 per episode!!)
Added to this, Arnaz decided an HOUR wasn't enough, so this ball of turd ran 75 minutes
(say 65 without commercials). An HOUR AND FIFTEEN MINUTES? - for a script like this???
The problems? Where does one begin?? The thread-bare "plot" is supposed to be when
Lucy met Ricky - in 1940. To say that Ball and Arnaz could not BEGIN to play twenty-
somethings at THIS point is an understatement. Worse, we're supposed to believe that
the equally middle-aged (and unattractively fat) Ann Sothern is her "youthful" friend, trying,
like Lucy, to meet "young men." To thrill us all the more, two more "guest stars" are
tossed in - Cesar Romero and Rudy Vallee, the latter still trying to play a man that women
chase after!!
Oh, of course, we're supposed to be buy that Fred and Ethel (on their first REAL honeymoon)
are on board, so we can see how THAT friendship started. It doesn't work, because
Fred and Ethel are reduced to bit parts, so that the spectacularly unfunny "guests stars"
can ham it up for a quick paycheck.
When I first put this mess on tonight, I hadn't yet researched the "new" running time, and
couldn't understand why it WOULDN'T END! Then I read up on this laugh-free disaster
and understood why.
I'm sorry, but only diehard Ball fans and possibly the mentally retarded could enjoy this
truly awful piece of s**t.
P.S.: Lucy and Sothern get drunk. But don't expect to laugh.
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