MovieChat Forums > I Love Lucy (1951) Discussion > Lucy Wins a Racehorse

Lucy Wins a Racehorse

posted 4 years ago by [email protected] (1732)
6 replies | jump to latest

After watching the brilliant "Celebrity Next Door", and the almost-as-good "Lucy Makes Room
For Daddy", I watched the truly horrible "Lucy Takes a Cruise to Havana" (last night). I took
a peek next at "Lucy Hunts Uranium" (with Lucy's new short hair - wig). Not a bad show.

Tonight, I plunged back into this controversial hour-long follow-up to the great "I Love Lucy"
with "Lucy Wins a Racehorse." No, it's not great, but the first half gives us the old Lucy/Ethel/
Fred trio from years past. The energy is delightful, with Lucy determined to let her six
year-old son keep a racehorse he's won. Oddly, it's Vance - who was always threatening to
leave this enterprise - who gives us the best performance, as the old-time tried-and-true
Ethel. Frawley isn't far behind, and neither is Ball, who, despite looking a bit bloated and
obviously bewigged, is game for anything. Arnaz is strong in performance, but looks about 54!

The dullness begins when has-beens Betty Grable and Harry James show up. Aside from having
little to do, they are relics of a bygone era. True, Cornel Wilde could be called the same thing -
or worse - totally FORGOTTEN. The difference is, the magic of ILL carries the ghost of Wilde
in a terrific Hollywood offering (and at half the length), while "Racehorse" sags to a standstill
and peters out to two faded "stars" seemingly caring about a six year-old's horse.

The finale with Lucy (disguised as a jockey) in a horse race is pure cheese, but it's still not a
bad way to spend an hour, given the legends (NOT Grable or James, thank you) involved.

[–] [email protected] (5497) 4 years ago

I don't want to purchase this series, but all this talk has made me curious about some of these episodes. Like I wrote before, it's been years since I've seen them.

I just watched the opening of the Racehorse episode. Someone posted the first few scenes on youtube. Vivian Vance was in fine form as always. And it was typical "Lucy goes to extremes" stuff.

But I think that Lucille Ball's loyalty worked against her in this scene. She desperately needed some new writers.Specifically, the sight gag of all those boxes of Korny Krinkles. It's a rehash of Lucy's grocery shopping in "The Business Manager". Back then it was fresh and funny. Here it's just stale and silly recycling of a joke that now falls flat.

Okay, so Lucy tends to go overboard. I can believe that she'd buy dozens and dozens of boxes to try to win a contest. But just where did she store all her other groceries? The cereal boxes in the fridge and freezer were just dumb. Cereal doesn't need refrigeration. And just where the heck did she put the refrigerated foods??? Where was that bottle of milk that Ricky used on his cereal supposed to go?
Lucy did a lot of farfetched things, but for it to be funny, comedy has to have an element, be it ever so slight, of truth. And a freezer full of cereal is just dumb.
Perhaps the episode improves. But that's always been one of my problems with post ILL shows. Too much recycling of old jokes and sight gags that WERE funny the first time. But later were just tired and lacking imagination.

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

PJ you nailed it (and in a far less lengthy review than mine). Trust me, the episode doesn't get better (and, yes, the
refrigerator stuff IS dumb).

Tonight I watched "Lucy's Summer Vacation" (from 1959) with guest stars Ida Lupino and Howard Duff.

Oddly, this is among the better (if, now, totally forgotten) offerings of this series. Lucy wants to spend her summer
vacation alone - without Fred and Ethel. A believable concept, when one thinks about how much time the two couples
vacationed together. It seems there's no conflict, as Ethel has convinced Fred to take her to Atlantic City.

The problems begin when the owner of the cabin rents it to married (in real life) TV/movie stars Howard Duff and Ida
Lupino. Oddly, the writing is honest and the boat scene at the end is pretty funny (Lucy thought a boat would keep
"the boys" fishing, so Lucy drilled holes in it - not knowing that Ricky and Howard planned a moonlight boat cruise).
Lucy and Ida's attempts to keep the boat from sinking by stuffing chewing gum (!) into the holes is cute, if not
particularly inspired.

By now, this show feels too much like one has stayed too long at a party. Stale cigarettes, melting ice cream, and
guests saying goodbye.

Through the misfortune of losing an ILL disc, I forked over the money for the whole series, and have had a few
laughs revisiting them. But God only knows when I'll watch them again. They are curios at best.

P.S.: Miss Lupino was a great star, appearing with Bogart in "They Drive By Night" and with John Garfield and
Edward G. Robinson in "The Sea Wolf." She was also one of the first great female directors, helming the classic
film nor, "The Hitchhiker." She also starred and directed in two memorable "Twilight Zone" offerings, "The16 Millimeter
Shrine" and (as director) "The Masks."

Ms. Lupino directed what William Asher considered the best BW episode, "A is For Aardvark."

[–] [email protected] (5497) 4 years ago

"Summer Vacation" does sound original. It makes sense that after years of vacationing with the Mertzes, Lucy would want a trip without them.

I'm very familiar with Ida Lupino. I probably mentioned before how my mom loved old movies. I used to watch them with her and I saw Ida Lupino several times. I also saw Howard Duff many times. He was also in a Twilight Zone episode, one of my favorites. He played an actor who escaped his own miserable life by retreating into the character that he was playing.

Getting back to the repetitive nature of Lucille Ball's later shows...too much rehashing of early ILL stuff.

The Lucy Show did way too much of the "Lucy wears a disguise" script. It was original and fresh when Lucy dressed as a "wicked city woman" to scare away Cousin Ernie or the classic "black wig" when Lucy tests Ricky's fidelity.

Lucy's writers kept her stuck in the same old plots. One of the worst was Lucy's recurring "Ironman Carmichael" character. Yeah, like a middle aged woman could pretend to be a Hollywood stuntman.

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

Well, tonight I watched "Milton Berle Hides Out at the Ricardos'."

Milton, WHO???

Sad, but true. It may be hard for twenty-somethings to realize today, but in 1959 (when this show was filmed),
Berle was Lucy's ONLY TV equal.

I know, I don't get it either. I've never been into TV "comedians", and, let's face it, Berle, as stellar a TV presence
as he was, was just that. While Berle coasted on corny jokes, cigars, and dressing in drag (gee, how original),
Ball was a consummate ACTOR. Emotion plays a HUGE factor in her best work, while sight gags came from
Lucy RICARDO doing comedy. Big difference.

But I digress...

Here, "Uncle Miltie" (anyone hungry for a Pop Tart? Anyone else OLD ENOUGH to recall when "Uncle Miltie" did
Pop Tart ads???) stays at the Ricardos to finish writing his book. IF he's undisturbed, he will do a PTA performance
(wasn't that hard enough to sell with Tallulah Bankhead???).

That said, this is a fairly agreeable offering, as it's free from International travel! Lucy and Ethel have a hilarious
scene with Lucy smoking cigars and wearing men's clothes (you need to see it to get it), and while a skyscraper
scene (with Lucy, "Miltie" and Ricky) is nothing short of preposterous (featuring a dumb - and obvious - stunt
double for Ball), the show ends on a fairly entertaining "Old West" musical number (including a cute Little Ricky).

Sadly, this was directed by Arnaz in late summer, '59. His work as director is very solid. Nonetheless, things
had gotten so bad between he and Lucy, that they rarely spoke during filming. According to Bart Andrews, who
wrote the first book on the series, Arnaz would tell assistants, "Tell Miss Ball to move on the next line." The
tension was very high. There would only be two more episodes in these hour-long shows.

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

Last night and tonight I finished up the hour-long shows with "The Ricardos Go to Japan" and "Lucy Meets the
Moustache." Both are okay offerings, but drag under their 60-minute runtimes.

Sadly, "Moustache" has sadness written all over it. Aside from the well-documented fact that Ball would file
for divorce from Aranz the day after this was filmed, is the all-around bummer of a feeling that this would mark
the very last adventures of Lucy, Ricky, Fred and Ethel.

The opening scene plays like any we've seen between the foursome, so it's sad indeed to say goodbye to
these characters.

Curious indeed is the final show's offering. Ernie Kovacs is portrayed as a much bigger star than Ricky,
so his desperation in needing a job on Kovacs' show is grimly realistic.

Of greater tragedy is that Kovacs would die less than two years later (!) in a 1962 car accident.

These have been fun to revisit, but I'll be glad to get back to my favorite half-hour shows.

Again, "The Celebrity Next Door" and "Lucy Makes Room for Daddy" are the gems here.

[–] MovieChatUser497 (18943) 4 years ago

The hour long specials really weren't that good. It was obvious that the cast was tired and just sick of the whole thing and being funny for an hour is a lot harder than only having to be funny for 22 minutes. Plus that extra time in each episode was mostly just dedicated to musical numbers which are boring. The Uranium episode was decent but other than that there's nothing that memorable about any of them. But still as a kid I remember Nick at Nite showing "A whole lotta Lucy" and the comedy hour went from 11PM - Midnight and I would stay up to see it.