Offering an abundance of vintage Hollywood entertainment, the
five films included in The Lucille Ball Film Collection cover a
broad spectrum of Lucy's movie career, from one of her most
prominent early roles to her final big-screen appearance. Long
before she became an icon of TV sitcoms, Lucy had moved from New
York to Hollywood in 1933, appearing in a variety of mostly
uncredited showgirl roles in over 40 films before getting her
first big break in the 1937 classic Stage Door (not included in
this set). Lucy's star quickly began to rise, and by the time she
played sassy nightclub singer "Tiger Lily White" in 1940's Dance,
Girl, Dance, she was holding her own with such famous costars as
Maureen O'Hara and Ralph Bellamy. Noteworthy as an early feminist
comedy directed by Dorothy Arzner (one of the only women to break
into the male-dominated profession of Hollywood directors), it's
a fun and fascinating film that helped to establish Lucy's
persona as a fiery, independent entertainer. That image was
pushed to extremes in The Big Street (1942), an oddly enjoyable
comedy/melodrama in which Lucy and Henry Fonda are cast against
type--she as a selfish, unlikable nightclub diva, and he as the
doting busboy who devotes himself to her when she's badly injured
by her villainous boss. A year later, Lucy starred with Red
Skelton and Gene Kelly in Du Barry Was a Lady, a lavish and
still-delightful MGM musical comedy that was Lucy's first film in
color--and the first to feature the blazing red hair (recommended
by legendary Hollywood stylist Sydney Guilaroff) that became one
of Lucy's most beloved and readily identifiable features.
By the time Lucy played a middle-aged playwright in Critic's
Choice (1963), she'd become one of TV's most beloved and
successful comediennes, and her film career was clearly winding
down. Critic's Choice was a fitting follow-up to 1960's The Facts
of Life, reuniting Lucy with four-time costar Bob Hope in an
upscale comedy/drama that was noteworthy for its progressive
depiction of divorced and remarried sophisticates in New York
City. A decade later, Lucy chose the ill-ed Mame (1974) for
what would prove to be her final big-screen appearance. Despite
brutal reviews that focused on Lucy being too old for the title
role (originated on Broadway by Angela Lansbury), Mame has
survived its bad reputation to become one of Hollywood's most
popular high-camp misfires, with Lucy's eccentric and lavishly
costumed character gaining a loyal following (especially in the
gay community) as a colorful inspiration for female
impersonators. In some ways it's a fitting end to Lucy's
big-screen career; she always gave maximum effort against
considerable odds, and The Lucille Ball Film Collection is a
testament to Lucy's show-biz tenacity. --Jeff Shannon
On the DVDs
Each of the DVDs in The Lucille Ball Film Collection is
accompanied by bonus features culled from the extensive Warner
Bros. archives. As with many of WB's DVD boxed sets, these bonus
features consist of featurettes and cartoons that are
chronologically matched (in most cases) to the feature
presentations, offering a home-video approximation of what it was
like to attend these films in their original theatrical context.
(See reviews of each individual title for specific bonus-feature
details.) For the long-awaited DVD release of Mame, Warner Bros.
technicians attempted to create a new stereo soundtrack mix, but
this ultimately proved technically impossible due to the variable
quality of the original elements, so the film is
presented with the mono soundtrack of its original theatrical
release. As always with WB releases, picture and sound quality is
uniformly superb, especially in preserving the brilliant
Technicolor of Du Barry Was a Lady. Of particular value among the
bonus features, the DVD of Critic's Choice breaks from strict
chronology with "Calling All Tars," a 1936 Vitaphone short
featuring one of Bob Hope's earliest screen appearances, and the
O-nominated cartoon "Now Hear This" (1962), directed in
abstract-art style by legendary Warner Bros. animator Chuck
Jones. --Jeff Shannon
- Big Street: Haughty nightclub singer Gloria Lyons (Lucille Ball) doesn't have time for the little people, including Little Pinks (Henry Fonda), the busboy who adores her. Then Gloria is paralyzed when a mobster knocks her down the stairs, and those little people are the only ones who help her.Critic's Choice: Tossing inspired throwaway lines right and left, Hope is a New York critic who loves writ.