During Annabel's national promotional tour for her latest film to Buffalo and Chicago, Wonder Studios re-hires the aggressive, take-no-prisoners studio publicist Lanny Morgan (Jack Oakie) who will get his clients press by any means necessary.
After a disaster-plagued trip in which Annabel falls through a stage trap door, Lanny sees his perfect opportunity to grab Annabel some attention. Romance novel-writing British Viscount Ronald River-Clyde (Ralph Forbes) is staying on the same hotel floor and through Lanny's machinations, appears to "woo" Annabel with flowers and crates of champagne. While the royalty-obsessed Annabel swoons over the handsome, reclusive Viscount, Lanny concocts a brazen plan to have every reporter in the area make them the couple of the moment. But Annabel is so under the Viscount's spell, she contemplates leaving show business altogether for him.
The second in the Annabel screwball comedies, after The Affairs of Annabel (1938), this fast paced yarn benefits greatly from Lucille Ball's comic gifts. The New York Times fawned over Ball, calling her, "one of our brightest comediennes." Writing in Lucille: The Life of Lucille Ball Kathleen Brady notes, "In Annabel Takes a Tour she demonstrates her gift for physical comedy as she rises from a three-point landing on elbows and nose. She has total conviction in her role and plays it without a trace of farce."
Garson Kanin, who directed Ball in her next film Next Time I Marry (1938), said of the actress in Brady's book, "She was extremely inventive to the point I was surprised she didn't want to write. Like most good actresses, she did not like to be directed. She didn't need to be. She was her own self. It has to be carefully remembered that there are stars and there are actresses. Movies are just interested in great personalities. I think Lucy was a great, great personality. She was an individual, and that's what got her going at the time."
RKO planned to make more Annabel movies but dumped the series when Jack Oakie asked for $50,000 for each film. A 1924 letter from Ball to Oakie recreated in his book Jack Oakie's Double Takes recounts their amiable on-set relationship. In the letter Ball opens, "Dearest Jackie Boy" and tells Oakie, "most of all, I remember your sense of humor, your creative know-how and how much I learned from working with you, for which I shall be ever grateful."
Ball's newly risen film stature was attributable to her appearance in the very successful ensemble picture Stage Door (1937) alongside Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers which led to her signing with, "Zeppo Marx, the Marx brother who had dropped out of the comedy act in 1933 to become an influential agent. He drove her salary up to $1,000 a week and negotiated for better billing in B movies" (from Stefan Kanfer's Ball of Fire: The Tumultuous Life and Comic Art of Lucille Ball).
"I soon became known as 'Queen of the B's'" joked Ball in her autobiographical Love, Lucy. She considered an appearance early in 1938 on the weekly radio program, "The Wonder Show," a great boost in her comic training. She appeared alongside such notable comics of the time as Jack Carson, Al Pierce, Jack Haley and Phil Baker. "This gave me a name in the trade as a good feminine foil. I could flip a comedy line, which a lot of actresses couldn't do. In radio I couldn't depend upon props or costumes or makeup; I had to rely on timing and tone of voice for comic effects, and this was invaluable training."
Riding high on her post-Stage Door success in B-pictures, Ball also hired a maid named Harriet McCain she heard on a radio program call-in show who proved a faithful companion for twenty three years and copious trips around the world.
Producer: Lou Lusty
Director: Lew Landers
Screenplay: Bert Granet (screenplay and story); Olive Cooper (writer); Joe Bigelow (story)
Cinematography: Russell Metty
Art Direction: Albert D'Agostino, Van Nest Polglase
Music: Robert Russell Bennett (uncredited)
Film Editing: Harry Marker
Cast: Jack Oakie (Lanny Morgan), Lucille Ball (Annabel Allison), Ruth Donnelly (Josephine 'Jo'), Bradley Page (Howard Webb, Chief of Wonder Pictures), Ralph Forbes (Viscount Ronald River-Clyde), Frances Mercer (Natalie Preston), Donald MacBride (Thompson, RR Conductor), Alice White (Marcella, Hotel Manicurist), Chester Clute (Pitcarin, Rodney-Marlborough Hotel Manager), Jean Rouverol (Laura Hampton).
BW-68m. Closed Captioning.
by Felicia Feaster
