August 1, 2023 | 14 Movies
“I’m not funny.”
One might not expect to hear this from someone widely regarded as one of Hollywood’s greatest comediennes, but that is how Lucille Ball described herself throughout much of her life.
Indeed, Ball was a very serious actress and an astute businesswoman who achieved many firsts in the medium of television, yes as a star, but also as a producer and ultimately a studio head.
With such pioneering success, it is often overlooked that Lucille Ball started her career as one of the many ingenues who pursued a film career in the 1930s and 40s.
Starting off 2023’s Summer Under the Stars, TCM will be devoting an entire day to the film career of perhaps television’s greatest star.
Lucy originally pursued a more traditional acting path in New York in the 1920s, first taking acting lessons at the John Murray Anderson School of for the Dramatic Art Arts before being dismissed by instructors who thought she lacked talent. Still determined to succeed in New York, she returned in 1928 and found work as a model for fashion designer Hattie Carnegie. Success as a model led to small chorus parts and auditions for theatre moguls like Earl Carroll and Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. After being rejected yet again, Lucy scored her first big break by being cast as one of the Goldwyn Girls, a troop of female dancers who appeared in revue type film musicals made by producer Samuel Goldwyn, in the film Roman Scandals (1933).
This gig brought Lucy to Hollywood where she would never be out of work for the rest of her life.
From 1934 to 1936, Lucille Ball made over thirty 30 (often uncredited) film appearances as a contract player for RKO Studios. Though constantly working, Lucy was unable to break out past the more established stars she was appearing with, including Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in Top Hat (1935) and Follow the Fleet (1936) and with the Marx Brothers in Room Service (1938).
It really wasn’t until the turn of the decade that Lucy began receiving more substantial film roles.
One of her first and best lead performances was in the musical drama Dance, Girl, Dance (1940). Lucy plays Bubbles, a dancer in a failed ballet troupe who finds surprise success in the New York Burlesqueburlesque. Maureen O’Hara is Judy, a fellow member of the troupe who still wants to pursue her dream of classical ballet. The brash Bubbles and the ladylike Judy clash over their career pursuits and over the same man (Louis Hayward). Though a critical and commercial failure upon its release, this film has developed a strong following over time. It is seen as an early example of feminist filmmaking for its depiction of young working women, of the conflict between personal and professional happiness, and for its work by director Dorothy Arzner, the most successful female filmmaker of the time.
The same year as Dance, Girl, Dance (1940), Lucille Ball also starred in the more lighthearted musical, Too Many Girls (1940). Based on a successful Broadway musical of the same name, the movie tells the story of Connie (Ball), a young woman from a rich family who wants to follow her boyfriend to college in New Mexico. Connie’s overprotective father sends four bodyguards to secretly keep watch over his daughter. A likable college musical, the film was a moderate success. Today it is probably best remembered as the film which first brought together one of Hollywood’s great power couples. Reprising the small role he’d played on Broadway; Desi Arnaz made his screen debut playing one of the four bodyguards keeping watch on Connie. Lucy and Desi fell in love while making the film and would elope just two months after its completion.
Though now remembered as a genius of physical comedy, when looking at her film career, one is reminded what a versatile actress Lucille Ball really was. After finally being cast in leading roles in the 1940s, Lucy played an enormous range of characters in many different genres. In the romantic drama The Big Street (1942), Lucy plays Gloria, an icy young nightclub singer who is suddenly left crippled by the club’s abusive owner. Henry Fonda is Augustus Pinkerton (Little PinkPinks), the humble busboy who adores Gloria and takes it upon himself to care for her. Lucy won this part after several big-name actresses, including Carole Lombard and Barbara Stanwyck, turned the part down. She later called it her best performance and her personal favorite of her films.
That same year, she starred opposite James Craig in the period Western, Valley of the Sun (1942), playing the owner of a saloon in 1868 Arizona. This would be one of Lucy’s last film under contract to RKO studios. She would return to that studio over a decade later as its owner when it was acquired by Desilu Productions.
Lucy’s next studio was MGM where she was cast in a number of big technicolor musicals starting with Du Barry Was a Lady (1943). Red Skelton plays Louis, the coat checker for a big New York night club who is secretly in love with the beautiful singer May (Ball). When Louis is accidentally hit on the head, he dreams that he is actually King Louis XVKing Louis XV and May is the notorious Madame Du Barry. In only his second movie, Gene Kelly is the penniless dancer who is the real object of May’s affections. Determined to make an impression in her first MGM film and her first in color, it was for this picture that Lucy first dyed her hair the flaming red that would soon become her trademark.
No genre was off the table for Lucy. In the Douglas Sirk film-noir Lured (1947) Lucy plays Sandra, the friend of a young woman thought to be the victim of a serial killer in post-war London. Charles Coburn is the detective who convinces Sandra to seduce the lead suspect, played by the always engaging George Sanders.
As preposterous as it may seem today, many of the powers that be in Hollywood were reluctant to cast Lucy opposite her real-life husband Desi Arnaz because of his Cuban ethnicitynationality.
Only after the phenomenal success of their I Love Lucy television series were they able to appear as romantic leads on film. The Long, Long Trailer (1954) was the first of what was originally to be a three-picture deal for the team with MGM. Lucy and Desi play newlyweds Tacy and Nicky Collini planning a honeymoon trip to the Sierra Nevada Mountainsmountains. Nicky is an engineer who must tend to several work projects across the country with hopes of earning enough money to buy a house. Tacy gets the wild idea of buying a giant mobile trailer that could be their home while traveling across the country. This silly plot was elevated by the chemistry between the two leads and by the direction of the great Vincente Minnelli.
Where this first pairing was a hit, the couples’ next picture together, Forever, Darling (1956) was a critical and commercial failure. In this film, Desi plays Lorenzo, a man more focused on work than on his wife Susan (Ball). When Susan makes a wish for her husband to pay more attention to her, she is answered by her guardian angel who bears a striking resemblance to her favorite movie star James Mason. Mason later publicly criticized this film, calling it the worst he’d ever made. The original script for this film by Helen Deutsch had been floating around MGM for years and had been considered as a project for some of the studios other famous duos, including William Powell and Myrna Loy. The film’s failure convinced Lucy and Desi and the studio to mutually cancel a third filmtheir deal together.
Though she continued to thrive in television throughout the 1960s and 70s, Lucille Ball only made a handful more Hollywood movies. Her final film was the notorious flop film version of the musical Mame (1974). This was a particular disappointment for Ball who thought this film would be her last chance at movie stardom. Following its utter failurefailure, she vowed never to make another movie.
Lucille Ball’s career as a television actress and media mogul continued until her death of heart failure in 1989. The popularity of her television work remains unwavering and the techniques she invented with Desi Arnaz are still in practice today. Her film performances continue to be reevaluated and rediscovered only adding to the legacy of this great star.
