Personally, I've always felt that the best comedies were the ones where you could actually believe in the situations--in other words, the events are things that could have happened. THE AFFAIRS OF ANNABEL is funny in spots, but hasn't got a single moment that is in touch with reality.
JACK OAKIE plays a scheming publicity man who dreams up the most outrageous ways of getting attention (newspaper headlines) for his fading star LUCILLE BALL, her film career supposedly on the wane. One plan involves getting her to spend three days in prison (which turns out to be 30 days) and to have the press on hand when she's released. The plan backfires, of course, and Lucy fires him.
She rehires him when he gets a little old lady (LEONA ROBERTS, Mrs. Meade from GWTW), to pretend to be his sick mother who needs money for an operation. Lucy relents and he comes up with another scheme--her next film is called "The Maid and the Man" so he gets her work as a maid in a wacky household. It turns out the house has become the nest for two infamous criminals and Lucy, of course, gets into the thick of things while Oakie tries to rescue her by hiring fake police officers to storm the house.
It had possibilities but emerges as a scatterbrained comedy without any real foothold on reality. THURSTON HALL is fun as a plate breaking scientist and RUTH DONNELLY has a few good one-liners as a studio receptionist, but other than that the gags are pretty hard to swallow at times.
Best that can be said is that LUCILLE BALL shows skill at this sort of comedy and looks pert and pretty throughout. OAKIE overplays the press agent with outlandish schemes but is fun to watch.
If you love Lucy, you'll find this acceptable fare but lacking in so many departments.
