I Love Lucy (1953)
** (out of 4)
Forgotten "movie" had one screening back in 1953 but MGM pretty much forced Desi Arnaz to shelve the movie where it pretty much sat for the next fifty years, forgotten and considered lost until the footage was found and restored. What we have here are three episodes (The Benefit, Breaking the Lease, The Ballet) of the TV series edited together with new footage (directed by Sedgqick) of the cast on a stage filming the scenes. This "movie within a movie" is rather hard to judge for a couple reasons. On one hand, the TV stuff has some terrific moments with "Breaking the Lease" being one of the funniest bits of TV history. However, as funny as the TV stuff is, they're also edited to "fit together" in this movie. So, why watch them here when you could just watch the episodes on their own? The second problem is that this is a movie and as one it really doesn't work. We get the laugh track from the TV show, which shouldn't be in a movie and there's no question that the three episodes thrown together don't make a complete movie. The three episodes are quite different in tone so they just don't go together and in the end there's no question that you're watching three episodes and not one movie. I think at best this works as a curio and will probably appeal to die-hard fans of the TV show who have to see everything that the comic duo did. I'm not sure those unfamiliar with the show will get too much out of this and even a semi-fan like me probably could have lived without every seeing this thing. The opening and closing bits of added footage really don't contain any laughs, although getting to see the various cameras on the set used to film everything was pretty nice. In the end I think it would probably be best to just rent the season series and just watch the episodes on their own. The recently released DVD contains some nice extras and information on the making of this film and all of this is pretty much more entertaining than the actual movie.
