"Yours, Mine and Ours" - 1968

Weren't they both too old to play characters with young children?

Lucy was 55 when the show filmed, and I believe her oldest daughter was supposed to be 17. Lucy was 41 when she gave birth to little Desi. I found her too old to be pregnant again at the end of the movie.

[quote]she didn't overplay the part and grab all the attention away from her co-star

Based on everything Jane has said over the years about her father, I doubt he would have stood for any bullshit from Lucy. He was by far the bigger star at that time.

Yet she got top billing. (Probably because she owned the rights and produced it.)

Earlier thread.

Lucy and Hank were probably the oldest pregnant couple in cinema since Arlene Francis and Edward Andrews.

[quote]I doubt he would have stood for any bullshit from Lucy. He was by far the bigger star at that time.

Not true.

In 1968 Lucy was still one of the biggest stars on TV. She even won an Emmy that year. No matter what you think of "The Lucy Show" it placed at #2 that year in the ratings.

In 1968 Fonda was still making films but he got second billing in every one of them. "Yours, Mine and Ours" with top-billed Lucy, was his biggest box-office success in years.

In 1968, the divide between TV and movie stars was HUGE.

Lucy was a tv star, not a movie star.

[quote]Based on everything Jane has said over the years about her father, I doubt he would have stood for any bullshit from Lucy. He was by far the bigger star at that time.

They were friendly and had a history, r3.

R8 I was around back then. I saw the film with my parents.

The ONLY reason that film had such an incredible performance at the box office is because it starred Lucille Ball. Not Henry Fonda.

We're forgetting the real star of the movie - a young, hot Tim Matheson.

When I was a kid my family lived about 3 blocks away from the real Beardsley family on whom the movie was based. As I recall, they owned/ran a Baskin-Robbins franchise.

Do we have Lucy loons on DL--is that a thing? I suspect it could be.

I thought all of DL hated Ball, though, and thought she was a cunt.

Former screen idol, Van Johnsom, once one of MGM's biggest stars, is relegated to 2nd string supporting role in this comedy hit of 1968.

I remember reading that Lucy went to visit the real family and the father gave her the creeps. I think she said « keep that man away from me! “

The kids have said the dad was an abusive asshole

Tim Matheson was at his twink zenith here.

If I were that doctor giving him a physical, I'd lose my license !

Lucy was the most famous woman in America at the time. No way was Fonda a bigger star. Come on...

I love this movie...fun scenes:

Helen loses her slip in the bar/night club and Frank goes to retrieve it.

The Beardsley brothers get Helen drunk

Sister Mary Alice and Philip (Was he going to slug her?)

Larry's motorcycle getting run over in the driveway.

Tim Matheson's cynicism (God! He used to give me such hard-ons in the movies he was in in the late 70s and early 80s)

I also saw this movie with my parents when it first came out. I was an extremely critical teen but I found the movie funny then and I still do. Lucy obviously was too old to have kids as young as some of the ones in the film, much less a baby, but somehow she carried it off. (Henry Fonda's presence in this movie was simply not a factor one way or the other.)

It's sad that just a few years later Lucy bombed so terribly in Auntie Mame. I just watched that on TCM for the first time ever out of curiosity after all these years. Unlike her acting in YMAO, Lucy's acting was downright unnatural and self conscious, and her gravelly voice had gotten so much worse it was painful to listen to.

I still watch YMAO though. Plus I Love Lucy. I also think she's good in her old movies.

Why didn't Gary talk her out of it?

[quote]—Am I wrong?

Yes, r13, you are.

*

Again remember, Lucille was continually in the public eye since I Love Lucy began. Her ageing was gradual to the audience so she didn't appear too old for the role in 1968.

Fonda called Lucy when he learned she was trying to cast the husband and said, "How about me?" Besides The Big Street they also costarred in a TV special in 1962 called The Good Years, based on Walter Lord's book. Fonda often joked that if their earlier dating relationship had worked out the studio could have been called Henrylu.

One of the kids in the film was played by Gary Goetzman, whose experiences formed the basis of Paul Michael Anderson's movie, Licorice Pizza.

(The song from the movie is performed in Licorice Pizza, where Christine Ebersole plays a take-off on Lucille, called Lucy Doolittle.)

It got panned by Renata Adler in the Times.

R23, I think you misunderstood. I'm asking if we have Lucy loons, or Lucy stans, who love her every move. The equivalent of a frau.

I didn't misunderstand, r27. You were wrong with:

[quote]I thought all of DL hated Ball, though, and thought she was a cunt.

R28, I've read a lot of threads where the concensus was she a cheap cunt.

She was a cheap cunt and one of the greatest comic actresses of all time.

Two things can be true at once R27

Maybe Fonda got second billing in his movies around this time but he got first billing in all the plays he did, at least after the 1930s.

What was she cheap about?

[quote][R28], I've read a lot of threads where the concensus was she a cheap cunt.

That's hardly "all of DL", r29. And...oh dear.

[quote] It got panned by Renata Adler in the Times.

And here I would have thought Renata would love a feel-good middle-class family film!

Lucy Loon at R33.

And she got Madeline Kahn fired from Mama.

I repeat: she a cunt.

*Mame

I never thought it was very good, tbh. I only really like Lucy's drunk scene. And maybe the "North. Beardsley. NORTH. BEARDSLEY" argument with the teacher. Fonda's one of my favorite actors but he's wasted, he could play the part in his sleep. At least it's based on a true story, unlike the remake.

Tim Matheson thought he might get cast in Fonda's TV series (The Smith Family) because of working with him in this movie, but Ron Howard got the part. He said Ron Howard often got parts he auditioned for.

I would say the consensus on DL regarding Lucille ball is:

*No one was a funnier physical comic actor than she was in "I Love Lucy" and the first year of "The Lucy Show," and she had great material and supporting actors.

*She grew more and more unfunny after that, but she was still an icon until her last breath and after.

*She was beautiful when younger in a leggy and overripe kind of way, but she kept her hair fiery orange for far too long and aged badly because of the drinking.

*She was notoriously one of the meanest women towards guest stars in all of Hollywood because of her professionalism and lack of patience.

*She was mean to stewardesses most of the time because she couldn't be bothered, and to Madeline Kahn whose talent was threatening to her. She was also mean to Patty Duke, but who would want your son to end up with a junkie?

*She should never have tried musicals because she could not sing, but she's so bad in "Mame" she's kind of fascinating in it.

*She was a very good businesswoman.

*She was genuinely generous to Desi because she loved him despite his womanizing (which she could not live with).

*Her obsessions with backgammon and Florida Water are endlessly fascinating.

*It is also endlessly fascinating to think about what she would have been like as a mother given that while she clearly adored her kids, she yet must have been incredibly difficult to have grown up with .

Lucy did Kahn a favor.

You're as insufferable as ever, r35.

And us R40, because Kahn went into Blazing Saddles.

I think R39 nailed it. One thing I find interesting is how many of the same actors Lucy used in different roles in I Love Lucy. She even used some of them in The Long Long Trailer. Were they that desperate for money? Or was she decent to them?

R39, I agree with everything you say, but Patty Duke was not a junkie.

The line between TV and movies was blurring by the late 60s, R8. Only the biggest stars didn't do TV, and Henry Fonda was no longer in that top echelon. He'd already been in TV movies and was playing second banana in movies as often as not.

[quote]Maybe Fonda got second billing in his movies around this time but he got first billing in all the plays he did, at least after the 1930s.

Instead of Fonda, Lucy could have starred in "Yours, Mine and Ours" with Fred MacMurray, with Bob hope, with Glenn Ford ...it would have made no difference. She was the box-office draw..

R43 Lucy might have recommended some actors for The Long, Long Trailer (I also noticed there was Philip Morris product placement) but did she or Desi have anything to do with producing it? (I think it was produced by her old boyfriend, Pandro S. Berman, maybe.) Who were the actors who were also on I Love Lucy? (Oh wait - I do remember one - the waitress near the end - she was on the Richard Widmark ILL episode, I think.)

R46 Fonda was a two-time Academy Award nominee (for acting in The Grapes Of Wrath, and producing Twelve Angry Men) at the time. He was a Tony winner (for Mister Roberts) His was a little more prestigious casting than Fred MacMurray, or Glenn Ford. Bob Hope was still a big star, I guess.

Yet Ford got top billing.

R49 Ford was an MGM star at the time and The Rounders was an MGM picture - he was a pretty big box office draw from around 1957 to 1965 or '66. By the way, Fonda never cared a lot about his movie billing. But in The Rounders Ford has the nominal "romantic lead" and Fonda is the sidekick. He had top billing in Advise and Consent, Fail Safe, The Best Man and more than a few other '60s films.

I'm not sure either he or Lucy were big movie box office, though, in 1968 (her previous film, Critic's Choice, in 1963, was not a hit. The one before it, The Facts of Life, 1960, was).

Apparently people wanted to see the 1968 film and it must have had good word of mouth.

[quote][R39], I agree with everything you say, but Patty Duke was not a junkie.

And it was NOT a nuthouse!

I love The Rounders, by the way - at least the first 3/4ths until it kind of falls apart.

Sue Ane Langdon in nothing but an apron!

R47, I can't think of their names offhand but the trailer salesman in TLLT played the washing machine repairman in ILL. And Lucy's aunt in TLLT (the one whose rose trellis was destroyed) also played a hat shop owner in ILL and was in the Superman episode. Actor Charles Lane (I think that was his name) played the Ricardos' money manager and was in several other ILL episodes. The woman who Lucy tried to sell a vacuum cleaner too was played by the same actress who played Lucy's maid. The guy who played Grace Foster's husband was in at least one other episode but my memory is starting to wear out lol.

R54 Okay, I didn't know that. That's Madge Blake (the aunt). I don't think Charles Lane was in The Long, Long Trailer (he played Mr. Barnsdahl on The Lucy Show). Howard McNear was in ILL (the guy who plays Marjorie Main's husband in the movie, at the seaside trailer park). (He played Floyd the barber on the Andy Griffith Show.)

I just thought some of these people were character actors who were around, at the time - like Madge Blake - she was in MGM movies like An American in Paris and Singin' in the Rain. But maybe Lucy or Desi had a hand in casting them - it never occurred to me.

Wasn't MacMurray the first choice to star opposite Ball in the movie, but he couldn't take time away from 'My Three Sons' (or something like that) ?

Fonda replaced MacMurray according to IMDb trivia about YMAO, which also has Jane Fonda implying that her father and Lucy had an affair while it was being made and that Lucy would often run over to Henry's trailer to be with him.

Fonda and Ball dated while they were both young actors in Hollywood.

Life magazine photo when they were doing The Good Years.

But what did Pauline Kael think of it??

Another photo from The Good Years. This special wasn't very well received, btw.

This came out when I was 10 and I don't remember going to it. I saw it later, on TV, I guess. I do remember The Odd Couple from that same year and loving it. And seeing True Grit with John Wayne around that time, as well.

[quote]Jane Fonda implying that her father and Lucy had an affair while it was being made and that Lucy would often run over to Henry's trailer to be with him.

What are old friends for, r57?

I was kind of surprised when I read CBS wanted Fonda to play John Walton in The Waltons, originally (with Pat Neal - the original Olivia - continuing in the role). He was only three years younger than Will Geer, who would be playing his father.

1968 will also be remembered as the year of "With Six You Get Eggroll" AND "Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?".

I just thought I'd mention that.

Henry Fonda held up for a pretty long time. Once age finally hit, it really hit.

[quote]I was kind of surprised when I read CBS wanted Fonda to play John Walton in The Waltons

No surprise there.

"The Waltons" was inspired by the film "Spencer's Mountain" a big hit for Fonda in 1963.

R67 Didn't you understand that I meant I was surprised because at the time he would have been almost 70 years old?

R66 Yeah that's true.

To the people who saw Yours, Mine and Ours" in the theater, did your parents take you to see "With Six You Get Eggroll" as well?

"Yours, Mine and Ours" is the better movie, but I'm surprised they were released in the same year.

We went to see Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?, even though my parents didn't take me to see Yours, Mine and Ours. We saw it at the drive-in. I remember a couple years earlier we saw The Glass Bottomed Boat (with Doris Day and Rod Taylor) at the drive-in. While the kids loved it, my parents thought it was dumb. It did have Paul Lynde in drag, and Alice Pearce and George Tobias as basically "Gladys and Abner Kravitz" before Bewitched existed. Also Dom DeLouise.

The success of this and "With Six You Get Eggroll" led to the creation in the late 60s and 70s of TV shows about families with lots of children: someone mentioned 1969's "The Brady Bunch" upthread, but there was also "The Partridge Family" the next year.

These movies and TV shows were popular especially with children because they bought into a common fantasy among lonelier kids: if I just had lots and lots of siblings, I would always have someone to play with.

[quote] To the people who saw Yours, Mine and Ours" in the theater, did your parents take you to see "With Six You Get Eggroll" as well?

Years later I saw the porn version: "With Sex You Get Eggroll."

With Six You Get Eggroll is just really ugly looking - the set and costume colors and designs. Really the worst 1968 garish horrible-looking stuff - worth seeing for that alone.

R70, no, they didn’t. We only went to see YMAO. Many years later I saw Eggroll on TV and IIRC it was one of those 60s movies with over the top fake looking “hippies” in it.

Maybe my fondness for YMAO is partially due to nostalgia but I really think I would have found Eggroll to be just dumb and not funny when it first came out. I do like Doris Day now but not then.

I think WSYGE was the only movie where Doris Day had children that were older teens or college age young adults.

I saw YMAO with the fam in the station wagon at a drive-in

[quote]Didn't you understand that I meant I was surprised because at the time he would have been almost 70 years old?

Henry Fonda still looked good in 1972.

If the show was still in development when he was offered the role, who knows what script changes would have been made to accommodate his age.

R78 Okay, you win. I apologize for being surprised.

R79 yeah, OK.

.................

RE: Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?

They really tried to make Patrick O'Neal happen. But no one was interested.

Anyone remember "O'Neal's Balloon" and "The Ginger Man", Lincoln Center area?

Didn’t she slap her maid once, who promptly slapped her back?

[quote] They really tried to make Patrick O'Neal happen. But no one was interested.

Speak for yourself!

I like it and think Lucille Ball nicely created a character distinct from her usual “TV Lucy” one—except in the drunk at dinner scene. That scene was very funny and a highlight to the story, but Lucille should’ve been held back in her portrayal on that part hamming it up so-over-the-top as typical “TV Lucy Doing Drunk Bit.” Plus Lucy must’ve overseen the kids’ casting. Most of them have that ferret look that her own 2 kids demonstrated when little.

This is a lovely movie. The remake was horrible!

My mom saw this as a ~6-year-old girl at its original release in 1968 in a classic theatre on Canal Street in New Orleans.

[quote]While the kids loved it, my parents thought it was dumb. It did have Paul Lynde in drag, and Alice Pearce and George Tobias as basically "Gladys and Abner Kravitz" before Bewitched existed. Also Dom DeLouise.

Glass Bottom was released in 1966. Bewitched premiered in 1964.

Fred MacMurray worked like one month a year on My Three Sons. Maybe he just didn't want to do it. He didn't need the money. Maybe Fonda at this point was cheaper.

MacMurray guest starred in one of the Comedy Hours (where they hunt for uranium) and Ball later said she found him to be a total square. Nice enough guy, she said, but his style of comedy was so different to hers.

Knowing that, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ball wasn’t keen on having him play opposite her again.

By then who else could have starred with her? There weren't that many appropriate older male stars left beside Fonda and Ford. Bob Hope would have pulled it off. John Forsythe? Not William Holden, nor Robert Stack. Cary Grant retired and never would have done it anyway. They never would have cast Don Ameche but he probably would have been fun.

^ meant to write: "... beside Fonda, MacMurray and Ford."

Desi Arnaz could've taken the role. The audiences would have loved to see the two of them back together again.

Jimmy Stewart, Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rex Harrison, David Niven, Sinatra, or Jackie Gleason could have given it a shot.

Also: Ray Milland, Walter Matthau, and Melvyn Douglas.

Aww, I remember seeing this. My father abandoned us when I was a baby. My mother was a single parent with five children. She married a man who took us all in and then they had another child. This film was really important to me, although it wasn’t the blending of two already existing families.

With Six You Get Eggroll is not a great movie, but I understand casting Brian Keith as a romantic lead. There's something about those solid, block-headed guys that appeals to me, e.g., David Cubitt as Det. Scanlon on Medium.

I love Eric Shea as Phillip. (Beardsly! North!)

He'd go on to do The Poseidon Adventure (shove it shove it shove it)

[Quote] The ONLY reason that film had such an incredible performance at the box office is because it starred Lucille Ball. Not Henry Fonda

[Quote] .Lucy was the most famous woman in America at the time. No way was Fonda a bigger star. Come on...

(^.^] Yet Lucy made only 1 theatrical release after Yours, Mine and Ours while Henry Fonda appeared in many films in the 70s: Sometimes a Great Notion, Midway, Rollercoaster, Fedora, There Was a Crooked Man, Meteor, Ash Wednesday, Too Late the Hero, My Name is Nobody and won an Oscar in 1981 for On Golden Pond.

Yours, Mine and Ours was one of 5 films released in 1968 that Fonda appeared in. The others were Once Upon a Time in the West, The Boston Strangler, Madigan and Firecreek. Fonda was an international star unlike Lucy.

R96 Why are you talking about the 1970s?

The film was made in 1968.

In 1968, in the US, who was the bigger star, Lucy or Henry Fonda?

I was 13 when this film opened and was a Lucy fan. I found it amusing and panted over Tim Matheson but was disappointed in the film. The theater was filled but nobody was laughing. There were a few chuckles but not the hilarity I had expected.

A few months later I went to see "With Six You Get Eggroll" and really enjoyed it. Doris and Brian Keith had great chemistry and I thought the supporting cast was better. George Carlin, Barbara Hershey, Alice Ghostley, Vic Tayback, and Pat Carroll at her most butch. It wasn't as long as Lucy's film and people in the audience were laughing.

An interesting piece of trivia: Brian Keith's father, Robert, played Day's father in "Young at Heart" and was also in "Love Me or Leave Me". Day and Keith met when Brian visited the set of "Love Me or Leave Me" and they had a brief fling because Day's marriage to Marty Melcher was already rocky.

[quote] Bob Hope would have pulled it off.

Have you people seen the movie? Bob Hope as a Naval officer? Rex Harrison? Danny Kaye? Are you all mad?

With six I got egg roll!

[quote] the drunk at dinner scene. That scene was very funny and a highlight to the story, but Lucille should’ve been held back in her portrayal on that part hamming it up so-over-the-top as typical “TV Lucy Doing Drunk Bit.” Plus Lucy must’ve overseen the kids’ casting. Most of them have that ferret look that her own 2 kids demonstrated when little.

I don't think she oversaw the casting because she did a screen test with her own daughter, who didn't get the part.

I like the drunk scene. I don't think it's over the top - what did you want, a subtle drunk scene? The kids gave her a deadly mix of liquor. Maybe it would have been more realistic if she started throwing up and had to go to the emergency room.

According to what I've read, Desi actually was considered as a possibility to play opposite Lucy in this film, strange as that seems.

Gale Gordon must have been pissed that Van Johnson got this part.

R96 Fonda was an internationally known movie star for 4 decades. Ball's film career never took off in the 40s and 50s when Fonda was a big star hence, she did TV. How many films did Ball make in the 60s?

Fonda was in Advise and Consent, The Best Man, Fail Safe, The Longest Day, How the West Was Won, Battle of the Bulge, A Big Hand for a Little Lady, In Harm's Way, The Rounders, Sex and the Single Girl . . .in addition to the 5 films he appeared in in 1968.

Lucy was in 4 films released in the 60s.

Fonda was known for such film classics as 12 Angry Men, The Grapes of Wrath, The Lady Eve, Young Mr. Lincoln. The Wrong Man, The Ox-Bow Incident, Jezebel, You Only Live Once.

The scenes I remember most in "Yours Mine and Ours" are when Lucy throws mashed potatoes at one kid (the drunk scene) and the grocery store when they show the cash register ringing up the prices as they shop. It was, I suppose, shocking at the time but now it's shocking because it's so incredibly cheap for what might well be half the store inventory.

Didn't the "hippies" in With Six You Get Eggroll later become Father Mulcahy and Corporal Klinger on the TV version of M*A*S*H or am I confusing that with another piece of loveable 1960s dreck?

Both With Six You Get Eggroll and Yours, Mine and Ours are large screen sitcoms and the template for the insipid Brady Bunch

R106

Great memory. William Christopher (Father Mulcahy) and Jamie Farr (Klinger) both played hippies in the film.

Farr and Christopher

Renata Adler never mentioned the ages of the lead actors in her review. People seem more obsessed with the ages of actors these days than they once were. Since Lucy was always playing a character around ten years younger than her actual age, on TV, maybe people really forgot she was in her mid-50s when she played a pregnant woman in YMAO.

It's kind of like Doris Day playing the mom of a young kid in My Dream Is Yours (1949), and still playing a mom with young kids in Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960), The Thrill of It All (1963), and the first season of her TV show in 1968.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Jimmy Stewart as a possible co-star if Fonda had not done it (I find the Ball-Fonda chemistry very good, btw.) Or maybe someone has mentioned him. There weren't that many older, big male stars the right age who were still around, in 1968. Richard Widmark? Robert Mitchum? Gene Kelly? Robert Taylor?

[quote]Richard Widmark? Robert Mitchum? Gene Kelly? Robert Taylor?

Dabbs Greer?

The Lucie Arnaz screen test.

I happened to be in the same small bookstore as Lucille Ball before she died. She thought I was an employee and asked for help in finding some books. She was in sunglasses and a hat, but I knew that voice immediately. I could not believe that LUCY was standing right in front of me. I played along and helped her and gave a few suggestions for other books from the same author. She could not have been nicer, or more appreciative.

When she was ready to checkout, I finally told her that I didn't work there. She let out a big laugh and thanked me profusely for my help. She told me that I was more helpful than the actual bookstore employees.

R114 That's cool! Do you remember who the author was?

Tim Matheson was really hung - we saw it in another horror film he did

He said it was bigger than a cucumber in Animal House but that's the only evidence I know of.

[quote]He said it was bigger than a cucumber in Animal House

Gherkin?

[Quote] Renata Adler never mentioned the ages of the lead actors in her review. People seem more obsessed with the ages of actors these days than they once were. Since Lucy was always playing a character around ten years younger than her actual age, on TV, maybe people really forgot she was in her mid-50s when she played a pregnant woman in YMAO.

Lucy was filmed through filters which made her close-ups look blurry. By the time of Mame critics suggested she was being filmed through chicken fat.

You can go on and on about what an important career Henry Fonda had. No one is disputing that.

But the fact remains: in 1968 people went to see this film because of Lucy, not Fonda.

Tim was billed as MATTHIESEN (his birth name) in YMAO.

[quote]Fonda was an internationally known movie star for 4 decades. Ball's film career never took off in the 40s and 50s when Fonda was a big star hence, she did TV. How many films did Ball make in the 60s?Fonda was in Advise and Consent, The Best Man, Fail Safe, The Longest Day, How the West Was Won, Battle of the Bulge, A Big Hand for a Little Lady, In Harm's Way, The Rounders, Sex and the Single Girl . . .in addition to the 5 films he appeared in in 1968. Lucy was in 4 films released in the 60s.

You really, really don't get it.

In 1968 Barbra Streisand was a bigger star than Fonda or nearly anybody. And she had only made one picture.

R120 How do you know that? Any links that don't require a colonoscope?

If Lucy was so hot at the BO R120 why did she appear in so few films? It was 6 years between Yours, Mine and Ours and the flop Mame.

Jesus, Lucie was fucking horrible in that screen test. Whatever bim they got to play the role was better than her.

I didn't like that movie. In fact, I never really liked anything she did outside of I Love Lucy. she really was a horrible actress - she may have been a brilliant business woman, but she certainly wasn't all that talented as a performer IMHO. She was also nasty to her fans. Her character Lucy Ricardo had some warmth, but she certainly never did.

Too bad Vivian Vance didn't play Vera Charles in the movie "Mame". It may have attracted a bigger audience.

and a bigger star than Lucy too R122

People fail to remember just HOW many film offers Lucy was turning down! The Graduate, Don't Look Now, They Shoot Horses Don't They, Diary of a Mad Housewife, Dressed to Kill, Agnes of God, Shampoo, The Poseidon Adventure, Interiors, the list goes on and on! Lucy was the biggest star on the planet and box office gold! Henry Fonda was known as Jane's father by the time of YMAO!

[quote]People fail to remember just HOW many film offers Lucy was turning down! The Graduate, Don't Look Now, They Shoot Horses Don't They, Diary of a Mad Housewife, Dressed to Kill, Agnes of God, Shampoo, The Poseidon Adventure, Interiors, the list goes on and on!

Thank Heavens she chose "Mame".

[quote]If Lucy was so hot at the BO [R120] why did she appear in so few films? It was 6 years between Yours, Mine and Ours and the flop Mame.

In 1968 she was a legendary TV actress much loved by the public. With the film "Yours, Mine & Ours" she had the right role, at the right time.

People went to see the film because it starred Lucille Ball, not second-billed Henry Fonda.

I enjoyed the scenes of San Francisco as the two of them were strolling through the streets. I guess if the movie was made today, they wouldn't be able to film on location in SF ?

Any scenes in this movie of Lucy on the roof trying to fix the TV antenna?

[quote]If Lucy was so hot at the BO [R120] why did she appear in so few films? It was 6 years between Yours, Mine and Ours and the flop Mame.[/quote]

Gary talked out of them...

In '68 what other actress could have played the lead in "Yours, Mine and Ours" ?

I think the only one that could have made it work would have been Doris Day. Maybe Debbie Reynolds but would anyone have cared?

Joan Crawford could have done it.

Of course, there would have been 20 abused children....

Susan Hayward?

YM&O is on Amazon Prime. I'll give it a try.

Helen Lawson, silly.

R131 again how do you know that?

[Quote] In '68 what other actress could have played the lead in "Yours, Mine and Ours" ?

Maureen O'Hara she was 9 years younger than Lucy and worked with Fonda before

One of the daughters went on to play deliciously deranged Olive on Another World. Lots of good creepy music.

I don't understand how Spencer's Mountain could be a hit when people didn't go to movies to see Henry Fonda, and Lucille Ball wasn't in it. Can someone explain?

(^.^) and why did producers keep casting him in films without Lucille Ball?

I'm really surprised Fonda kept being cast in Broadway plays, too, and somehow a most of them were hits. Maybe people were going to see the sets.

and why did Otto Preminger keep casting him?

Wasn't Lucy available?

and how did Battle of the Bulge become such a success without Lucy?

Gary talked her out of it.

and why risk casting Fonda in such big budget productions without Lucy

[quote]I don't understand how Spencer's Mountain could be a hit when people didn't go to movies to see Henry Fonda, and Lucille Ball wasn't in it. Can someone explain?

No one here claimed that people didn't go to see movies with Henry Fonda.

However, people went to see this particular movie to see Lucille Ball.

It was a vehicle for Lucy. Not Henry Fonda. The Fonda role could have been played by a number of other actors. It could have been Fred MacMurray. It could have been Jimmy Stewart.

Lucy's role was tailored to her particular talents. The film was built around her.

BTW" Spencer's Mountain wasn't even in the top 25 grossing films of 1963. YM&O came in at number 9 in 1968.

and how did Once Upon a Time in the West become such an international success with Jane's father heading the cast?

[quote] However, people went to see this particular movie to see Lucille Ball.

[quote] It was a vehicle for Lucy. Not Henry Fonda. The Fonda role could have been played by a number of other actors. It could have been Fred MacMurray. It could have been Jimmy Stewart.

[quote] Lucy's role was tailored to her particular talents. The film was built around her.

Please stop saying Fred Macmurray. Now that theme with the 3 pairs of legs and the squashing hands won't leave my head.

Jesus, you queens could beat Superman to death.

[quote] I don't understand how Spencer's Mountain could be a hit

It was a [italic]hit?[/italic]

To what extent?

I think it was just modestly successful.

R152 Claudia Cardinale was billed as the star of that film. Name above the others. With her face the biggest. And at the center.

[Quote] Lucy's role was tailored to her particular talents. The film was built around her.

Producers were taking a risk casting Lucy in anything .

Production suffered multiple interruptions for several reasons. It began in December 1962 after Ball's abortive attempt at a career on the Broadway stage. In 1963, production was halted after the box-office failure of her comedy effort Critic's Choice (with Bob Hope). Later, she was unhappy with the script presented by Madelyn Pugh (then known as Madelyn Pugh Martin) and Bob Carroll, precisely because their script overly resembled an I Love Lucy television episode, and commissioned another writer (Leonard Spigelgass) to rewrite the script.[citation needed] Mr. Spigelgass does not seem to have succeeded in breaking free of Lucy's television work, so producer Robert Blumofe hired yet two more writers (Mickey Rudin and Bernie Weitzman) to make an attempt.[citation needed] When this failed, Blumofe hired Melville Shavelson, who eventually directed. All further rewrite efforts came to an abrupt end at the insistence of United Artists, the film's eventual distributor.[

Lucy could have co-starred with a coat rack and that movie would have made money! Or anyone. Lucille Ball and Buddy Ebsen in Yours, Mine and Ours. Ernest Borgnine, Joey Bishop. Raymond Burr. Johnny Weissmuller. People only went to see Lucy.

Why didn't they go see Mame? R159

R160 I don't know. The film was built around her!

R158 In fact. It was a vehicle for her.

Even Madelyn Pugh Davis...long time writer for Lucy.

maybe that was the problem R161

R156

Box Office Mojo: Before The Homecoming, your novel Spencer's Mountain was made into a movie starring Henry Fonda and Maureen O'Hara. Was Spencer's Mountain a hit?

Earl Hamner: Box office wise, yes, and it's still shown on American Movie Classics. As it turns out, I own the stage rights, so I am involved with a stage version of Spencer's Mountain at regional theaters.

Box Office Mojo: Why was the name Spencer changed to Walton, and Clay to John, as in John-Boy, for the TV series?

Earl Hamner: When Warner Bros. bought Spencer's Mountain, they had an option on the next novel. So, in order to sell The Homecoming to Warner Bros.—and, since Spencer's Mountain was still making money—they didn't want me to use Clay-Boy. We had to change the name from Spencer to Walton. They felt it would interfere with the distribution of Spencer's Mountain. It was a legal decision.

Spencer's Mountain was more successful than Lucy's 1963 film. Ball didn't get another lead film role for 5 years while O'Hara and Fonda appeared in many films.

R165 How shocking! Did people know Lucy was in it??

maybe they should have cast Henry Fonda who was in the successful Broadway run of Critic's Choice instead of Bob Hope

On Golden Pond was the 2nd highest grossing film of 1981. Probably people just went to it to see Katharine Hepburn and Jane Fonda. Imagine if Lucy had been in it. Coulda been #1.

In 1968 no one was saying: "We're going to see that new Henry Fonda film..."Your's Mine and Ours"!"

I mean, c'mon.

Even without Lucy, On Golden Pond had a worldwide gross of $119M in 1981

A mere nine years before Hank's finest achievement...

How does anyone know what "people" were saying in 1968? And apparently they all thought exactly alike? And all of them saw movies for the same exact reasons...

I always thought of Yours, Mine and Ours as a family comedy, about two parents of large families who got married. I don't ever recall thinking of it as a Lucille Ball vehicle. I thought of it as a movie starring Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda.

Similarly, I thought of The Facts of Life as a movie starring Lucille Ball and Bob Hope.

If we're talking movie stardom, Lucille Ball never achieved big screen stardom, as far as I can see. She did have a few hits (The Long, Long Trailer, The Facts of Life, YMAO). Fonda was an actual movie star, for decades. I don't know who went to see who in TMAO but those are the facts.

R171 Fonda was paid $500,000 for Tentacles which is a lot more than the $150,000 Lucy got for Mame

Fonda, who looks as if he's trying to hide through half the picture, was paid $ 500,000 to look like a convincing victim. -Boston Globe

R175 before she appeared on I Love Lucy she was known as the queen of the B movies.

Lucy must have had some kind of profit-percentage deal. How could she only have gotten a flat fee of 150K for starring in Mame?

sorry R178 my mistake she received $250,000 plus 10% of the profits but were there any?

Mame (1974)

$250,000 +10% net profits

Yours, Mine and Ours (1968)

50% of the net profits (co-producer)

At least Tentacles had Shelley Winters and some action; all On Golden Pond had was that annoying kid and the fucking loons.

Funny, I saw Spencers Mountain and Yours Mine and Ours when they were released.

Most of you here were not even born when YM&O debuted.

Lucy, as has been noted, was in the second highest rated show on TV at the time. She was watched every week by millions. She won the Emmy that year for best actress.

The movie, the star billing, the press...it was about her. She wasn't a movie star, she was a TV star and the most successful of all at that time. The buzz for that film was clearly about her not Fonda.

The year 1968 was peak Lucy. The next year her show was down in the ratings and never recovered. Times were changing.

Fonda on the other hand by 1968 no longer had the star power he once had. In none of the films he made that year did he have star billing. But he had permanent A-list status, an enduring movie career and work constantly. Did he have any Hollywood films with top star billing in the 1970s and 80s? Besides "The Great Smokey Roadblock"?

^ BTW I remember my father groaning through the whole movie because he hated Lucy. Found her corny and unbelievable. But we dragged him there and that was that.

R181 Still, Fonda was paid half a million to appear in the low budget film Tentacles in 1977 which is more than Ball was ever paid for a film role.

R181 ever hear of On Golden Pond?

R181 Fonda was an internationally recognized film star popular in Europe

R181 I was 10 in 1968. But I don't remember any publicity for the movie.

[quote] Fonda on the other hand by 1968 no longer had the star power he once had. In none of the films he made that year did he have star billing.

I think you mean "top billing." He had star billing in Yours, Mine and Ours. Second billing, above the title, same size as Lucy. That's star billing. Under the title would be supporting.

Fonda had star billing in all the films he was in in 1968. I remember going to one - Firecreek - where his costar was James Stewart. Fonda played the bad guy and Stewart was the good guy.

Question: Did Fonda have any films after YM&O that were in the top ten grossing films of the year until "On Golden Pond" in 1981?

R187 Midway, 1976.

R186 You are correct I should have said: top billing. Lucy had the top billing in Yours Mine and Ours.

R186 in none of his films in 1968 did he have top billing.

R184 On Golden Pond had Hepburn with top billing. (although Fonda did have his illustration at the top).

R188 Yes, only Midway. Charlton Heston with top billing. Ranked 10. YM&O ranked 9.

R189 What about Once Upon a time in the West?

[quote] in none of his films in 1968 did he have top billing.

In none of her films with Spencer Tracy did Katharine Hepburn get top billing. Cary Grant wanted and got top billing in The Philadelphia Story - even though his part wasn't really the lead, amd James Stewart won the Oscar. Does that mean Hepburn wasn't a star in those films?

R190 I was just answering the question. What's your point?

I remember in 1968 everyone had a framed photo of Henry Fonda above the fireplace and his statue stood in front of most City Halls. Nixon would end his speeches with 'Good Night and God bless Henry Fonda'. Only a few years later some middle aged woman in a New York suburb was trying to get him to run for president!!

Haha. I don't think Nixon would ever say God bless Henry Fonda, a Democrat.

[Quote]Lucy's role was tailored to her particular talents. The film was built around her.

R151 she and Desi were executive producers which is probably the only reason she was in it.

[Quote] Fonda on the other hand by 1968 no longer had the star power he once had. In none of the films he made that year did he have star billing.

R189 He is second billed in 1968s Madigan even though he has a supporting role

I'm surprised Lucy didn't force them to use Gale Gordon instead of Henry Fondu.

I never cared for Henry Fonda and have only seen about 5 of his films. I dislike Westerns, which make up 70% of his work.

Unlike Sally Field, Burt Reynolds, Mia Farrow, Clint Eastwood, Ryan O'Neal, Will Smith, Melissa McCarthy, John Travolta . . .Lucille Ball never made a successful transition from TV star to movie star.

Lucy transcended any of those mediums.

R198 Fonda did a lot of war films and westerns as many of Hollywood's biggest stars of the 40s, 50 and 60s did i.e. Burt Lancaster, Jimmy Stewart, Kirk Douglas, Clint Eastwood, John Wayne . . .though many of Fonda's best-known films are neither. The Grapes of Wrath, The Lady Eve, Mister Roberts, 12 Angry Men, Fail Safe, You Only Live Once, The Wrong Man, Advise and Consent, The Boston Strangler, The Best Man, Young Mr. Lincoln and of course Yours, Mine and Ours and On Golden Pond.

R200 funny she's not noted for her stage work or films though.

[Quote] I'm surprised Lucy didn't force them to use Gale Gordon instead of Henry Fondu.

Not even Lucy could picture that fussy old queen as the father of 10 children!

but think of all the yelling he Gale could have done. And it would have even been in the script.

R191 Claudia Cardinale has the top billing. And note the illustration: her's is the biggest and placed dead center. It was an Italian film. Claudia was attraction.

"...the attraction"

I never cared for Henry Fonda and have only seen about 5 of his films. I dislike Westerns, which make up 70% of his work.

Nah, I don't think so. I just looked at IMDB. He was in over a hundred movies and less than 20 were westerns.

For R198^^

R205 =clutching at straws.

in high school R205 was voted most likely to die alone 🙋‍♂️🙋‍♀️

Even today Once Upon a Time in the West, The Grapes of Wrath, The Wrong Man and 12 Angry Men remain classics.

His performance in Once Upon a Time in the West is iconic

[quote]Lucille Ball never made a successful transition from TV star to movie star.

When she found her niche, her shtick, that was it...she stuck to what was successful for her, what the public wanted from her (or at least what she thought the public wanted from her) and she never veered (until Stone Pillow...ugh). Everything she did was "Lucy". She was unapologetically one-note.

That's why YM&O worked for her. She got to do her "Lucy" shtick with a good script and the public loved it. She was still in shape, looked good, her voice wasn't yet totally ravaged...but that was all to quickly change.

Sergio Leone's masterpiece

[quote][R205] =clutching at straws.

How? Have you actually ever seen the movie? In the opening, Claudia's name appears first before all others. Then, one by one,. appear the names of the other actors. Fonda after Claudia Cardinale.

Jesus Christ! I never liked Lucy because she was too much like my mother. Henry Fonda's always been a cranky old geezer, even when he was young he was a cranky geezer. I saw the stupid movie because my folks dragged us to the drive in and I had no goddamned choice. Let it go!

R215 Yes, everyone remembers Once Upon A Time in the West for Claudia Cardinale. *eyeroll*

R213 I have to say, if you've ever seen The Facts of Life (1960), she's not playing her "Lucy" character in that.

In 1968 in Florence, Italy, a woman leapt from the Duomo, clutching a picture of Henry Fonda and cursing Lucille Ball's name.

I'd add The Lady Eve, My Darling Clementine, Mister Roberts and The Ox-Bow Incident to the Fonda classics list.

[quote] I'm surprised Lucy didn't force them to use Gale Gordon instead of Henry Fondu.

Similarly, she could have had arranged for Van Johnson's role to have been played by Frank "EEE-Yeeeeeeeeesssss?" Nelson.

Hey, Lucy had her stock company, just like John Ford. She was a great artist.

I never understood why they made Lucille Ball into a kind of dumb Gracie Allen character on later seasons of The Lucy Show (I think she even did a bit with George Burns where she did Gracie's part in one of their routines). But maybe it has to do with her hiring writers who I think wrote The Jack Benny Program. The only ones who really got her were the I Love Lucy writers - Oppenheimer, Pugh & Carroll, Schiller & Weiskopf.

Oh my God...this poster gives Fonda TOP BILLING>

(I mean, DVD cover.)

And Mary Jane Croft as Sister Mary Alice, Philip's teacher at the Catholiic school.

Not Mary Wickes?

[quote]Oh my God...this poster gives Fonda TOP BILLING'"

Henry Fonda was in all those spaghetti westerns in Italy. If you were going to sell that film to Italians, you'd give Fonda top billing. Not in the US though.

And this being Italy, the title is now "Appointment Under the Bed" and they try to make Lucy look sexy....

R228 Actually, it's the exact same drawing used on the American poster (see OP's illustration).

Though Fonda worked with many of Hollywood's biggest female stars: Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck, Elizabeth Taylor, Maureen O'Hara, Joanne Woodward, Lauren Bacall, Natalie Wood and of course Claudia Cardinale, he was probably the biggest male star Lucy ever worked with on film.

OP are you rich? can i be in your will? You must be pushing 85?

R224 because foreign audience had no idea who Lucille Ball was.

Maimed

Ball was successful in films before she made the transition to TV. She was in at least a dozen classics or near classics and starred in several of them before I Love Lucy. Her huge success in TV just eclipsed her moderate success in films.

[Quote]She was in at least a dozen classics

any titles you care to offer R234

[quote]She was in at least a dozen classics

Do her two Three Stooges shorts count as classics?

Fonda worked with directors John Ford, Wiliam Wyler, Hitchcock, Sergio Leone, Preston Sturges, Sidney Lumet, Otto Preminger, Fritz Lange . . . he won an Oscar for his final film. Lucy's final film was a career ending flop.

Only on DL would this turn into a catfight pitting Ball against Fonda. Obviously Fonda was the bigger movie star. That doesn't put Ball in a bad light.

She was in a lot of good or enjoyable films before I Love Lucy. Her classics, near classics or fondly remembered (you may not agree with all of these, but at least some of them qualify): Stage Door, Room Service, Five Came Back, Beauty for the Asking, Too Many Girls; A Girl, a Guy, and a Gob; The Big Street, Du Barry Was a Lady, Best Foot Forward, Thousands Cheer, Without Love, Ziegfeld Follies, The Dark Corner, Lover Come Back, Easy to Wed, Lured, Sorrowful Jones, Easy Living, Miss Grant Takes Richmond, Fancy Pants, and The Fuller Brush Girl.

Room Service is a Marx Bros film with 64% on Rotten Tomatoes and Stage Door stars Katherine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers ad Lucy is sixth billed. The rest of films are mediocre, and many of them are Bob Hope's lowbrow films.

Sorry Ball's billing is lower than I thought. She was no Claudia Cardinale.

Two films with Hope are "many of them"?? Never mind, not wasting my time with trolls.

R241 Then what are you doing on DL princess? You're wasting your time trying to persuade trolls that those films are classic.

This thread will reach 600. Who knew the world was just waiting for a good old-fashioned Fonda/Ball catfight?

I enjoy the banter and when comments are well informed or at least good spirited, R242. I even forget where I am until it gets into even more particularly pointless bitchery than usual.

Ball and Hope appeared in 4 films together and they are as forgettable as all the other films she made. It's trivial pursuit talking about her film career.

"The type of fizzy Depression-era story told in Mame was a cliché better suited to satire (as in 1978’s Movie Movie) than straight treatment; the overwrought production numbers in Mame evoke the bloated CinemaScope/VistaVision movies of the ’50s; and aging star Lucille Ball had just finished an epic two-decade run as TV’s reigning comedienne, meaning there was zero evidence that people wanted to see her in a movie, much less a musical."-Every 70s Movie

"As Norman Thayer Jr., celebrating his 80th birthday with reluctance, furiously aware of his physical and mental decline and as frightened of death as he is angry with it, Mr. Fonda gives one of the great performances of his long, truly distinguished career. Here is film acting of the highest order, the kind that is not discovered overnight in the laboratory, but seems to be the distillation of hundreds of performances." NYTimes

Henry who?

Different movie, same goddamned performance.....he's annoying.

r224 "Appointment Under the Bed"?

We are TALKING ABOUT Yours, Mine & Ours--at such INCREDIBLE LENGTH? That piece of nothing????

I am floored. Utterly.

Those goofy cartoons they used to promote movies in the 60s tho

R250 You clearly haven't read the thread.

They need to do a new season of FEUD and call it HENRY FONDA TROLL VS. LUCY TROLL.

[Quote] We are TALKING ABOUT Yours, Mine & Ours--at such INCREDIBLE LENGTH? That piece of nothing????

It may not be 12 Angry Men, but it was the only notable BO hit Lucy had.

[quote]It may not be 12 Angry Men, but it was the only notable BO hit Lucy had.

Long, Long Trailer?

aka Long, Long I Love Lucy episode.

A disaster for anyone but “I Love Lucy” fans. It’s basically the same as the popular TV show only it seems even worse (it was the number one show at the time). Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz play a newlywed couple with upward mobility ambitions. He’s a practical, bland regular guy; she’s a shrill demanding housewife. Lucy talks her reluctant construction engineer hubby into buying a trailer instead of investing in a house. They end up buying a long trailer on the installment plan, spending much more than they anticipated. The silly comedy revolves around their misadventures with the trailer as they take it on their honeymoon and drive it across the country.-Dennis Schwartz

^ Opinions are like assholes, r257.

(r257) I did find Marjorie Main very amusing, but the rest of the film was overplayed. Their follow-up film, "Forever, Darling" in 1956, was abysmal and lost money.

Interesting comment (below) about "Forever, Darling" and how Radio City Music Hall programmers felt about it. Lucy tried to get "Yours, Mine and Ours" booked into the theater in 1968 but they were not interested.

"The film received mixed critical reception. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times described it as a "thin, overdrawn, weak caper",and Time Out London called it a "fitfully amusing offering." Most notably, programmers at Radio City Music Hall, where Trailer had premiered, refused to let the film open there because they found it "sub-standard".

According to MGM records, the film earned $1,912,000 in the U.S. and Canada and $376,000 in other markets, resulting in a loss of $188,000.[1] As a result of the disappointing results, MGM and the couple mutually agreed to cancel the deal, and Desilu did not produce another film until Yours, Mine, and Ours 11 years later."

"The Long, Long Trailer" does have this musical number.

Jackie Gleason like Lucy was a huge TV star in the 50 and 60s who managed to parlay his popularity into a long successful film career in the 60s and 70s even scoring an Oscar nod for The Hustler.

[quote]Jackie Gleason like Lucy was a huge TV star in the 50 and 60s

I'll say.

So in conclusion, the movie is known as "The Henry Fonda film, "Yours, Mine and Ours"."

(That's how nutty DL is)

NY Times obit identifies Ball as TV star

NY Times obit identifies Fonda as star of Film and Stage. He won an Oscar months before his death.

Yours Mine and Ours like With Six You Get Eggroll were popular relics in 1968

"YOURS, MINE AND OURS," which opened yesterday at the Astor and the 86th Street East, is a leering, uncertain, embarrassing, protracted little comedy—neatly divided into television inter-commercial periods, each terminated by an abysmal, inevitable joke—quite anti sex and pro compulsive procreation.-NY Times

Let's go see the new Lucille Ball film said no one ever

I go with the eggroll movie. Brian Keith showed quite the bulge in pajamas .

"Compulsive Procreation" would have been a better title.

Liz Smith told the story of how Lucy, Bette Davis and some other big stars were all on a plane together in first class. Lucy stood up and asked her fellow passengers, "If this plane goes down, who's getting top billing?"

Bette shot back, "Oh, you are Lucy! No doubt about it."

Since it was a "Henry Fonda film", they should have included Jane and Peter in the cast somehow.

We couldn't afford Jane and Peter on our $2.5M budget

What I don't understand is why a movie actor like Henry Fonda would agree to do a film with a TV actress that nobody liked.

He probably could have gotten Elizabeth Taylor. They were terrific together in "Ash Wednesday".

Ball and Fonda worked together before and apparently got along R274

I'm trying to picture Lucy as Ethel Thayer in On Golden Pond with Henry Fonda and trying to engage in a 10-minute shtick of tipping over the canoe while on the pond.

That's it, he could have gotten Katherine Hepburn, a genuine movie star, to star in his film. She would have been a fabulous mom with all those kids.

Check this out. It's cute.

R278 What? Lucille Ball? A tired TV actress that nobody liked? The star was Henry Fonda, so what's she doing there? I guess he was busy that night and they had to make do with her.

R278 - Couldn't they have adopted a black one who really knew how to sing and dance.

Fonda didn't need to do publicity for his films. Besides Lucy received no salary for the film as executive producer.

Are any of those kids actually from the film?

R278, the Ed Sullivan show with Lucy and the kids was done in Licorice Pizza.

Wait a minute....this is the trailer promoting the film.

It opens with Lucy, it focuses on Lucy, Lucy has the most lines...AND it even has her name above Henry Fonda's. And it's HIS film. People were going to see the film because of him, not her....so what gives?

R279 Henry was always busy. He was in 5 films release in 1968. He appeared in 9 feature films fom 1970-74 while Lucy did 1 final film in 1974 after Yours, Mine and Ours

R283 Ball was a control freak and she was executive producer of the film

Here's Ben Mankiewicz....what does he know about film? He's talking about "Yours, Mine and Ours:" and he has the NERVE to describe the film as "starring Lucille Ball with co-star Henry Fonda!" Is it too late to send a petition in protest?

[quote]Ball was a control freak and she was executive producer of the film

AND she didn't know what she was doing!

If the trailer had focused on the true star of the film, Henry Fonda....a genuine movie star.....the film might have been given a fighting chance, instead of merely being 9th highest grossing film of the year.

yet it didn't help her film career as she made only one film after it and that was a BO flop R287

R287 who was the star of Thelma and Louise? Sarandon or Davis?

Who was the dtar of Butch Cassidy . . .and The Sting? Redford or Newman?

(^.^) the star Who was the star of The Way We Were? Redford or Streisand?

Who was the star of Guess or Who's Coming to Dinner? Hepburn, Poitier or Tracy?

Who was the star of The Towering Inferno?

co definition

(forming adjectives) jointly; mutually: "coequal"

Who was the star of Once Upon a Time in the West?

depends who you ask I suppose

Who was the star of A Big Hand for a Little Lady?

Who's the star of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Who's the star of Sleuth?

R287 was Connery Michael Caine's co star or was Caine Connery's co star?

R297, I was on the short list to play George, so I was the star! Obviously!

r297 who? I AM, BABY!

[quote]co definition (forming adjectives) jointly; mutually: "coequal"

I'm going to give Mankiewicz he benefit of the doubt. I think he simply misspoke and meant to say: ""Yours, Mine and Ours" starring Henry Fonda. Co -tarring Lucille Ball."

^starring

Who was the star of YENTL ? Barbra or Streisand ?

Who was the star of ONE DAT AT A TIME ?

Bonnie Franklin or Bonnie Franklin ?

Mankiewiczv should have said: "Yours, Mine and Ours" starring Henry Fonda. Co-starring Van Johnson. With Lucille Ball.

I enjoyed many of these comments, and I'm reminded of seeing the movie when it was released. Then again on TCM at least one or two time. I loved the movie then and now. And as a 9 year old, I immediately embraced The Brady Bunch the next year. What struck me in the later viewings is the view of the 1969 era from a historical perspective. The movie reflects a "conservative" view of life in 1968 (family, baby boom kids, and most importantly Vietnam and military support. I wonder if this movie forecasted what happened later that year, when the "silent majority" elected Nixon as a push back to the generation gap, hippie culture, crime/safety, etc. Fonda and Ball show up as people from an era that was fading. The kid hero ends the movie going off to war to save the world following the footsteps of his father. It's almost like some sort of parallel to the MAGA crazies that want to look backward not forward to a worldview long faded.

[quote]The movie reflects a "conservative" view of life in 1968

But a view popular enough to make the film a smash hit and the concept to carry over onto TV with the Brady Bunch.

R291 Could you rephase that question just a little,please.

It´s Streisand ore Redford-in that order.

I do recall there seemed to be a bit of surprise when Lucy didn't receive an Oscar nomination for YMAO...it was suggested at the time that the snub was due to the fact that movie folks weren't willing to accept a tv star into their ranks! Well Lucy showed them!

Lucy did receive a Golden Globe nomination for Best Comedy/Musical Actress for this performance so I guess she would've been in the Oscar hunt.

Lucy and Desi Sr should've made a late 60s comedy together and called it, "You, Me and Whores."

Yes, R309 Did your alcoholic parents abuse you?

R309 Have you gotten laid since Carter was President?

R309 Did you eat by yourself in the school cafeteria?

R309 Are you a cunt like Lucy?

R308 the film was bland family fare like so many sitcoms

[Quote] ^ Opinions are like assholes, [R257].

Oh really? Does Dennis Schwarz have a great asshole?

R317- I find it watchable mainly as a period piece and I am quite sophisticated if I do say so myself.

Sorry R309 not meant for you! Life's a bitch . . .

R319 it's apparently better than the remake.

So snug, airtight and insulated from reality that the nice, well-scrubbed "Cheaper by the Dozen" seems almost rambunctious by comparison. -NY Times

Synthetic, strained and noisy, Yours, Mine & Ours is a clinker that doesn't bear comparison with the original. Quaid, Russo and others deserve better-Los Angeles Times

Another Fonda film inspired a TV series

Lucy pays tribute to Fonda @58:50

Yours Mine and Ours is not as well-known as another of Fonda's films from 1968

Lucille Ball was the force behind Yours, Mine, and Ours. No one in America was clamoring for a big screen Lucille Ball movie when she was in her mid-50s. It was her idea, I forget the whole thing, but she even brought on her ILL writers, and had something to do with Robert Blumofe (?) producing it, whatever. Fonda was just an actor for hire in this scenario. He was very visible in movies at the time. He preferred the stage to films and had been in quite a few plays in the '50s and '60s, and would go on to do a couple more. He asked to be cast in the movie.

The title, Yours, Mine, and Ours is a very inclusive sort of title since it's about the kids but also about the parents, as a couple. It's a two-lead comedy. Lucy, as originator of the film, would not have wanted a co-star of lesser stature than herself. It had to be balanced. There's no way to really know who the public went to the movie to see - my personal view is they just bought the whole thing, the co-stars and the premise. It even included a romantic middle-aged love story at the beginning, which I remember thinking, as a kid, was unusual - at the time.

Ed Sullivan was kind of creepy with Lucy in that clip. She didn't look too any too pleased at the way he put his hand on hers while her hand was on her lap and then drew it towards him.

I wish there was a clip on YouTube of Christine Ebersole doing the exact same scene in Licorice Pizza. Very funny because of how she nails the impression of Lucy (and before and after in the dressing room).

R327-Licorice Pizza?

I prefer Mystic Pizza

Goren was SO slim in this film before he became SO dumpy years later.

Okay, whatever...

I never thought the kids in these movies were good actors (when I was a kid). I always remember thinking. with all the kids in America, this was the best they could do?

Now I realize that (in those days, not now) there weren't that many kid actors who could be reliable and read lines and be professional, and have "that look" - and that they went from one job to another for those reasons as much as for their talent.

(And almost all of them grew up and lived in LA, near the studios and networks.)

[quote]There's no way to really know who the public went to the movie to see - my personal view is they just bought the whole thing,

It's impossible for younger people today to understand the popularity of Lucille Ball even in garbage like "Here's Lucy". What is unwatchable in 2024 was in 1968 the second highest rated show in all of television.

Millions watched her every week. This was a time when there were only 3 network channels, it was a time when high ratings really meant something. She had been at the top of the ratings, performing in a weekly show since 1951 (with only a short break in the early '60s). There are no equivalents to that today, that's another reason it's hard for people to understand the Lucy phenomena.

She was the draw for this film. The script show-cased her "Lucy" style abilities. The drunk scene as an example. No one was waiting for a Lucy film, but this well written script, adapted by her "I Love Lucy" writers, had her play a character that the public was familiar with. "Critic's Choice" in 1963 had her playing a playwright...of course it bombed.

Henry Fonda by 1968 was more associated with serious themed films, with political dramas, with westerns, with war films, with European productions. I'm sure there were some fans that wanted to see him again in a warm, light hearted comedy, but this was Lucy's film. The focus was on her..

I was a kid when this movie came out. Lucy was not a big deal to kids, we saw her all the time - this just happened to be a movie. Maybe there were rabid Lucy fans who went to the movie just to see her. Mostly people go to a family style movie for several reasons. It was a movie about two people who had a lot of kids and got married and had more kids. It was NOT A MOVIE ABOUT LUCILLE BALL's character and some guy.

R133 Parents were buying the tickets not kids. Lucy was the draw.

I was a kid too in '68 and didn't give a rats ass about Lucille Ball. I was watching "The Man From Uncle" and later "Laugh-in" both scheduled opposite "Here's Lucy".

My parents took all five of us kids to see this at the theater on a double bill with Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows. I was 5 and Lucy seemed ubiquitous back then on TV syndication in the afternoons, prime time at night, and in my grandfather's stories about her when he knew her (sorry, I don't remember the details other than him referring to her beauty way back when). To see her up there on the big screen as well made a big impression on me.

A couple of years after this, my parents divorced, and my father married a woman with five kids of her own. The movie version of a huge blended family was much better.

R279 A shame they never gave Lucy an honorary Oscar

(r3336) Ball was never a real movie star and was never considered for an Honorary Oscar. Despite her many film appearances, she was never thought of as a film star but a television legend. Even when she was at MGM, more often than not, she played supporting roles to people like Tracy and Hepburn (Without Love) or Esther Williams (Easy to Wed). In fact, she never even made the annual Quigley Box-office poll of the top 25 money-making stars during her career.

While she had some measure of film success, it was not consistent and more often than not depended upon the particular vehicle she was in.

This thread...some of you are tres amusant.

[quote]In fact, she never even made the annual Quigley Box-office poll of the top 25 money-making stars during her career.

There were TV performers that had hits in films but are still primarily known as TV stars. We associate Mary Tyler with her work in television although she had some success in film. Same with Carol Burnett. Jackie Gleason was nominated for an Academy Award but he's still mostly known for TV.

^Mary Tyler Moore

Oo-la-fucking-la, r338.

No one thinks of Alan Alda as a movie star. But he was also nominated for an Academy Award.

[Quote] Jackie Gleason was nominated for an Academy Award but he's still mostly known for TV.

Largely because the original Honeymooners like I Love Lucy played in syndication 5 days a week for 30 years. During the 60s 70s and 80s Gleason appeared in more films than Lucy, Carol Burnett and Mary Tyler Moore combined. Gleason costarred with Tom Hanks in Nothing in Common released a year before his death in 1987.

[quote]Despite her many film appearances, she was never thought of as a film star

That is so not true.

In the 1940s, before I love Lucy, she was known as a top billed film star. B-pictures for sure, but B pictures were a staple of Hollywood output. And some with great success. And some of them were good: see "The Dark Corner"

Lucille Ball had a supporting role in Without Love but IMO she stole every scene she was in with Katharine Helpburn, while looking absolutely gorgeous.

[quote]Largely because the original Honeymooners like I Love Lucy played in syndication 5 days a week for 30 years. During the 60s 70s and 80s Gleason appeared in more films than Lucy, Carol Burnett and Mary Tyler Moore combined. Gleason costarred with Tom Hanks in Nothing in Common released a year before his death in 1987.

Yes. And despite all of that, he's still mostly associated with his extensive TV career.

As a kid I saw him in "Gigot" in 1962. When he was the star of The Jackie Gleason Show. It was his TV career, and recognition from TV that allowed him to resurrect his movie career which was dead by the late 1940s.

Why didn't the American Film Institute honor Lucy as they did Henry?

Gary talked them out of it, R347.

And yet Fonda's attempt at success in a weekly TV series (The Smith Family) had mediocre results, petering out in a couple of seasons. Lots of big screen stars barely made it through one season in a series (Jimmy Stewart, for example) or couldn't even get a successful pilot (Bette Davis, Joan Crawford).

Faye Dunaway. Debbie Reynolds and Shirley MacLaine all had short lived TV series as well.

[quote]Why didn't the American Film Institute honor Lucy as they did Henry?

Why did they never give one to Doris Day, the biggest female box-office star of all time? Why did they never give one to Joan Crawford? Or Burt Lancaster? Or Ingrid Bergman? Or Marlon Brando? Or Lana Turner? Or Gloria Swanson? Or Olivia de Havilland? Or Jason Robards? Or Rock Hudson. Or Tony Perkins?

[Quote] It was his TV career, and recognition from TV that allowed him to resurrect his movie career which was dead by the late 1940s.

R346 Similar to Lucy except her TV fame never translated to movie stardom. In1980 Gleason received $1.2M for Smokey and the Bandit II

R351 Gary must have talked them out of it

[quote]Similar to Lucy except her TV fame never translated to movie stardom.

Oh boy, once again: Lucy WAS a film star. In the 1930s and 40s.

Jackie Gleason never had his name above the title, never had a starring role in a film until AFTER his success in TV.

And I doubt BTW that Lucy was ever interested in developing a consistent film career after ILL.

[Quote] Jackie Gleason never had his name above the title, never had a starring role in a film until AFTER his success in TV.

But he certainly did after that R354

It's not so much that Lucy didn't want a career but producers weren't hiring her unlike Gleason

Lucy badly wanted the part of Mame and unfortunately got it

I have a suspicion that the primary poster behind all of the "people went to see this movie because of Lucy" is, in fact, Desi Jr. And the "people went ot see it because of Henry Fonda"poster is Lucie Arnaz...

Gleason was more in demand than Lucy ever was

Gleason had more range than Lucy

He worked steadily in films for 25 years

Someone really really really can't stand Lucille Ball and has posted >100 times in this thread to discredit her.

He's in the cult classic Skidoo

R362 Not true. Someone doesn't agree with you regarding Ball's film career. I Love lucy is a classic TV show.

Who are today's equivalent of Fonda and Ball? Maybe Kevin Costner and Amy Poeler?

(r351) Doris Day actually declined an offer to be honored by the AFI, just as she declined George Stevens, Jr. offer to receive a Kennedy Center Honor and twice declined receiving an Honorary Oscar. She didn't even show-up to receive her Honorary Grammy or the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She disliked the fuss that went with receiving these honors. She did attend the 1974 Thalians' event honoring Lucy.

Henry was in love with Lucy and Lucy was in love with Jack Lemmon.

[quote]Gleason was more in demand than Lucy ever was

Uh....you don't seem to be aware of the fact that from 1962 to 1968 Lucy was running the world's biggest television studio. There are no indications that she wanted a consistent movie career as well as running a studio and starring in a top rated sitcom.

"Ball served as president and chief executive officer of Desilu while at the same time starring in her own weekly series. This made her the first woman to head a major studio and one of the most powerful women in Hollywood at the time."

You might be interested to know:

"During Ball's time as sole owner, Desilu developed popular series such as Mission: Impossible (1966), Mannix (1967), and Star Trek (1966).

In the 1950s the studio she and Desi created produced: "Our Miss Brooks", "Wyatt Earp", "Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse", "The Ann Sothern Show", "The Untouchables" among others.

After her show ended she wanted to keep working, but the problem is, she had aged hard and fast. She could have been fine in a film version of Mame in 1966 when the musical debuted, but by 1974 she had hit the wall.

Not only did Lucy age quickly and poorly, so did the musical Mame. After its original run, there was only one attempt at a Broadway revival. With the original stars. But even Angela Lansbury couldn't make it work. It didn't even last a month. The fact is: it's a pretty lousy musical.

[quote] Why did they never give one to Doris Day, the biggest female box-office star of all time?

Because she didn't want to show up for it, and they don't give it to people who don't appear in person to collect it.

I thought Star Trek was a flop on original launch?

Let's not take away from Lucy that ILL was so popular on Monday nights that nobody went to the movies that night of the week, and some movie theaters even stopped the movie and piped in the audio of ILL so the patrons wouldn't miss anything. My mom told me that when she went into work on Tuesday mornings, all they talked about was last night's Lucy episode.

R369 Poor Doris never even received an Academy Honorary Award.

[quote]I thought Star Trek was a flop on original launch?

R372 They wanted to give her one.

R368 Who cares? None of that negates the fact that Gleason was in many more feature films in the 60s and 70s than Lucy whose film output during that period consisted of 4 films: The Facts of Life, Critic's Choice, Yours Mine and Ours and Mame as well as a cameo in A Guide for The Married Man.

R374 They could have.

Katherine Hepburn never showed up for her awards. George C Scott directly told the Academy that he did not want an award when he was nominated but he won anyway. John Gielgud didn't want one. Woody Allen and Paul Newman never showed up for theirs.

[Quote] Let's not take away from Lucy that ILL was so popular on Monday nights that nobody went to the movies that night of the week, and some movie theaters even stopped the movie and piped in the audio of ILL so the patrons wouldn't miss anything. My mom told me that when she went into work on Tuesday mornings, all they talked about was last night's Lucy episode.

At the end of its sixth season, The Lucy Show posted its highest Nielsen rating, ranking at #2.

Here's Lucy is #6

Here's Lucy is #9

After her show ended she wanted to keep working, but the problem is, she had aged hard and fast. She could have been fine in a film version of Mame in 1966 when the musical debuted, but by 1974 she had hit the wall.

R368 I'm sorry, but no, she couldn't have been fine. She was the wrong type for Mame.

I never saw Angela Lansbury in it. I doubt she had the innate comedic genius of Rosalind Russell, but she was a good actress who could take on many kinds of roles and make you believe them. Saw her in Gypsy, and who would have thought at the time she would have been right for that? But she could play a character. She had a lot of range. Lucille had no range to speak of, and she was not a Mame type, so that was it. I'm a huge fan of LB and she was brilliant and a great actress, within narrow parameters. Which is not a fault. But she couldn't play Mame.

After Fox bought HELLO DOLLY! Lucy was on producer Ernest Lehman's possibilities for Dolly Levi:

Viewing Lehman's list of casting options, Lehman also considered Julie Andrews (probably trying to replicate his hit with her on Sound of Music ); Elizabeth Taylor; Maureen O'Hara and Carol Burnett. Crossed out on his list was Doris Day, who must have turned him down. Written in as an afterthought were Angela Lansbury and Deborah Kerr.

Lehman's list of Vandergelders is just as interesting: Jimmy Stewart, Rex Harrison, Richard Burton, Jackie Gleason, and Alec Guinness.

For Irene Molloy, Lehman considered Yvette Mimieux, Liza Minnelli (!!!) Mary Tyler Moore, Maggie Smith, (!!!) Sally Ann Howes, Lee Remick, and Jane Fonda (!!!!).

Lucy would have been wonderful in HELLO DOLLY! She was a popular star, she was the right age, and Dolly Levi was a schemer like Lucy Ricardo. It didn't really matter that Lucy could barely sing - she had a 'character' voice like Carol Channing.

But speaking of Carol Channing ...........

R377 You have a reading comprehension problem. R371 is talking about "I Love Lucy" not the "The Lucy Show".

ILL was indeed the number 1 show in the US in 4 of its 6 years.

Sorry my bad. R382 btw any links to support your claim?

[Quote] Let's not take away from Lucy that ILL was so popular on Monday nights that nobody went to the movies that night of the week, and some movie theaters even stopped the movie and piped in the audio of ILL so the patrons wouldn't miss anything. My mom told me that when she went into work on Tuesday mornings, all they talked about was last night's Lucy episode.

[quote]I'm sorry, but no, she couldn't have been fine. She was the wrong type for Mame.

I think you're very wrong. If Celeste Holm , Janis Paige, Jane Morgan and Juliet Prowse could have success in that role, then I think Lucille Ball could have surpassed them by far in her prime.

R383 You're quoting me, in your post, but you seem to think I'm R382? I'm not.

R384 Okay, you're entitled to your opinion. Lucy was very distinctive, she had a particular comic persona and she couldn't alter that basic persona enough to play Mame. We have the movie to prove it -- and her lack of success in the movie wasn't merely due to her age. I'd almost say that was the least of it.

Carol Channing or Mary Martin would have made excellent Dollys in the movie, but they weren't movie stars or box office.

Alice Faye probably would have been good in Hello, Dolly - did she ever do it?

R383 You don't understand the popularity of that show in the 1950s:

"I Love Lucy‘s fan base was so devoted and so vast, the rest of the world was put on hold every Monday night between 9 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Because nobody was shopping late Monday evenings anymore, stores adjusted. In Chicago, the Marshall Field department store posted a sign for their customers that read: “We Love Lucy, too, so from now on we will be open Thursday night instead of Monday.” The show didn’t just affect shopping habits. I Love Lucy fans didn’t like being interrupted, even by politics. When presidential candidate Adlai E. Stevenson showed up during an episode with a political message, he was met with a heap of angry mail."

R388 I wasn't alive then btw but yes; I realize it was popular. I already posted that I Love Lucy as well as The Honeymooners were in syndication for decades and played on TV almost every day

[quote]Okay, you're entitled to your opinion. Lucy was very distinctive, she had a particular comic persona and she couldn't alter that basic persona enough to play Mame.

I think you're right about that.

It would have been "Lucy" playing Mame and in the mid 1960s, audience would have been very receptive.

[quote]and her lack of success in the movie wasn't merely due to her age. I'd almost say that was the least of it.

If you read the reviews from the time, it was Lucy's age that the critics pointed out more than anything when citing her performance.:

"The New Republic's Stanley Kauffmann, though he pointed out that Ball would have made a perfect Mame had she played the role "fifteen years earlier," described her as "too old, too stringy in the legs, too basso in the voice, and too creaky in the joints."

"Virtually every critic took notice of the heavy-handedness in photographing Ball out of focus, Rex Reed going so far as to suggest, albeit jokingly, that chicken fat was put over the lens. Some regarded this as evidence that those executives responsible for signing Ball, and Ball herself, knew from the outset that she was too old for her role.""

The lousy script, editing and direction didn't help either...

I Love Lucy reruns were on the CBS network for a long time, weekday mornings. Prior to being syndicated. Where I lived, The Honeymooners played once a week on a UHF station on Saturdays.

R390 it was also pointed out that Lucy was largely stationary while the sets and the cast moved around her

[quote] I wasn't alive then btw but yes; I realize it was popular. I already posted that I Love Lucy as well as The Honeymooners were in syndication for decades and played on TV almost every day

Once again you are wrong.

Only 39 episodes the Honeymooners were made. Not enough to run it in reruns "almost every day". "I Love Lucy" provided years of material.

R390 "She doesn't have what it takes--hardly a tragedy. She has a gift for slightly swacked physical comedy and a clown's look of pickled good nature during disasters, but she doesn't have a flair for brittle high fashion, or enough acting skill to parody that flair." --Pauline Kael

R393 I believe The Honeymooners was run daily or nightly for years and years in the New York area.

Here in the northeast The Honeymooners played continuously on WPIX-11 every weeknight at 11 or 11:30 PM during the 70s and 80s and in the 90s there was a Honeymooners' marathon Labor Day Weekend where it played for 24 hours straight.

R393 ^^^ seeing is believing

Review of Mame in a gay newspaper of the time.

apparently, the tradition continues

[quote]Lucy would have been wonderful in HELLO DOLLY!

Her voice was too low to play Horace.

It played every night according to this 1985 promo

[Quote] but she doesn't have a flair for brittle high fashion, or enough acting skill to parody that flair." --Pauline Kael

I'll say!

Except for I Love Lucy, every thing she did sucked. That's just the truth.

I may still have this somewhere...

@4:22 Lucy says she'd like to make a picture with Jackie Gleason

[quote]Except for I Love Lucy, every thing she did sucked. That's just the truth.

I agree, but in the 1960s, the public still loved Lucy: "The Lucy Show" was never out of the top 10 ratings. And 4 of its 6 years were in the top 5.

"Here's Lucy" was never out of the top 10 until 1972.

Today that seems incredible....what were they thinking? But it was a very different time.

[quote]Lucy says she'd like to make a picture with Jackie Gleason

After the failure of Mame she vowed never to make another picture.

It’s time for another thread about acting roles Lucy would have been perfect for.

I’ll start. She would have made a GREAT RIZZO in the 1978 movie Grease with her deep cigarette 🚬 voice and her svelte figure would have been put to good use in RIZZO ‘s pink hot pants-but unfortunately Gary talked her out of it.

L in L

R409- Gary should have talked her out of that.

[quote]It didn't really matter that Lucy could barely sing - she had a 'character' voice like Carol Channing.

Lucy couldn't sing at all, and Channing could actually sing.

[Quote]It’s time for another thread about acting roles Lucy would have been perfect for.

Lucy could have played Jackie Gleason's wife in Otto Preminger's SKIDOO (1968)

I watched Yours, Mine and Ours last night and thought it was an amusing confection, but like everyone else, wondered how we're supposed to believe people in their late 50s are popping out babies. But here's my question. There is so much vitriol against Lucille Ball on these threads, and I just don't get it. She had a TV show that was a massive hit, an sure, she wasn't a big movie star, but I think we can say she had a successful career.

Is the vitriol on DL just one troll who hates LB and posts about it over and over, or do the majority of posters on DL hate LB, and if so, why? I mean I get that she's no Meryl Streep, but why can't she just be remembered for what she was... a successful entertainer?

Ball was a great comedienne at her peak, but she was so strange in her later years it's hard not to talk about it. It's like Bette Davis--she was once a true great who kept hanging on long past her expiration date.

That said, there is one troll on this thread obsessed with diminishing her.

I disagree with the Bette Davis analogy. Davis still did a lot of good work in the last decade of her career. It wasn't all Wicked Stepmother.

Have the Blu-ray signed by Tim Matheson at CHILLER. Seemed happy to talk about his experience since most people talk to him about "Animal House".

[quote] Except for I Love Lucy, every thing she did sucked. That's just the truth.

[quote] I agree

The movie this thread is about didn't suck. The Facts Of Life didn't. She was great in Easy To Wed, and Without Love, and even Stage Door. The first couple of seasons of The Lucy Show were good.

She did do a TV special with Jackie Gleason called Three For Two - people don't seem to realize she worked with him, I guess. Three different short plays.

Lucy was also good doing drama:: The Dark Corner, Lured, The Big Street, Five Came Back, several other films.

"Five Came Back" where a plane crashes in the jungle and cannibals pick off the survivors BUT only five came back!

There's a book about the letters of Charles Brackett (Billy Wilder's writing/producing partner). There are letters from Brackett about how he and Wilder wanted Lucy to star as the stripper, Sugarpuss O'Shea, in Ball Of Fire, opposite Gary Cooper, not Barbara Stanwyck, but Sam Goldwyn wanted Stanwyck. This movie probably would have made Lucy a big star, in 1941. And actually she would have been funnier and sexier than Stanwyck, I can understand why they wanted her.

Shut up...

R420 woulda, coulda, shoulda

Lucy was doing much more interesting roles at RKO - "The Big Street" & "Dance Girl Dance" than she got at MGM.

I think it was probably because of the role she played in Dance Girl Dance that Brackett/Wilder wanted her for Ball of Fire.

r424: She is so good in this number. Very Lucy Ricardo.

I wonder if this was her real voice. It sure isn't Martha Mears, who was Lucy's (and everyone else's) usual dubber.

R425 Sure sounds like her.

It's too bad there wasn't a darker version of this story, say with Bette Davis and James Mason.

As in Yours. Mine and Ours meets Village of the Damned.

I never understood why Lucy always chose a romantic partners, or guys for her character to be interested in, on her later TV series, who were years younger than her. (William Windom, Frank Aletter, for ex.) I don't know whether she thought it would make her appear to be younger, but it had the opposite effect.

(Windom was 12 years younger, Aletter was 15 years younger.)

she was 16 years older than Clint Walker

^ It didn't matter to the public. "Lucy" was an absurdist character. Her shows depended on the suspension of belief and audiences willingly played along.

[quote]I never understood why Lucy always chose a romantic partners, or guys for her character to be interested in, on her later TV series, who were years younger than her.

It's obvious, r429. What's not to understand?

When she did Lucy calls the President, Ed McMahon was her husband and he was 12 years younger. On The Lucy Show, Dick Martin was 11 years younger. Robert Preston was only 7 years younger but Lucy wanted him to wear lifts.

I was a lot younger than her, too.

And yet no one talked you out of marrying her, R435?

Lucy Mu$t have had $omething if a young guy like Gary was intere$ted in her.

With her work in film, starring in a TV show for 2 decades, prolific work as a producer, owning and running an important TV studio....how much was she worth at time of death?

Lucy was a notorious tightwad

In January, 1974 Agnes Moorehead had to leave the Broadway musical 'Gigi' in which she played the role of 'Aunt Alicia' since November. Moorehead left due to being so ill with cancer. So who came in to take her place ? Arlene Frances - and the show closed within weeks after she joined.

I think the producers should have talked Lucy into stepping into the role. There's only one song which the character sings ("The Contract") and Lucy could've had fun with it. I think with Lucy's name on the marquee, she could've pulled in an audience (ILL fans) and the show would've lasted much longer.

Lucy wanted Aunt Alicia to smoke Chesterfields and play backgammon and the producers finally agreed, but then Gary talked her out of it....

She graciously supported her friend Nancy on The War on Drugs. Unfortunatly the description on the picture doesn´t make clear if she´s between the Reagans ore on Nancys left?

Vintage Photos That Capture The Amazing Life And Legacy Of Lucille Ball

I like the scene in the singles bar where Frank and Helen go on their first date - Helen's slip falls down and she send Frank to get her a pack of cigarettes so she can step out of it without him seeing. While Frank is gone, Darryl (Van Johnson) runs into Helen and one of her false eyelashes falls into his drink. He fishes it out and puts it back on her eyelid in a very practiced way, like he's no stranger to wearing false eyelashes himself.

*sends

I love her in I Love Lucy but other than that . . . nothing. It's like everything she did was just a slightly different version of Lucy Ricardo. None of it was very good. Plus the unquestioned worship the press and her fan had of her is worse than anything she did. Other than schilling a project she had nothing new to say. Nothing. It is salt in the wound knowing how many REAL opportunities she had to grow and stretch as an actress. Her first thought was always "would the public believe me in this?" In other words would this fit the character of Lucy Ricardo. She just had the acting world thrown at her feet and she just stepped over it to find Gale Gordon for act 4,5,6, or whatever rendition of Lucy she was on.

What other films have you seen with Ball in the cast, R446?

r446 She played a different character in The Big Street, a nagging crippled show girl. Very underrated performance IMO.

Post Lucy? Which is what I'm talking about. Probably all of them. There were a lot of rainy afternoons and late nights. There's no Manchurian Candidate, There's no The Graduate, There's no Golden Girls. There is the Three's Company retrospect she hosted. Because it was a show with no bad words. I could be right. Enlighten me if I am and I will humbly say I was wrong.

I meant I could be wrong...sorry.

R449- I wonder what The Graduate would have been like if our Lucy played Mrs. Robinson or even Benjamin's mother.

Or even Elaine.

[quote]I wonder what The Graduate would have been like if our Lucy played Mrs. Robinson

Like torture. How can anyone who's seen Anne Bancroft's sublime performance as Mrs. Robinson suggest Lucy for the role unless they're trying to make a joke? News flash: Lucy was never a very good actress (I said actress, not clown). Did you see her in "Mame." She was awful, and I'm not even talking about her godawful singing.

Coo coo ka WHAAAAAA

R453- I said that for amusement and I've always been far more impressed with Anne Bancroft's performance in The Graduate than Dustin Hoffman's OVERRATED performance in that movie.

He was so full of himself by the time they filmed Midnight Cowboy- I'm WALKIN HERE!

I agree with you about Hoffman, R455. In "Rain Man," he finally got his dream role: A character who didn't have to interact with anyone else in the cast and could just be front-and-center with his hambone performance.

Oh, and, of course, Hoffman won the Oscar for "Rain Man."

R453 and R456=Meryl Streep