Blog DVD Review Special: The Lucille Ball Specials: Lucy Gets Lucky/Three For Two

Our summer weekly report will not be posted today due to the holiday weekend. Instead we bring you a special Blog DVD Review on a special day with The Lucille Ball Specials: Lucy Gets Lucky/Three For Two.

Today we take a look at MPI's The Lucille Ball Specials: Lucy Gets Lucky/Three For Two. These were two hour-long CBS specials that aired in the '70s. See skees53's Blog DVD Review of The Lucille Ball Specials: Lucy Gets Lucky/Three For Two:

The Lucille Ball Specials: Lucy Gets Lucky/Three For Two (MPI, $19.98) features two hour long specials from CBS starring Lucille Ball. After nearly a quarter century of starring in three different top-rated CBS sitcoms, Lucille Ball was ready to leave the weekly grind of producing and starring in new episodes, so after the 1973-1974 season, her third series, Here's Lucy, left the CBS lineup. But she wasn't quite ready to leave CBS, which brings us the Lucille Ball specials. These specials were much like a movie-of-the-week featuring Lucille Ball, and she was given a creative license to do pretty much whatever she desired on them. They began in 1974 with Happy Anniversary and Goodbye, which is not featured on this disc, but will be on the next disc. On this disc, we have the second and third special, Lucy Gets Lucky featuring Dean Martin and Three for Two featuring Jackie Gleason. There were ultimately eight specials total, ending with the 1980 special, Lucy Moves to NBC, which will also be featured on a future release from MPI.

The first of the two features on this DVD is Lucy Gets Lucky, an hour-long special from 1975 featuring Dean Martin. In this special, we have Lucy taking a trip to the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas to see Dean Martin perform, a show that everybody in "sin city" wants to see, but is forced to make reservations for eight since they won't take her reservation for one. When she shows up to claim her reservations, however, she finds that her scheme to get just one seat has failed, and she loses all eight of her seats. Determined to do anything to see Dean Martin, she discovers that employees of the hotel will have an opportunity to see him perform in a special employee show, and decides to turn her little vacation into a career as a blackjack dealer! Will she make it big in this job, or will typical Lucy antics cause her to fail? Jackie Coogan is also featured in this special, and Gary Morton (Lucille Ball's husband) plays a minor role.

The second feature is Three for Two, another hour-long special from 1975, where Lucille Ball stars with comedic legend Jackie Gleason. Here, we see what we get when two comedic legends come together: a comedy-drama (which leans heavily on the drama side) reminiscent of the TV series Love, American Style. There are three stories presented here about three different couples (all played by Ball and Gleason), beginning with "Herb & Sally." In this story, the couple is on a vacation in Rome to escape their problems at home, but Herb isn't prepared to escape them. This causes more marital unhappiness with the couple. "Fred & Rita" presents a story that resembles a plot that would be found on a soap opera. Fred is married, and so is Rita, and they are in love with each other. But they aren't married to each other, and must go to great lengths to cheat on their respective spouses. In the third installment, "Mike & Pauline," Ball and Gleason play parents of adult children that want to spend New Years' Eve out celebrating, instead of the usual family tradition of spending it. Mike has a man-to-man talk with his son about his relationship, and Pauline has a woman-to-woman talk with her daughter about her relationship.

Lucy Gets Lucky is enjoyable and has some great moments that will remind Lucille Ball fans of the slapstick routines that made her the biggest name on television in the '50s and '60s. Three For Two, in all honesty, proves that Lucille Ball and Jackie Gleason weren't quite made for the TV drama genre. There are many great moments in these, and the stories aren't bad, but one would tend to expect something hilarious with these two comic geniuses on one set. Instead, we have a sappy romantic drama that is reminiscent of an episode of Love, American Style, and a bad one at that. Still, die-hard fans of Lucille Ball will enjoy Three For Two, and it is also a rare opportunity to see these comedic legends on the same set.

The video and audio quality of the specials is not exactly spectacular, but that can somewhat be expected, as these have remained largely unseen since their original airings. Lucy Gets Lucky looks decent, but Three For Two does not look quite so good, with some significant grain and very dull colors. The audio is rather low on both specials (presented in mono, of course). There are English subtitles for both specials. Each special is unedited, running around 52 minutes each. In fact, Lucy Gets Lucky even has the original sponsor tags from Timex.

As we all know by now, of course, nothing related to Lucy can be released on DVD without a plethora of special features, and of course, we have that on this set! First, we have a short clip (10:51) from Art Linkletter's House Party dated February 24, 1965. On this, we get to see Lucy doing some special sound effects for a fake radio program. Next, we have two segments of a talk radio program that Lucy did in the mid-60s called Let's Talk to Lucy, both featuring Dean Martin as her guest. Basically, these were 10 minute shows where she would interview famous celebrities without playing any character actress herself, but instead simply being Lucille Ball. It is said that she wanted to do this as a change of pace from the ordinary and routine. In "Working With Lucy" (14:40), Gino Conforti (a frequent guest star on Lucille Ball's programs, particularly Here's Lucy) talks about his experiences of working with Lucille Ball. He talks about Here's Lucy, the specials on this set, and even talks about Bungle Abbey, a sitcom pilot about monks living in a monastery, which was directed by Lucille Ball. A series that never materialized from the pilot, of course, but perhaps this will be included as a bonus feature on one of the future Lucille Ball Specials DVDs. Finally, we see that nobody is perfect, as there are bloopers from Lucy Gets Lucky (5:43) featuring Dean Martin. Unfortunately, there are no bloopers featured from Three for Two.

This was a very interesting DVD to watch, and even though one of the specials was not as great as I expected, I still enjoyed watching it. It is interesting to see how much television evolved over a quarter century from the first episode of I Love Lucy on CBS (where Lucy and Ricky slept in separate beds) to where Lucy plays a woman that is cheating on her own husband. Lucy Gets Lucky is very reminiscent of classic Lucy in a more modern era, and I really enjoyed that one. According to an insert that I found on CBS DVD's The Official First Season of The Lucy Show (a full review of that set is coming very soon, Lucy fans!) MPI will be releasing a total of six specials on four releases, with the first two containing two specials each and the last two containing one special each. The most loyal fans of Lucille Ball, of course, are going to love everything on this DVD, but other fans will enjoy this DVD as well.

-- Reviewed by skees53
(4.5/5 stars)

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Blog DVD Review: Lucy and Desi: A Home Movie

It is Saturday, so that must mean it is time for the weekly Blog DVD Review! Today we take a look at MPI Home Video's Lucy & Desi: A Home Movie. Lucy & Desi: A Home Movie . See skees53's Blog DVD Review of Lucy & Desi: A Home Movie:

Lucy & Desi: A Home Movie (MPI, $19.98) gives fans of one of the most well-known couples in all of TV history a view of what things were like off-camera. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, the stars of the classic TV series I Love Lucy, were married in 1940 and in their twenty years of marriage, they managed to build a TV legacy in a way that few (if any) others could successfully do.
Although the phrase "a home movie" appears in the title, it is a bit misleading. There are many clips from home movies from the private collection of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, although a lot of the documentary is interviews with family, friends, producers, and others that knew the couple most of all. There are also a few interspersed clips of interviews with Lucy and Desi from The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. The documentary starts nearly a century ago, with the childhood of Lucy and Desi. We find out here that both of them came from families that had certain difficulties. We hear quite a bit about Lucy's childhood, but not quite so much about Desi's.
The documentary quickly segues into the married life of Lucy and Desi, where we find out a lot about the movie careers that Lucy and Desi had in the 1940s, basically all of which were through the film studio RKO. And then, we get to the divorce--the first one in 1944, which never actually happened. Lucy decided that she wanted to divorce Desi because he was allegedly cheating on her (although Lucie Arnaz says that he always told her that he wasn't fooling around with other women in the way that other people though). The divorce never came to be, which opened the door to the big thing that was coming in a few years, a little TV series called I Love Lucy.
The year was 1951. Lucy and Desi had their first child, a daughter named Lucie Arnaz (one of the producers of this very documentary) and just a few months later, production of the series I Love Lucy began. But production costs for the series were a little expensive, and neither CBS nor Philip Morris were able to fully fund the series, so Desi Arnaz had an enterprising idea--he and Lucy would help to fund the series provided that he could have the film rights to the series. And so began the well-know TV studio of the 1950s and 1960s, Desilu. Not all went will for them in the 1950s, however. It was discovered that Lucy's hair was not the only red thing about her, and that she was also registered as a Communist in New York. It had the potential to destroy her entire career (as it had done to many other celebrities at the time), but luckily she came away mostly unscathed. As the 50s progress, we see the marriage of Lucy and Desi beginning to go into a slow decline, mostly due to Desi's use of drugs and alcohol, and the documentary takes us all the way to the 1960s, where Lucy takes control of Desilu away from Desi and the divorce proceedings begin. The documentary ends with a brief look into their lives after the divorce, and ends with a home movie from the 80s with Lucy and Desi in a swimming pool with their grandchild, with Desi singing (what else?) Babalu.
The DVD has very basic packaging (as it is only one disc) and very basic menus. They are simple, but functional for what it is worth. There is an option on the menus to turn on English subtitles for those that require them. The video and audio quality of the DVD and the special features is generally pretty impressive, except perhaps for the quality of the game show episodes from the 1950s. Of course, considering that these were never intended to be preserved in the first place, there isn't much to truly complain about with this.
The DVD is not without bonus features, either. We also have more interviews (31:07) on the disc from Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz, Jr. (in addition to the interviews featured in the documentary) that reflect upon the lives of their parents in a more candid perspective. There are even outtakes (20:32) from the interviews featured in the documentary! One of my favorite special features happens to be the original commercials (12:50) that are included that came from episodes of The Lucille Ball & Desi Arnaz Show (better known these days as The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour). Basically, these are extended commercials for Westinghouse that feature the characters from the series in their roles. I love how these older series integrated the characters into the commercials! These are very fun to watch.
The next two special features are sure to please game show fans. The first is a segment from the game show What's My Line? (9:15) where the celebrity panelists are blindfolded and have to guess the mystery celebrity on stage--which happens to be Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz! Additionally, we have an entire episode of the game show I've Got a Secret (23:48) with a special celebrity panelist for the episode, Lucille Ball. Finally, we have a Photo Gallery which features many photos from the private collection of Lucy and Desi, and we have a promo from MPI (2:03) for an upcoming DVD release (in season form) which many fans may have already heard of: the TV series Here's Lucy!
All in all, it isn't a bad documentary, although it does seem to be drag on a bit too slowly at times. I personally would have found it to be more interesting if it had a greater focus on the TV careers of Lucy and Desi. It seems to focus more upon their film careers and family life. Of course, the most dedicated fans of Lucille Ball are certain to love this, but to the casual fan, a lot of it may seem to be extraneous information. I kind of expected to find more information about the more negative aspects of their lives in the documentary, but it seemed that they skimped on some of the details of these events. That isn't to say that they completely ignore them, though. Fans of the work of Lucy, as well as anybody that is interested in television's golden era will definitely appreciate this DVD.
Reviewed by skees53
(4.5/5 stars)

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