Purely Joyful Movie!

just watch it!

Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Lucille Ball is definitely the First Lady of television comedy. In her life after her "I Love Lucy" years where the show was both a masterpiece and set standards and broke conventional rules, she returns as Lucy Carmichael, a divorced mother of two, and a secretary to bank Vice President, Theodore J. Mooney, played by longtime friend, Gale Gordon. Vivian Vance returned as her best friend Vivian not Ethel. The show is set in Los Angeles where there are plenty of celebrity guest stars like John Wayne, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Elizabeth Taylor, Carol Burnett etc., just to name a few. Ball is still in her element with physical comedy like babysitting three monkeys. If you thought Lucy lost it, she never did. She has perfect chemistry with Gale Gordon. They had worked together on radio and later in television. In fact, Gordon was Ball 's choice for Fred Mertz in "I Love Lucy" but William Frawley was the perfect choice for that role.

Although it was called "The Lucy Show," the core of this program was always the interaction between Lucille Ball, Vivian Vance and Gale Gordon. Having key film crew personnel from "I Love Lucy" certainly didn't hurt. The show did lose some punch when Vance left for she,along with Ball and Gordon, were "The Lucy Show Triumvirate". However, I feel the post-Vance episodes were almost as enjoyable for they featured interesting and entertaining guest stars. The "Main Street" episode featuring Mel Torme, Paul Winchell AND John Bubbles is a delight for musical fans. Check out the sequence showing Bubbles dancing with Lucy. Also, these later episodes still featured Gale Gordon who bounced off Lucy just as effectively as Vance did. Plus, the addition of Roy Roberts as Gordon's boss helped for he and Gordon bounced off each other well.

Add my opinion to the others...Vivian Vance added a great deal of class to all the "Lucy" shows. None was more evident than in "The Lucy Show" when she departed (much too soon). After Vivian left the show it was apparent that Lucy needed a sidekick and various guest stars tried to fill Vivian's shoes but none came close. Once the show was broadcast in color, Lucy doing too much (such as running Desilu) started acting with too many broad strokes thinking that whatever she did would be funny. It wasn't. Some of the later shows were actually embarrassing to watch and you realized that not only were the writer's out of ideas but Lucy should have ended this show years before.

As many others have stated, the early years of this reincarnation of "I Love Lucy" are the ones worth watching. The show mutated over the years, with the deletion of her children and Vivian Vance, and the increased presence of the annoying Gale Gordon.Recently, I rented a DVD of some "Lost Episodes" that obviously came later in the series. They are painful to watch, with Lucy basically hamming it up with guest stars. The sets are garish, and the performances grating. Mary Jane Croft simply isn't a substantial substitute for Vance. Throughout Lucille Ball's career, Croft popped up in various roles. While Vance was still in this series, Croft played one character. Then, once Vivian left, Croft suddenly became another, more prominent, supporting player.Gale Gordon, of course, acted in every single radio/TV project in which Ball was involved. However, he only guested on "I Love Lucy," strangely enough. (He WAS her first choice for Fred Mertz, however.)This show was totally transformed into "Here's Lucy" in 1968, with Vance returning sporadically. It fares a bit better than the last seasons of "Lucy Show."