Hey there Lucy Lovers,
I discovered this cool film on YouTube. It's a behind-the-scenes look at a filming of I LOVE LUCY. It's a little staged, but you get to see things you never do. And Desi Arnaz comes out and does the warm-up and introductions himself. I hope those filmings were quick because seeing their bleachers for the first time, there are no chair backs. That's got to be pretty uncomfortable after a few hours.
But wait! There's more.
I posted this once before. Someone in the audience (I'm sure illegally) took color home movies of the filming of an episode of I LOVE LUCY. Ever wonder what the apartment set looked like in color? Check this out. You'll see that Lucy really was a redhead.
More on I LOVE LUCY on Monday when I discuss ROLLING STONE'S list of the Top 100 Sitcoms of All-time.
Actually, Lucy really was a brunette. Thus, the "henna rinse" jokes, on-screen.
ReplyDeleteThe warmup act was shot especially for the unreleased 1953 “I Love Lucy” movie. Three episodes were strung together with new transition scenes, and this setup was to explain why there was laughter present on the audio track. It was meant to be temporarily shelved so as not to compete with “The Long, Long Trailer” but wound up totally forgotten until it’s rediscovery in 2001. Thankfully, it’s now on DVD and Blu-Ray. There are lots of fascinating production notes on those sites describing its creation.
ReplyDeleteI've seen that home movie clip before and always wondered how they managed that -- I don't know if the higher-end ones were different, but those home movie film cameras were pretty loud!
ReplyDeleteI also think I've seen that color footage. I believe it was included in a PBS show about Lucy. "American Masters," maybe? Or some similar program. It's still interesting to watch, however.
ReplyDeleteM.B.
It's interesting to see this in color, but I've read before the colors aren't really indicative of what they would use if they were designing a set to be shot in color. And that makes sense... I don't think you'd see those pinks in a '50s night club, for example. Instead, they chose colors that would produce the various shades of gray they wanted because they knew it was being broadcast in black and white.
ReplyDeleteThe "home movie" footage seems to be taken right behind the studio camera, at least in the apartment scenes. Perhaps it was taken by a crew member?
ReplyDeleteKen,
ReplyDeleteHere is a good youtube channel you might want to check out. This guy does a ton of coverage on classic TV from "I Love Lucy" to the present day.
https://www.youtube.com/c/ricknineg2009/videos
And here is a set of cameos by Johnny Carson on "Get Smart."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpgzEMsAXZ0
Finally a tour of the actual "I Love Lucy" set as it exists in Jamestown, NY.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tKtkekzmr8
@Necco, the DVD production notes explicitly state that an “enterprising audience member” captured the color footage. The producer’s son acquired it years later. How he got away with it I don’t know, but thank goodness he did. It’s the only known film of its kind.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ken, great fun to watch those clips. If I’m not mistaken, television owes the brilliantly-talented Desi Arnaz for creating the multi-camera technique. And that solo on his drum was stunning. I spent a good hour under a car with him shooting some long-forgotten show. He was a mechanic, I was his goofy assistant. I was in awe the entire time. Still am.
ReplyDeleteDon’t know if it’s true, but I’ve heard William Frawley and Vivian Vance hated each other. Regardless, like M*A*S*H, Lucy, Ricky, Fred, Ethel and incredible writers came together and brought us all laughter and magic.
At :48 in...Always nice to see Jack Ruby attending a sitcom taping...
ReplyDeleteanother rumor about ILL: Vivian Vance had a tough relationship with Lucy. Greatest reported quote: "I'd tell you to go f**k yourself, but Desi already did"
ReplyDeleteApparently they worked through it and were good friends by the time Lucy rebooted her show into that proto-Golden Girls version
Jeff Maxwell, this video might answer your question. The short answer is that William Frawley and Vivian Vance couldn't stand each other.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmlFlP-YIdY
Bart Andrews pretty much covered the "I Love Lucy" gossip in his 1977 book ("Lucy & Ricky & Fred & Ethel."). I bought it when it came out. He revised, and updated it in 1985, as "The 'I Love Lucy' Book." You can find it on Amazon. Of course, the current Internet just regurgitates it as "new" stuff.
ReplyDeleteNot really fond of some bloggers on Youtube, who basically use Google for facts, then ask "faithful Patreons" for money. These people are NOT professionals in the field, or even educated in the history of the content. They just know how to Google, as I do.
The Frawley/Vance situation is well known.
Jim, Cheers Fan wrote, “Apparently they worked through it and were good friends by the time Lucy rebooted her show into that proto-Golden Girls version.”
ReplyDeleteThat is the strangest description of “The Lucy Show” I’ve ever read.
Vern Bunson: Two middle-aged, unmarried women share a house, have whacky adventures with bad dates and zany money-making schemes? But I won't die on this hill. Hell, I won't even climb it.
ReplyDelete@Jim, yes, I see what you’re saying. There were some broad stroke similarities in the (original) general concept. The biggest differences, of course, was that there were only two of them and their children were all quite young and still living at home. Also, the GG’s never got up to the same level of physical comedy shenanigans Lucy and Viv did (missed opportunity - “Rose and Dorothy Put in a Shower”).
ReplyDeleteAs well, the format change that saw Lucy working at the bank following Viv’s departure pretty much swept away any common ground the two shows may have shared.
Wasn’t meaning to come across as critical of you at all. I’d honestly never heard the show described that way before, that’s all.