The Nice Guys: A Review

THE NICE GUYS

For the longest time, I deliberately avoided The Nice Guys. So many people were praising this film that it had the opposite effect on me and kept me away. It has built up this cult among certain circles as this delightful romp with 1970s trappings. At long last, I opted to give it a chance.

Now that I have seen The Nice Guys, I report that I will not be joining this cult.

Los Angeles, 1977. An adult film star who goes by the name of "Misty Mountains" dies in an apparent car accident. Was it a mere accident? Was it suicide? What about murder? Things become more confused when Misty's aunt, Lily Glenn (Lois Smith) insists that she saw Misty alive after the accident. She hires private detective Holland March (Ryan Gosling) to get to the bottom of this case.

Holland, however, was not counting on a fellow P.I., Jackson Healey (Russell Crowe). He is not above using brass knuckles and other dubious methods to get the job done. Right now, the job is to keep Holland away from Amelia Kuttner (Margaret Qualley), whom has become involved in Holland's investigation.

However, both their cases lead back to Amelia, who faces danger due to her involvement in shady deals with the auto industry. Even her mother, Judith (Kim Basinger), who is with the Department of Justice, may be in cahoots with Detroit. What does this have to do with Misty Mountains and How Do You Like My Car, Big Boy? the newest Misty erotic film? More murder and mayhem envelop March, Holland and March's daughter Holly (Angourie Rice), the wisecracking and shrewd Nancy Drew. The case is finally solved, and to March's surprise he finds himself now partners with Healey, who has opened up a new detective agency under the banner "The Nice Guys".

I find it a very curious aspect of Ryan Gosling's career that, no matter how often he tries, I never believe him in a comedic role. Be it in films like Crazy, Stupid, Love or La La Land or Barbie or in this case, The Nice Guys, Gosling always comes across to me as someone who is trying too hard to be funny. It is as if he is too self-conscious that he is supposed to be funny rather than just be funny. It is, to my mind, a suggestion that Gosling does not trust the material or thinks the material is so funny that it will lift him up. 

I think there is a calculated manner to Gosling's comedic performances, and The Nice Guys is no exception. With a deliberately blank face and spouting off the allegedly funny lines in a staccato manner, Gosling is determined to make us laugh. The section where he is cornered in the bathroom stall is meant to be funny. He and Crowe do their best to make it so. I watched, not in puzzlement, but in almost boredom, aware that everyone is playing it funny without actually being funny.

"You know who else was following orders? Hitler.", March says at one point. It just did not work for me. Over and over, I could not shake the notion that Gosling felt he was smarter than the material and the character. As such, his job apparently was not to create Holland March, but to be Ryan Gosling attempting to play a character named Holland March.

Gosling, however, was not the only one who was deliberately mannered in his performance. Crowe too worked hard to make his brawler into a comic figure. Like with Gosling, however, I never believed it.

Truth be told, a lot of Shane Black's writing (with Anthony Bagarozzi) and direction pointed to the idea that everyone thought The Nice Guys was funny. We have stock characters (the dumb father, the gruff enforcer, the wisecracking teen). Worse, we have situations that force the humor. When Jackson, Holland and Holly face off against Tally (Yaya DaCosta), Judith's assistant and henchwoman, the physical comedy of Holly splashing coffee on her only to find that it is cold left me cold. The "witty banter" about the coffee being cold did not help.

Black and Bagarozzi's screenplay really works at being quick and quippy. I again felt it forced and obvious.  

I do give credit to how The Nice Guys captured the 1970's aesthetic. On that, the film did well, looking as if it came from the era of disco and bell bottoms. 

However, I did not laugh at The Nice Guys. I think it is because I figured that it was simply trying too hard and was too obvious for me. It is certainly a cult film, adored by many people. I do not know exactly why it has this passionate fanbase but bless them for their passion. I just cannot share it.

DECISION: F

Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis: The Television Movie

 JACKIE BOUVIER KENNEDY ONASSIS

Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, later dubbed Jackie O after her marriage to Greek shipping billionaire Aristotle Onassis, is more an American Sphinx than America's Rani. Visible yet opaque, Mrs. Onassis forever remained out of reach. She has been the subject of fascination, not just for the public, but for film and television producers even before her death in 1994. Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, based on the Donald Spoto biography, manages a surprising feat. It takes a well-respected, well-researched biography and turns it into a snoozefest. 

Paying respects at the grave of her first husband, former President John F. Kennedy, his widow Jacqueline (Joanne Whalley) remembers her extraordinary life. Daughter of wealth and privilege, she soon finds herself romanced and won over by Congressman John Kennedy (Tim Matheson). His father, Ambassador Joseph Kennedy (Tom Skerritt) is won over by the elegant Miss Bouvier. Not won over is Jackie's mother, Janet Auchincloss (Frances Fisher). She thinks the Kennedy men are all like her first husband, John "Black Jack" Bouvier (Fred Ward).

The fact that Jackie adores her flawed father might have been a clue to why she found Jack Kennedy someone worth loving. Once in the White House, they both plot schemes: he political, her fashion. Their rocky relationship is sorely tested but perhaps healed by the death of their newborn, Patrick, before President Kennedy's own death. After the assassination of her beloved brother-in-law Robert "Bobby" Kennedy (Andrew McCarthy), Jackie essentially flees America. She finds refuge with Greek tycoon Aristotle Onassis (Philip Baker Hall), eventually having her own big fat Greek wedding. While never fitting in with Onassis' children, particularly Christina (Melanie Sara), Jackie found true love in beau Maurice Tempelsman (Jerry Adler) before her own death.

I did read Donald Spoto's biography of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and thought it was up to his excellent standards. As such, I am amazed that Eric Overmyer and Tina Andrews' adaptation could be so bland. There was no sense of drama, very little conflict, and a very rapid pace to what should be interesting, even fascinating lives. 

I think a good part of Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis' failure is in the casting. Almost everyone in the film is miscast. Whalley barely looks like Mrs. Onassis, but that is not the worst of it. She does have the soft speaking style that Mrs. Kennedy was known, at times parodied, for. However, it was surprisingly nasal. Moreover, Whalley never made a case as to what made Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis such a figure of fascination and interest. She came across as rather dull for the most part. There was one good scene, where she has to tell her children Caroline and John, Jr. that their father won't be coming back. It was a well-acted, even moving, moment.

That, however, was about the only time that Whalley came close to being Jackie. Most of the time, she was not interesting. 

Almost everyone else is equally bad. Probably the worst is Hall as Aristotle Onassis. Looking nothing like Onassis or even a plausible Greek, Hall did not bother trying to sound Greek either. He clearly was slumming through a third-rate television biopic. Matheson, to his credit, gave former President Kennedy's distinctive Massachusetts accent as good a go as he could. However, there was no sense of his being charming or the shameless lothario that he was. McCarthy's Robert Kennedy was bordering on laughable. He did not look like Bobby, he did not sound like Bobby, and the mixing of gunshots as Bobby fell while playing football was both too overt in its symbolism and a surprisingly dumb way to move past the assassination.

Skerritt's Joe was equally unconvincing, as if he thought the whole thing was a lark versus a calculated way to get his son into the White House. Diane Baker's Rose Kennedy and Fisher as the snobbish but shrewd Janet were the sole bright spots acting-wise. Baker's side-eye glance at Joe when he appears to flirt with Jacqueline is perfect. 

Well, maybe Sara's psycho-bitch Christina Onassis was effective if perhaps more operatic than her father's longtime mistress Maria Callas.

It may be that Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis was almost too reverential to be interesting. Joseph Conlan's opening "stirring" score was so overdone as to be slightly comical. 

The curious thing about Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis is how devoid of drama it is. The miniseries rushes through both the death of her son Patrick and two assassinations and treats the Onassis marriage like a blip. The offer of a million dollars to stay in the Kennedy marriage has surprisingly somber music with it, which is a strange dichotomy.

In the end, Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis is charming but with no drama, having little conflict and no insight into the former First Lady who enchanted the world. 

1929-1994

4/10

Killers of the Flower Moon: A Review (Review #1765)

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

At a time when people can call Joy Ride the best comedy of 2023 and Across the Spider-Verse "one of the greatest films ever made in the history of cinema" (both said by the same person I might add), I am despairing about both film reviewing and cinema itself. Killers of the Flower Moon is the first film in a long time that had me think there is still hope, even if its creator is entering the twilight of his career. 

The Osage Native American people are both blessed and cursed. Having been pushed off their original land for Oklahoma reservations, the discovery of oil has made them among the wealthiest people in America. Their traditional ways have them share in the profits, but as the saying goes, "mo' money, mo' problems". Soon, the Osage are given "guardians" to watch over their fortune. The guardians, however shady as they are, pale in comparison to the vultures waiting to take over.

Into this comes Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), a World War I veteran come to live with his uncle, William "King" Hale (Robert DeNiro). Hale appears to be the friend to the Osage, a benevolent white figure that sides with them. In reality, he is a greedy man who lusts after the Osage people's mineral rights. Hale pushes Ernest to court and marry Mollie (Lily Gladstone), a wealthy Osage whose family has vast holdings. Mollie is pretty and pretty shrewd, fully aware that the "coyotes want money". Nevertheless, Ernest is very handsome, and they marry.

Hale knows that the fewer members of Mollie's family are around, the greater the share of Ernest's inheritance will be. Slowly, Mollie's other sisters and mother start succumbing to death. While matriarch Lizzie (Tantoo Cardinal) dies of natural causes (at least I think she did), the other sisters are not so lucky. Drunk troublemaker Anna (Cara Jade Myers) is brutally shot. Mollie's other sister Reta (JaNae Collins) is literally blown up. All the while Mollie is slowly growing weaker physically and morally. Her illness is diabetes, but Hale is not above pushing Ernest into putting a little something in her insulin (a new product for the time) to help get Mollie out of the way.

Despite her illness, Mollie has enough strength to join a group of Osage and plead their case with President Calvin Coolidge. This gets the then-Bureau of Investigation to look into the Reign of Terror that the Osage have been living through. Agent Tom White (Jesse Plemons) comes looking around to investigate the various killings. It is not long before Ernest is caught in his involvement with the targeting of Mollie's family but that of Mollie's first husband, the depressed Henry Roan (William Belleau), who mistakenly trusted Hale, unaware that Hale benefited from his death. A trial against Hale gets temporary justice, but as the radio show that has chronicled the Osage murders tells us, things did not end well.

At its heart, Killers of the Flower Moon is a tragedy, chronicling the evil that men do out of greed. Scorsese shocks the viewer with the randomness of some of the killings. Early on, an Osage mother meets a shocking and ghastly end. The coldness of that act, coupled with Gladstone's voiceover that it was ruled "a suicide" makes it all the crueler. The refrain of "no investigation" to clear acts of murder makes it more chilling. 

The film does not shrink from being graphic, but it also brilliantly builds up suspense. We the audience, for example, know that Rita and her family are in grave danger. Scorsese, however, keeps us waiting by pulling the camera in Mollie and Ernest's bedroom, the windows prominent on the screen. Even though we know something is coming, we are still jolted by the ferocity and horror of Rita's brutal end.

Visually, Killers of the Flower Moon is arresting. A sequence where Ernest sees Hale burning down his fields to Blind Willie Johnson's Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground looks like a vision of Hell, with Hale as Satan himself. 

Killers of the Flower Moon also has truly exceptional performances. I think Leonardo DiCaprio has done some of his best work here as the gullible, corrupt and weak Ernest Burkhart. DiCaprio makes him dumb, weak, sometimes sleazy, sometimes remorseful but also unwilling to face the truth of his actions. Ultimately, Ernest comes across as thoroughly pathetic in every meaning of the word. Near the end of the film, with his life and family in tatters, he remarks, "I ain't got nothing but regret". It is an admission both painful and slightly dishonest. 

Lily Gladstone is the heart of Killers of the Flower Moon as Mollie. She brings a quiet dignity and grace to a woman caught up in terrible circumstances. Gladstone makes Mollie an intelligent woman, one aware that she is a target for gold-diggers but also susceptible to false promises of love. There is also a quiet resignation to the indignities she must endure, such as when she has to call herself "incompetent" when asking her guardian for her own money. Gladstone captures you every time she is on screen. I keep thinking the word "quiet" when it comes to her performance. That, however, does not suggest a passivity or weakness. Far from it: Gladstone brings great strength to Mollie.

DeNiro has come out of the fog of his mugging and Bad Grandpa stage to deliver the goods. The evil face behind the mask of benevolence, DeNiro's William Hale is a thoroughly evil man. What makes DeNiro more effective is that he rarely if ever rages. There are maybe one or two scenes when Hale is out of control. There is when he is whacking his nephew for botching a job. Another is when he screams out, "GIVE ME MY HENRY ROAN MONEY!" when he is attempting to collect on the life insurance policy he took out on an unwitting Roan. Even then, his moments of overwhelming anger fit into Hale's character, that of a man used to getting his way. 

Martin Scorsese masterfully directs all his cast to fine performances, except for recent Best Actor winner Brendan Fraser as Hale's defense attorney W.S. Hamilton. Hammy and fat, Fraser devoured the screen whole in his brief role. That might have been what Scorsese wanted, but it comes across as wildly over-the-top. 

Killers of the Flower Moon also has exceptional production work. Rodrigo Prieto's cinematography is at times spellbinding (the closing scene is beautiful), and the late Robbie Robertson's score mixes Native American elements with almost a bit of rock, building menace when needed. Longtime Scorsese editor Thelma Schoonmaker rarely lets the pacing lag, even at almost three and a half hours.

There are aspects that people have criticized. The length is one. Could it have been shorter or with an intermission? I think it could have and might have benefitted from one. The closing scene of the FBI Stories radio show with Scorsese has also, I think, been called into question. I thought it was a clever and period-appropriate way to sum up what happened after the events of the film versus having online text tell us. I also think Scorsese's appearance is fine. It is almost his way of summarizing both the film and the real-life horror & tragedy we have seen. 

Killers of the Flower Moon is the best film I have seen so far this year. Intelligent, gripping, with excellent performances, this is a strong film of a story that needs to be better known and remembered. 

DECISION: A+

Life With Lucy: The Complete Series

LIFE WITH LUCY: 

THE COMPLETE SERIES

It is said that the unexamined life is not worth living. I have now examined Life with Lucy, and it is definitely a life not worth watching. Misguided, almost doomed from the beginning, Life with Lucy veered far from its intended course. Yet did it have to be this way? 

First, a quick summary of the show's premise. Recent widow and health food nut Lucy Barker (Lucille Ball) has decided to move in with her daughter Margo's (Ann Dusenberry) family. That would mean moving in with Margo, her husband Ted (Larry Anderson) and their children Becky (Jenny Lewis) and Kevin (Philip J. Amelio, II). She is also the co-owner of a hardware store, along with Ted's father Curtis (Gale Gordon). Along with their employee Leonard (Donovan Scott), Lucy inevitably gets into one set of hijinks after another. 

Now, a ranking of the Life with Lucy episodes from Best to Worst, including the five unaired episodes finally released on DVD (marked with an asterisk).

Mother of the Bride: 8

World's Greatest Grandma: 7 *

Breaking Up is Hard to Do: 6 *

Lucy Makes Curtis Byte the Dust: 5

Lucy Makes a Hit with John Ritter: 4

One Good Grandparent Deserves Another: 4

Lucy, Legal Beagle: 3

Lucy is a Sax Symbol: 2

Love Among the Two-By-Fours: 2

Lucy's Green Thumb: 1 *

Lucy Gets Her Wires Crossed: 1

Lucy and Curtis Are Up a Tree: 0 *

Lucy and the Guard Goose: 0 *

Average Rating: 3

That two of the best and worst Life with Lucy episodes were unaired says something about the wildly fluctuating quality of the show.

As I think on the premise, I think Life with Lucy might have worked as a series of specials or a stage play. That way, we could get a series of comedy bits, put in some drama, and then get out. Instead, turning this into a weekly television series creates two problems. First is trying to come up with one premise after another for twenty-plus episodes. The second is trying to come up with one premise after another that the cast can participate in.

If we look at past Lucille Ball sitcoms, you will see that the cast for each was relatively small. I Love Lucy had four principle cast members, five if you count Keith Thibodeux (then billed as Richard Keith) as Little Ricky. The Lucy Show eventually whittled down to primarily two (Ball and Gale Gordon), after Vivian Vance opted to leave and the children of the Ball and Vance characters were written out. Here's Lucy had mostly four cast members (along with Ball and Gordon were Ball's real-life children Desi Arnaz, Jr. and Lucie Arnaz).

Life with Lucy had an astonishing seven characters. There were simply too many characters for such a small amount of time. With such a large group of people, it was all but impossible to fit everyone in. You could not cut out Ball or Gordon, so you were left with the family. I would have pushed vociferously to cut the character of Leonard out altogether. Yes, the hardware store needed employees, but there were issues with Leonard. He was the sole employee, or at least the sole employee ever seen working at the store. It made no sense to have one employee. He could never fit into the family dynamic. A couple of times Life with Lucy shoehorned him into family matters, but it ended up making less sense.

Moreover, Leonard was just annoying. The pratfalls, the exaggerated announcer voice and overall useless of the character took away from everything and everyone.

Not that the rest of the cast was any better, at least acting-wise. While Lewis as Becky had some good moments and was probably the best of the cast (the Becky-centric episode Lucy is a Sax Symbol being a standout for Lewis), the rest were in one word, horrendous. Once can cut Lewis and Amelio some slack given they were kids. 

Some slack. 

Dusenberry and Anderson, however, get no such reprieve. 

There is just no getting around it: both were simply awful as Margo and Ted. Their acting rarely if ever rose above community theater level. At times, there was almost a sense of desperation to their performances, as if both knew Life with Lucy was terrible and they wanted out. To be fair, Dusenberry had one good moment, a dramatic scene in Love Among the Two-By-Fours that worked well. Other moments, like Lucy, Legal Beagle and the pilot episode One Good Grandparent Deserves Another were simply ghastly. 

Anderson was just there.

As I think on the large cast, I'm reminded of how the early years of The Facts of Life also had an unwieldly large cast, forcing the producers to whittle the cast down to five. That could be done there, but on Life with Lucy? How to pare down a scenario like Life with Lucy? You going to kill off the family?

At least you could kill off Leonard. He was absent in one episode (Lucy and Curtis Are Up a Tree) and sometimes is in just one scene (Lucy is a Sax Symbol, Mother of the Bride). The show should either have been set at home or at work. Trying for both never worked. You might not have placed Lucy and Curtis in a retirement home (though that would be logical), but you could have opted to drop the hardware store. Why not make them employees of the hardware store, or have them volunteer at some senior center or other facility? That would provide an alternative setting that could cut out the family or the center when needed. 

No doubt the hardware store was created to allow for physical comedy. However, not only was the physical comedy obvious but also less funny and more frightening. In One Good Grandparent Deserves Another, there is a simply horrifying scene where, albeit accidentally, Lucy comes close to strangling Curtis. I was not laughing. I was fearing for his life.

That physical comedy leads to another issue with the show. One of Life with Lucy's greatest issues is how the show simply refused to adapt to the times. The writers, especially Ball's longtime writing team of Bob Carroll, Jr. and Madelyn Davies, were writing for a character that no longer existed. Many of the antics that Life with Lucy's Lucy Barker got into were for someone in her 30's to 40's. Lucille Ball, sad to say, was simply too old for what they had the character do.

I want to make clear that Lucille Ball was still quite agile and could handle the dialogue and physical comedy quite well. I do not want to come across as ageist in my ideas about Ball. However, a lot of physical comedy on Life with Lucy came across as more dangerous than endearing. One scene in Lucy Gets Her Wires Crossed involves her failed efforts to fix a reclining chair. Inevitably, the results are disastrous, with the chair thrashing about and flinging the occupant hither and yon. With a younger person, say someone in his/her 40s, that might be funny. When a 77-year-old does it, it looks deadly. 

It is hard to laugh at physical comedy when you fear for the comedian/comedienne's life. 

Curiously, the age issue pops up again in an unexpected way. Near the end of the series, Lucy either forgets something (like the formula for a health drink that ends up being a temporarily successful fertilizer) or makes a ghastly mistake (such as ordering too many lawnmowers due to her inability to use a computer). Both unintentionally reinforce the stereotype of seniors as having poor memory or being inept with technology. 

It was safe, and easy, and ultimately cheap, to make Lucy into this senior klutz. Intended as wacky, her Lucy Barker came across as combination senile and nut job. Naivete and cluelessness are fine, even amusing and endearing. When it comes from someone who is in her seventies, her total unawareness of how organizing a store in alphabetical order makes her look either insane or thoroughly stupid. 

As a side note, the "Lucy is obsessed with health" bit was pointless. It was a way to get some awful reactions from horrified family forced to drink her latest grotesque concoction. Apart from that, it added nothing to the show or the character. 

Life with Lucy did not have to crash and burn. Some major work could have saved it from being the fiasco it turned out to be. Not film it in front of a studio audience (the wild cheers for her entrance just set Ball up for failure, giving her a false sense of success). Dump the hardware store. Dump Leonard. Ditch some of the family (make Margo a single girl or even Lucy's granddaughter). Set up a foil or partner in crime in the Vivian Vance style. 

Lucy, Legal Beagle had a great character in Dena Dietrich's Hilda Loomis. She was a sharp antagonist to Lucy Barker to where it might have been nice to see her face off against Lucy. Maybe an antagonistic neighbor or senior citizens center rival? Audrey Meadows' guest spot in Mother of the Bride allowed for an equally strong antagonist. I know there was talk of asking her to join the cast in a second season. That would not have worked for two reasons.

First is that the heavy cast would increase more. Inevitably the family would have to go by the wayside, a tough act with the family premise set up already. Second, in an interview to promote the show, Ball was asked about having a female foil, with the late Vance's name brought up. With tears coming close to falling, Ball replied she could not consider having a female partner in crime without Vance. It is a touching and sad admission. 

Maybe at that point, Ball should have realized there should be no Life with Lucy. 

It is a terrible shame for Ball to have Life with Lucy on her résumé. It won't eclipse her great and groundbreaking work on I Love Lucy. It will be an embarrassment to be sure. However, time softens all things. In due course, Life with Lucy will be hopefully seen as a curious blip, a strange interlude to an extraordinary legacy.

So long as you do not watch Lucy and the Guard Goose.

Well, at least the Life with Lucy theme song was good.

Lucy and Desi: Before the Laughter. The Television Movie

LUCY AND DESI: 

BEFORE THE LAUGHTER

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz formed not only one of the great television duos. They also were a formidable television production company that brought us such programs as The Untouchables, Mission: Impossible and Star Trek. As such, it seems almost a shame to reduce their complex relationship and partnership to a mix of "unhappy wife" and "philandering husband". Lucy and Desi: Before the Laughter has one positive and one negative which keeps it from being either total excellence or total farce.

September 8, 1951. At the Desilu Studios, various cast and crew are preparing to film the premiere episode of the new television situation comedy, I Love Lucy. As the production gets closer and closer to start filming, its two stars have a series of flashbacks recalling their lives up to this point. Some flashbacks are from Lucille Ball (Frances Fisher), a former film star. Other flashbacks are from Desi Arnaz (Maurice Benard), a Cuban exile who has found fame, fortune and females in America.

Lucille, a hardscrabble actress who struggles to get her big breakout, is both attracted and slightly leery of Arnaz. Arnaz, for his part, sees Ball as something of a film jinx and at first does not want to work with her. It isn't until she becomes somewhat unobtainable that Arnaz's loins are piqued. 

The on-off relationship is causing them great joys but also great pains. There's great sex, though Lucille is not the exclusive recipient of such pleasures. Not even marriage can tame Desi's wandering member, though he does try not to stray. It is only when he gets dismissed as "Mr. Ball" that he crumbles. As they go through their marital merry-go-round, with threats of divorce and miscarriages, Lucille and Desi still love each other deeply, though not well. Ultimately, they hit on the idea for a television series that will bring them together. Now, at long last, they can be a team as I Love Lucy finally gets into production.  

Before the Laughter goes in a repetitive manner where something will trigger a flashback, some surprisingly long, then come back to present-day. Anything from a word to a song can send Arnaz and Ball's walk down memory lane. It can grow a bit tiresome, almost little bit of parody, to see exactly what or who will send Lucy or Desi taking a journey to the past. William Luce and Cynthia A. Cherbak's teleplay opts to keep this structure, more than likely to give equal time to Arnaz and Ball's side of things.

I do not know if it ultimately works. It is a positive that Before the Laughter opted to try and be balanced. However, memory is a curious thing. How one person remembers something may not be how the other person remembers. It may not even be what actually happened. What ends up happening is that Lucy and Desi end up a bit shortchanged. For something that is "their story", we end up getting pieces of two separate stories.

To be fair, there are good parts in the script. The recreation of both the Arnaz-Ball stage shows and rehearsals for the I Love Lucy pilot work well. There is a good montage of Ball's series of B-films via a series of publicity shots that also does well.

Mostly though, Before the Laughter is elevated and denigrated through our two leads. Frances Fisher does a fine job as Lucille Ball. She blends the zany persona with the authentic woman. Fisher's Ball can be flirtatious or furious, clueless and heartbroken. She handles the recreations of Lucy Ricardo quite well to where it is not mimicry. She also has strong dramatic moments. Late in the film, she gets notice that Desi's tour bus was in a major accident. Distraught and terrified, she makes a hurried trip to where he was touring. She unexpectedly runs into Desi, who is delighted and surprised to see her but unaware of the accident (he had either stayed behind or flown ahead). The terror and relief Fisher brought to the role is excellent.

And then there's Desi. 

Maurice Benard did not give a performance. I am not even sure that he gave a parody of Desi Arnaz. Instead, it was some oddball blend of desperate and unintentionally hilarious. Benard is comically bad as Desi Arnaz. There is simply so much wrong with Benard as Arnaz that it is an embarrassment of riches to find where to begin. 

Benard's voice was high and nasal, sounding more like a caricature than anything remotely close to Arnaz's Cuban accent. Benard apparently thought that Arnaz did nothing but mug for a living, for there was a lot of big-eyed expressiveness in Benard's performance. He made Arnaz look like a perpetually horny but lost puppy. It was to where he came across as funny even when he tried to be serious. 

Early in their relationship, Arnaz recounts his flight from Cuba. Once the spoiled, wealthy son of a mayor, a revolution costs him and his parents everything. As he tells Ball what is meant as a sad story, Benard says it in a comical manner, as if he is almost kidding about seeing his home burned down and having to flee for his life. 

Throughout Before the Laughter, Benard's Arnaz is so silly as to not come across as human. The most unintentionally funny moment came after what I think was the Academy Awards presentation. Fisher as Ball remarks, "What a night for Crawford. Bette Davis must be spitting nails". That places this scene in 1946 when Crawford won Best Actress for Mildred Pierce. As the radio announcer presents the various celebrities leaving the event, he says, "Here's Lucille Ball's car!", which enrages Arnaz.

Seething with rage, Arnaz finally pulls over to insist he is not "Mr. Ball". Everything in his performance becomes laughable. If Maurice Benard widened his eyes more, they'd literally would have popped out of his head. His voice grew into almost a screech. His efforts to express anger expressed almost humor. The entire scene should be studied by acting students under a "Don't Let This Happen to You" section.

Some sections, to be fair, could not have been handled better. Stationed near Ball during World War II to entertain the troops, Desi once again gets dismissed as "Mr. Ball". It just happens to be their anniversary when Ball shows up unexpectedly with a cake. You already know what will happen. I did literally say out loud, "That anniversary cake ain't gonna make it". 

Somehow, Before the Laughter could not overcome some hurdles. Maurice Benard was the biggest one, his performance a disaster. It should be noted that the screenplay did not go into great depth about Arnaz or Ball: his business acumen and her steely determination to succeed. Frances Fisher brought a strong performance as Lucille Ball. She was the saving grace, but it is Lucy AND Desi. As such, it went only halfway.

Desi Arnaz: 1917-1986
Lucille Ball: 1911-1989

5/10

Life with Lucy: World's Greatest Grandma

LIFE WITH LUCY: 

WORLD'S GREATEST GRANDMA

Written by: Bob Carroll, Jr. and Madelyn Davis (Story by Mel Sherer and Steve Granat)

Directed by: Bruce Bilson

Airdate: Unaired

Life with Lucy stumbles into its thirteenth and final episode with World's Greatest Grandma. With a surprisingly moving ending, World's Greatest Grandma ends this debacle if maybe not on a high note, but a respectable one.

Kevin McGibbon (Philip J. Amelio, II) has just received a trophy for soccer. Now every member of the McGibbon-Barker family has at least one trophy for achievement. Everyone, that is, except Lucy Barker (Lucille Ball). This upsets her greatly, but there is hope that she will finally catch up. Lucy's granddaughter, Becky (Jenny Lewis), informs her that there is a Grandparents Talent Show at her school. 

There is an issue, however.  Lucy has no talent for anything. Her son-in-law Ted (Larry Anderson) tries to show her some magic tricks. As Grandma the Great, Lucy ends up destroying Ted's father's Curtis' (Gale Gordon) watch. Now really depressed, she quits the talent show until Curtis reminds her of Rex Harrison's turn in My Fair Lady. Instead of singing a song, why not recite it as Harrison did?

With that, Lucy decides to perform Sunrise, Sunset from Fiddler on the Roof. Though she ultimately does not win the Grandparents Talent Show, Kevin and Becky give her a trophy anyway, for World's Greatest Grandma.

Whatever the flaws in World's Greatest Grandma, and there are quite a few, they are all made up by Ball's performance. Her recitation of Sunrise, Sunset is deeply moving and effective, as if she is summoning up her own life. The song itself is quite beautiful, so she does have the benefit of that. However, while she does not sing the lyrics, her reading is so well-handled. 

I think what makes this section work is how simple it was, just a spotlight, a light piano accompaniment, and Ball reciting this ode to the passing of time. She holds your attention, and one almost does long for her to have gone on tour reciting poetry. 

This sequence is especially strong given the act that she had to follow. The preceding performance was "Patty Gilbert and Her Dixie Belles", a senior citizen Dixieland band performing When the Saints Come Marching In. One does feel that the Dixie Belles were filler for the episode, but the transition from the jaunty When the Saints Come Marching In and then to Sunrise, Sunset is quite smooth.

As a side note, we learn from Curtis that the winner was a 90-year-old grandmother performing Da Ya Think I'm Sexy on the bagpipes. It's odd that the Grandparents Talent Contest starts with an old woman finishing her performance on the bagpipes, but we never did hear that tartan tribute to Sir Rod Stewart.  One can only wonder why we never got even a taste of this number, which would have been funnier and more entertaining than most Life with Lucy episodes.

Sunrise, Sunset was the highpoint of World's Greatest Grandma. Everything else was not up to that part. The episode begins with Kevin, his parents Ted and Margo (Larry Anderson and Anne Dusenberry), Becky, and for some reason M&B's sole employee Leonard (Donovan Scott) coming home from Kevin's soccer match. World's Greatest Grandma explains that Lucy and Curtis were at the store and thus unable to go. 

That leads to the question, "why did Leonard go but not either Lucy and/or Curtis?". Was it Leonard's day off? Does he spend his free time with his employer's family? He has almost never been seen interacting with the McGibbon family save for Lucy is a Sax Symbol. Why exactly was he here at all? It did not help that Scott once again did some kind of announcer voice for Kevin to talk about his trophy. This is at least the second consecutive episode where he tries to pull off that schtick. It just never works.

I have never liked Leonard as a character. World's Greatest Grandma now made me actively despise him. 

To be fair, Ball's efforts at magic were amusing, even if you know that she will end up destroying poor Curtis' beloved watch. Oddly, another show on a rival network featuring a grandmother also tried to do a magic act and ended up doing the exact same thing that Lucy Barker did. The Golden Girls third season episode Letter to Gorbachev had Sophia Petrillo try to make a special watch disappear only to end up destroying it. Like with The Golden Girls' season three premiere episode Old Friends shared a similar plot (or subplot) to Lucy, Legal Beagle, we have another Golden Girls episode having a repeat of a situation from Life with Lucy.

By no means am I suggesting or implying that the Golden Girls writers were cribbing from a failed and pretty forgotten rival show. I am saying that it is a curious coincidence that two episodes of The Golden Girls third season had similar plots and situations from a show that went off the air the year before. 

World's Greatest Grandma is not a great Life with Lucy episode. However, it is frankly amazing that Ball's reciting of Sunrise, Sunset elevated it to being one of the better episodes. It seems like a nice sendoff to what ultimately became an embarrassment to Lucille Ball's legacy.

7/10

Life with Lucy: The Complete Series

Life with Lucy: Breaking Up is Hard to Do

LIFE WITH LUCY: 

BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO

Written by: Richard Albrecht and Casey Keller (Story by Laura Levine)

Directed by: Peter Baldwin

Airdate: Unaired

Breaking Up is Hard to Do, the penultimate Life with Lucy episode and the fourth of five unaired episodes, is surprisingly good. It did what past Life with Lucy episodes failed to do, which was to have a plot. Despite a bad start, Breaking Up is Hard to Do managed to right itself to make an entertaining half hour. Pity Life with Lucy as a whole failed to do likewise. 

Lucy Barker (Lucille Ball) and M&B Hardware Store sole employee Leonard (Donovan Scott) dance a tango, blissfully unaware that they or at least Lucy should have picked up her business partner and his boss Curtis McGibbon (Gale Gordon) from the airport. Curtis is understandably enraged at having been left waiting and forced to hire a cab to take him to the store. 

As a couple of side notes, why did Curtis turn to Lucy to pick him up? Why did he leave a message about his return flight at the store rather than at home? Why did he go from the airport to the store rather than home? 

This incident, for both Lucy and Curtis, is the last straw. Lucy has an offer that Curtis cannot refuse. She will buy his half-share of the store. Curtis, having been inspired by tales of a former colleague he heard at the hardware convention that he just came back from, tentatively agrees to finally retire. Now Lucy can run the hardware store as she likes, while Curtis begins to literally go to the birds (he starts birdwatching and building birdhouses).

It is clear to everyone that this arrangement is not working. Curtis is slowly becoming miserable and directionless, unaware that he has built too many birdhouses. Lucy, for her part, seems to start out well with her "Circus of Bargains", a massive sale that appears to look financially lucrative. It isn't until she sees the intake versus expenses that she realizes she went overbudget on promotion, veering close to bankruptcy.

In desperation, Lucy decides to find a new partner. In desperation, Curtis decides to get back into business. With them finding that they are at their best when the other is at their worst, Lucy and Curtis get back to work.

If you read through my Breaking Up is Hard to Do synopsis, you may have noticed something curious. Apart from Leonard, I did not once mention any other characters save for Lucy and Curtis. Yes, the other characters were in Breaking Up is Hard to Do, but they played such an insignificant role in the episode that they were not worth mentioning. True, there was a scene between Margo (Ann Dusenberry) and Ted (Larry Anderson) discussing the situation. However, it is so irrelevant and forgettable that they might just as well been cut from the episode.

That is one of the primary reasons Breaking Up is Hard to Do works. It is a Lucy & Curtis centered episode. As such, we get to see Ball and Gordon work mostly together, and despite Scott's Leonard, they carry the story quite well.

Ball and Gordon can handle the surprisingly amusing and funny bits well. Ball's Circus of Bargains one-man band is a nice comic bit, and a probable reminder of her Broadway turn in Wildcat. Gordon's almost apologetic manner when sad in his depression is also amusing. Of particular note is when Curtis tells Lucy about Merrill Ferguson, the man who did not make it to that year's hardware convention.

Merrill is not dead. He retired and hired an all-female sailing crew. Gordon brings a slight twinkle to his eye when regaling this story, while Ball's shock counters it effectively. "He may give new meaning to the term, "yo-ho-ho", Curtis says. For a family sitcom, this is quite risqué. 

However, in the last scene when Ball "interviews" Curtis for the position of business partner, there is a genuine affection, even tenderness to things. It is a surprisingly moving moment, full of warmth and heart. We still get funny bits. When Lucy asks Curtis if he is over twenty-one, he replies, "I was BORN over twenty-one". To be fair, I was unsure if he meant in age or in the year.

It is a pity that such a moment had to be undercut by a gag about mousetraps. 

Breaking Up is Hard to Do does have one negative element, a powerful one that bookends the episode. That negative element is Donovan Scott's Leonard. His character in this episode cannot be avoided. The tango he bursts into while dusting is not funny. Neither is his flustered manner when Curtis comes into the store, clearly (and understandably) angry at having spent $16.20 for a cab. While that might have been forgiven, what can't is how he ends his turn in Breaking Up is Hard to Do.

For reasons unknown and probably too dumb to believe, Leonard brings in the applicants for business partner in a faux game show way. Making each applicant sound like someone introducing a contestant on The Dating Game is cringe. Scott's delivery was forced and worse, unfunny.

Had Life with Lucy managed to get a second season, I would have strongly urged them to either dump Leonard altogether or minimize his role. Surely M&B Hardware could use another employee? Apart from Scott and a clumsy opening, Breaking Up is Hard to Do is a good Life with Lucy episode. With one final episode left, will we get a Circus of Bargains or a Cirque de Mort? 

6/10

Next (Unaired) Episode: World's Greatest Grandma