I spent considerable time exploring and writing about the neighborhood and the world of this story, in the eighties and early nineties. I'm still not quite sure why it took me until 2021 to watch this rather passionate, thought provoking, socially significant and insightful film. And I can't imagine why it wasn't embraced by the public and the reviewers alike. It took seeing Being the Ricardos and listening to the ten part TCM Lucy podcast to inspire me to finally track this one down.
Of course, it's harder to do great comedy, especially in front of a live audience, than it is to do serious acting, with short takes that are shot from nine different angles. Still, Lucy truly showed her acting chops, in what was to be her last film role. She'd played a serious, dramatic and memorable character opposite Henry Fonda, in The Big Street, forty plus years earlier. That's a film people remember and that pops up on classic film stations, on occasion. This one seems to have all but faded to oblivion. If Ben Mankowitz hadn't talked about this film in the last chapter of the TCM Lucy podcast, it might have been another thirty five years before I got around to it.
I give it 8 stars rather than 10 because there are a few cliches. However, cliches do tend to come from reality and I do know, from studying and exploring the subject matter that the film captured that reality.
As I said in my review of the spectacular Being the Ricardos, you will see sides of Lucy in that film that you haven't seen before. After fifty five years in Hollywood, much of which was spent playing a zany wacky character, for Lucy to transform into this street bag lady, with such truly authentic credibility, shows even more range for this truly brilliant legend. Anyone who wants to experience the full gamut of Lucille Ball needs to watch this one.
