Lucy and Desi: A Home Movie

Here is one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. Lucie Arnaz has taken hours of good-looking color home movie footage and boiled it down to a manageable level, framing it with anecdotes and interviews of friends and family of Lucy and Desi. More than the half-hearted attempts at a biopic, the true essence of TV's most famous married couple is put on display here. Lucie displays their strengths and weaknesses equally well, and the result is that one comes away with a true picture of the Arnaz marriage. Looking at the footage, one can see the genuine love between the two and with the personal reminiscence, see how they fit into the Hollywood community in the classic era. The home movie footage spans from about 1940, when the Arnazes tied the knot, until the mid-eighties, when we see a touching picture of the mature Arnazes with their grandson in the pool. The mostly color footage has been remarkably well preserved and we also get to see a few film clip highlights of Lucy and Desi's film carrers, both together and separate. The music Lucie has chosen to underscore a lot of this footage really adds to the overall effect, which gives one a true understanding of what made these people tick. This show richly deserved the Emmy award and it was truly a labor of love for Lucie to make this. Lucie and her brother Desi Jr. appear on screen, and we get a true portrait of one of TV's first families. A must for all Lucy (and Desi) fans.