Lucy

"Lucy" the movie, failed to live up to the promise of it's commercials, which featured recreated scenes from the famous "I Love Lucy" series.

The over long film juggled facts and dates to the point that any real Lucy fan watching couldn't help but spend the entire 3 hours raging about all that they got wrong or changed.

So Buster Keaton readied the couple for their vaudeville act? Funny, Desi's friend Pepito the clown has always been credited in every biography of the couple I've ever read. They've got Lucy as a blonde years after she went red - where was the movie "Too many Girls" for which MGM imported Desi from NY, and during the making of which the couple began dating?

Yeah, I'm nit-picking, but the film was so filled with little blunders like that! The kind of things that drive any hard core Lucy fan crazy!

I could've over looked much of this had the producers provided me with a more believable Lucy - but Miss York frankly did not cut it. Lucy was as famous for her beauty as for her talent, and Miss York is simply not even in her league.

With a running time of 3 hours, they had time to get it right - that they chose not to do so amazes me! All in all, a really tedious waste of viewing time. If you love Lucy - Avoid it!

I've read a lot of negative reviews of this film and I can only say that yes, there are some errors in the chronology and anachronisms regarding the cars used. If you can get beyond all that, the film will entertain you. The acting and the portrayals are quite good of Lucy and Desi, and acceptable for Viv and Bill Frawley. There are some not-bad impersonations of some legends like Eddie Cantor and young Bette Davis. A standout is the young woman portraying Carole Lombard, and the 20s period stuff looks good. I wish they would have gone more into Desi's background as his early life was filled with at least as much drama as Lucy's. The woman who plays DeDe Ball really looks exactly like the real thing. The re-creations of Lucy's best routines are pretty good. It must be hard to near-impossible to try an imitate a comic genius credibly, but Rachel York does a very good job. I've read nearly everything ever written about Lucy and Desi, and while this film is not perfect, it is generally pretty accurate.

I thought Rachel York was fantastic as "Lucy." I have seen her in "Kiss Me, Kate" and "Victor/Victoria," as well, and in each of these performances she has developed very different, and very real, characterizations. She is a chameleon who can play (and sing) anything!

I am very surprised at how many negative reviews appear here regarding Rachel's performance in "Lucy." Even some bonafide TV and entertainment critics seem to have missed the point of her portrayal. So many people have focused on the fact that Rachel doesn't really look like Lucy. My response to that is, "So what?" I wasn't looking for a superficial impersonation of Lucy. I wanted to know more about the real woman behind the clown. And Rachel certainly gave us that, in great depth. I also didn't want to see someone simply "doing" classic Lucy routines. Therefore I was very pleased with the decision by the producers and director to have Rachel portray Lucy in rehearsal for the most memorable of these skits - Vitameatavegamin and The Candy Factory. (It seems that some of the reviewers didn't realize that these two scenes were meant to be rehearsal sequences and not the actual skits). This approach, I thought, gave an innovative twist to sketches that so many of us know by heart. I also thought Rachel was terrifically fresh and funny in these scenes. And she absolutely nailed the routines that were recreated - the Professor and the Grape Stomping, in particular. There was one moment in the Grape scene where the corner of Rachel's mouth had the exact little upturn that I remember Lucy having. I couldn't believe she was able to capture that - and so naturally.

I wonder if many of the folks who criticized the performance were expecting to see the Lucille Ball of "I Love Lucy" throughout the entire movie. After all, those of us who came to know her only through TV would not have any idea what Lucy was really like in her early movie years. I think Rachel showed a natural progression in the character that was brilliant. She planted all the right seeds for us to see the clown just waiting to emerge, given the right set of circumstances. Lucy didn't fit the mold of the old studio system. In her frustrated attempts to become the stereotypical movie star of that era, she kept repressing what would prove to be her ultimate gifts.

I believe that Rachel deftly captured the comedy, drama, wit, sadness, anger, passion, love, ambition, loyalty, sexiness, self absorption, childishness, and stoicism all rolled into one complex American icon. And she did it with an authenticity and freshness that was totally endearing. "Lucy" was a star turn for Rachel York. I hope it brings a flood of great roles her way in the future. I also hope it brings her an Emmy.

It was on tv last night..kinda surprised no one has commented on it yet. I actually missed the first 20 minutes or so of this because the alarm didn't wake me like it should have, but the rest of the film was very gripping. I never realized how much drama there was in Lucille's life..it's quite sad to think about. She was very happy on-stage, clearly.

The looks of the actors, Rachel and Daniel, were very off from the real Lucy and Desi (sometimes they actually find people who look like the people) which kinda threw me and made it hard for me to like see everything happening to the real Lucy. However their voices and accents were really good, so that helped. I noticed they kinda changed around a few things whenever they were recalling an episode...like the chocolate factory one...it was the bossy lady who called the machines to go faster..not Lucy..oh well. It's also sad that it ended so early in the story of their lives, but I suppose it was just to portray the story of "Lucy". It was still excellent and stuck in my mind.

I saw "Lucy" last night and found it to be a pretty good general overview of the star's rise. It seemed to dwell a bit too much on her relationship with Desi(which never really changed) instead of the other things going on in her life as she became more and more famous.

The acting was very good. I remember Rachel York from Les Mis back in 1991. She has a great deal of talent. Danny Pino, I don't remember seeing in anything before.

All in all - worth seeing.