A Girl, a Guy, and a Gob

Lucy, Murphy, and O'Brien make something out of this little B movie.

I really wanted to like "A Girl, a Guy, and a Gob". After all, the great silent comedian Harold Lloyd was the producer of this film...and I love Lloyd. But, sadly, I found the film to occasionally be tedious...mostly because it seemed to try too hard to make the audience laugh. Subtle, it wasn't! And, overall, it's more a pleasant (albeit loud) time-passer and not much more.

The film starts off well--with a rich guy, Stephen (Edmond O'Brien) in an awkward situation at the symphony. A family is in his box and try as he might, he cannot convince the staff that they are in his place. Not surprisingly, Stephen is mad.

Later, Dot (Lucille Ball) realizes that her family WAS in the wrong...it was Stephen's box after all. However, shortly after realizing it, she's assigned to be Stephen's new secretary. Imagine how awkward this might be!

Along the way, Stephen finds himself falling for Dot. But there's a hitch...she's got a fiance who is a sailor (George Murphy)...and Stephen likes the couple and doesn't want to horn in on their relationship. But what about Dot....what does she want?!

The problem with this film is that in many scenes it tries way, way too hard to be kooky. In the process, it lack subtlety and is a bit shrill. Terrible? No...but these annoying scenes do negatively impact the film and it's an easy film to skip....or not.

It's films like this that never guaranteed LUCILLE BALL would become a big star in her early Hollywood comedies. There's nothing subtle here in this film produced by Harold Lloyd and directed by Richard Wallace.

Lucille is the scatterbrained daughter in a family of zanies who meets EDMOND O'BRIEN in a mix-up over theater tickets. He's a casual, laid back executive, not very assertive (unlike his later roles), and when he needs a substitute secretary Lucy shows up for the job. It's a hectic film from then on.

GEORGE MURPHY is her brash sailor boyfriend, LLOYD CORRIGAN her brother, HENRY TRAVERS her father and the befuddled FRANKLIN PANGBORN is a pet shop owner.

It's a more subdued Lucy than usual with the others having most of the heavy mugging and pratfalls to do. MARGUERITE CHAPMAN is wasted as O'Brien's neglected girlfriend. Nice cast but they all have mediocre material to deal with.

Summing up: Passes the time pleasantly enough, but is nothing special.

Lucille Ball was much more restrained in this 1941 comedy with Edmond O'Brien and George Murphy.

O'Brien appears so young and dashing in this film. He plays an upper class businessman who meets and finds love with secretary Ball. Murphy plays her sailor boyfriend. To me, the biggest question in the film was who would Murphy wind up with?

The comedy here is tedious. O'Brien has a snobbish girlfriend with a high society mother to the bargain.

Ball comes from a real common family where the brother finds opera tickets that belong to O'Brien. By the next scene, Ball is going to apply for a job where O'Brien is the owner. How coincidental can we get?

I wanted to see this film because my grandfather acted in it. His name is James Spencer. His south sea island scenes were cut out in the final release of this film. I still found this film to be a great treat and a lot of fun. It was a great example of the screw-ball comedies of the time before WW2. This should be seen on cable tv. Great chemistry between all the actors here.