The Long, Long Trailer

This movie really needs to come out on DVD and sooooon!!!! it is one of the best funny movies out there. I have been seeing lucy movies and shows since i was a yourg boy. I love the classics, you did not need special effects for it to be a good movie. Don't get me wrong i love the new ones but the classics rule!! so i hope the Long,long Trailer comes out on DVD soon for everyone to enjoy. Those movies from yesteryear will always be king of movies. the stars can be compared with a lot of today starts if you look carefully at movie stars today. Kevin costner is our steve mc queen and so on. funny how life is reborn in different ways. Just need to look closer when we have our eyes open! thank you to who ever may care to be reading this.

Thanks to IMDb, I never realized Vincente Minnelli directed this film! Riding high on the popularity of "I Love Lucy," this film is essentially Lucy and Ricky on the road, "disguised" as Nicki and Tacy. Whoever they might be called, this film is fun. Too bad they didn't include a cameo of Ted and Elsie too! I think that Minnelli perfectly captured the enthusiasm of "America in the Road" during the 1950s with its fascination for travel.

The comedy seems rather stilted at times, perhaps because it wasn't filmed in front of a live studio audience, and there are no really big laugh out loud moments. Still, the movie is a neat little gem from the carefree 50s when all we had to worry about was keeping up with the Jones'.

In the midst of their wildly successful run through "I Love Lucy," Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz made a movie. In "The Long, Long Trailer" they play newlyweds Nicky and Tacy. Nicky's job apparently requires him to travel a lot, and Tacy comes up with the idea of buying a trailer as their new home so that she can accompany him wherever he goes - and what a trailer. It's a beast. It's huge. And Tacy doesn't seem to understand the challenge involved in pulling the thing around the country.

The basic story revolves around the fact that the purchase of this trailer almost destroys Nicky and Tacy's new marriage. Much of the humour in this revolves around the trials of driving with the trailer hooked to the car. The movie for the most part lacks the slapstick kind of humour that "I Love Lucy" was famous for - with perhaps the exception of a scene in which Tacy tries to cook in the trailer while Nicky is driving. Watching Nicky try to back the trailer into the driveway of Tacy's uncle and aunt's house and almost destroying the house is also quite funny. Otherwise, the humour is lower key than you'd expect, and the movie is sometimes even tense. The scenes in which Nicky has to pull the trailer up a long and windy mountain road is actually rather unsettling.

This certainly isn't as good as "I Love Lucy" but in its own way it's fun, and lets us see Lucy and Desi doing something a little different. (6/10)

I first saw this movie when I was 12 in the movie theater, I never forgot it over the years. It remains one of my all time favorites to this day. The scenes where Lucy falls out the door into the mud and when she is trying to fix their dinner in the trailer while Ricky drives are hysterical. Another of my favorites is when they are going up the mountain and Lucy knows she didn't get rid of the rocks Desi told her too and the mountain is sooooooo steep! I was in a situation once where we were traveling up a very high mountain with a steep incline on my side of the car and all I could think of was this movie and that scene. I was tickled to death when I could finally get my own copy to watch whenever I needed a good laugh. Lucy & Desi are great together.

Even if you aren't a fan of Ms. Ball and Desi, the mid-century fashions, architecture, and the now priceless automobiles featured make this a wonderful piece of history.

That the couple is real, married in life and not just for show, adds to the ripping good chemistry that makes farces as this work.

The only other period film that I enjoy as much is the somewhat later "It's A Mad, Mad... World"; best ensemble cast ever, Spencer Tracy's final film.

The "Trailer" turns out to be a curse, the helpful folks aren't, everything that was supposed to be easy and wonderful turns out to be a series of exercises in endurance... but even during the most tense and adversarial scenes, the lifetime love shared by Desi and Lucy comes to the fore; throughout, it's very apparent that they love each other, very much. There's a scene, where they're stuck in the rain overnight, and during the dinner conversation the camera captures the facial and body language between them; if you can't see how much in love these two are, you might test as a sociopath. Later, she wants to get him a television set. And Desi's practicality, continuously worn away by Lucy's optimism, makes the movie- his accent just adds to the charm.

This is absolutely one to cherish- no guns, no bad words (tho' Desi is given many occasions for such), no car chases, neck tattoos, nor Billy Badasses being Billy. Just a sweet, somewhat silly diary of a husband giving up common sense to please the lady he loves. They sing a duet, as well, and these two can sing. What?! Singing in a movie? Jeez-us wept, I must be old.

And, as a car guy, I'd give body parts for that yellow/black/white Mercury Monterey drop top. Really- I'd give a kidney at least; you just don't see these anymore, possibly 'cuz other cars make "better" hotrods or investments. Perry Mason had one, but as it was done in B&W, you can't call the colours.

It is a must see.