The Fuller Brush Girl

Sally Elliot (Lucille Ball) and boyfriend Humphrey Briggs (Eddie Albert) struggle to make the down payment for their dream home. Humphrey gets a surprise promotion but he's actually being setup as the fall guy by his boss. Sally's friend Jane is a Fuller brush girl selling cosmetics door-to-door. When Sally gets fired for blowing up the switchboard, she tries to join Jane as a Fuller brush girl but it leads to door-to-door misadventures.

Lucy is being the Full Lucy. She's hanging on a line, steamed like a roll, rolled like a wheel, drinking like a fish, and gets real blown up. I like babysitting and bad perms. The whole smuggling premise is convoluted and messy. It does allow her to do all crazy physical comedy. It would be funnier if it all flows directly out of her door-to-door sales. Humphrey is a side character and is almost unnecessary. This is all Lucy. She could have done this solo.

The first lady of TV comedy (Lucille Ball) and the King of society folk in the country (Eddie Albert of "Green Acres") are the wackiest comedy team since Burns and Allen in this fun farce, one of the most delightful comedys of the 1940's.

Lucy plays Sally Elliott, a recently fired receptionist who is engaged to Eddie Albert's bumbling file clerk, Humphrey Briggs. They want to buy a house but can't afford the monthly payments. Briggs is hired by his crooked boss (Jerome Cowan) as the front for a shipping scam and Lucy takes up selling cosmetics as a Fuller Brush Girl. The two end up involved in a murder investigation when a misunderstanding between Cowan and his wife (Lee Patrick of "Auntie Mame") erupts. Not since Red Skelton's "Whistling" films had murder been so farcial, and Eddie and Lucille deliver the goods.

First of all, Lucy here isn't the same as she was as any of her TV Lucy characters. They were wacky and dimwitted, but Lucy here is more of a victim of circumstance. She is just the epitome of the girl in the wrong place at the wrong time. For example, when pal Jeff Donnell visits Lucy before she is fired, it is not Lucy's stupidity which causes her to get into trouble; It is more a combination of clumsiness and bad timing. Next, when Lucy gives some home perms to a group of ladies who lunch, it is the old switcharoo which causes Lucy to get deeper and deeper into trouble. Of course, these sequences are hysterical and straight out of the farcical moments of "I Love Lucy". Lucy's later show biz desperations of her TV series are perfectly represented here by Sally's entrance into a burlesque show. With hysterically long false eye lashes, overdone makeup, and some hysterically bad dance movements, Lucy's well-performed "untalent" is guaranteed to leave the audience exhausted from laughing so much. The finale chase sequence aboard a ship is also full of laughs. As a result, this classic comedy is guaranteed to provide the audience with more than the usual number of laughs.

Gale Robbins, a vixen of the late 40's and early 50's, is good as the bad girl, while Jeff Donnell (later Quartermain housekeeper Stella on "General Hospital"), Lee Patrick, Jerome Cowan, and a whole slew of famous character faces whose names we don't know, do good as well in smaller parts. Even Fuller Brush Man Red Skelton makes an appearance here, reuniting Lucy with her leading man from 1943's MGM classic "DuBarry Was a Lady" where Lucy first showed off her flaming red hair.

This is a classic not-to-miss comedy not only for fans of Lucy but for movie buffs who want to see what classic comedy really is.

I'm a big I Love Lucy fan, don't get me wrong. But the slightly younger, slightly prettier, slightly more energetic Lucille Ball of the Fuller Brush Girl may actually have been Lucy at an even higher peak.

In fairness, some of her fence-climbing, bad-guy-fighting, and hurdle-leaping abilities in this film were probably those of a stunt double, which I don't believe she had on the TV show. But she's really engaged, perky, and comes alive in this film in a big way, unlike some of her post-I Love Lucy films, where she appears to be in some kind of a trance.

The scene where she is pushed out onto a burlesque stage, and forced to dance like a stripper, is one of the most hysterically funny Lucy moments I've ever seen, on TV or film.

She is ably supported by Eddie Albert as her lovable but slightly dimwitted husband, and a very capable cast. The plot is not only a comedy, but is also a murder mystery with surprise twists and turns, with as much credibility as a lot of other murder mystery films I've seen. And for fans of The Fuller Brush Man, there's a nice little surprise.

It's great to see Lucy as a young, highly-talented, up-and-coming starlet who is about to make her mark in a big, big way. This film should be required watching for all aspiring actors and actresses, as it shows exactly what Hollywood and the public are looking for -- and found in Lucille Ball.

Ah, this is fun. I've heard that in this movie, Ms. Ball was the closest to her future TV hit persona. It still was not "Lucy unleashed" as we later experienced on TV, but the action is unleashed. They may just have unrolled some new hijinks in this movie. Haven't seen the likes of some of it. The action got so rough at times that I understand Ms. Ball sustained several injuries, with ongoing effects. That tells me she did her own stuff. It was pret-ty wild ... She did a comedy with a young William Holden, "Miss Grant Takes Richmond," before this. But it was this Fuller Brush Girl movie that was used in discussions with CBS for her own TV show, to demonstrate that she could do comedy.

I didn't see Ms. Ball's early films until several years ago, and found it a novelty seeing her in them. She was mostly in drama, only doing comedy toward the end of her early film career, and there were only a few. It was very interesting to see her in high fashion 40's clothes and hair. She was very glamorous in most of them, often a show girl, then a sophisticated, haughty type. The personality was so different - nothing like her upcoming "Lucy." She was called the "Queen of B pictures," which could be said about some others also. She did a lot of bit and small parts before moving into leads. One of the weightier ones was "Lured" with George Sanders and Cedric Hardwicke. She also co-starred with a young Henry Fonda in "The Big Street." They dated for a while. He thought she was gorgeous, and she is - a very attractive woman. It was when she started doing the comedies that she knew she had found her niche, and the Ricardos started working on the idea of a TV show.

Hers is a hard work, good luck story with a happy ending. After toiling in the trenches for so many years, she came out way on top with her own show, which was a solid success for decades. As everyone knows, her reruns are still in demand. She's a legend. What if she had quit or been unwilling to strike out into the new media (at that time)? She went on to do other films, such as "Mame" with Robert Preston. Hey, I think she broke out of B movies!! Don't cry for Lucy. She came into her dream. Can't put her down either. She just kept popping up and up and up.

I think most comedy fans will enjoy this movie. It has the wonderful Eddie Albert, who definitely plays second fiddle to Lucy, but with vigor. Ha! Try it; I think you'll like it.

This was a nice surprise. I didn't know what to expect, but what I got was a lot of laughs. Sure, many of the gags were simple slapstick stuff but it worked. This was truly a funny movie and Lucille Ball and Eddie Albert made a great pair.

This film also was a good preview of what audiences were going to see down the road when Ball became super-famous on television. She plays a similar type of character: a well-meaning ditz who gets into one jam after another. Here, she winds up an innocent victim and has gangsters chasing her and Albert all over town.

I only wish this was out on DVD or even on a good VHS tape in the United States. With only a couple of reviews, apparently most people have never heard of it. It's worth seeing and owning, believe me.