The Fuller Brush Girl

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.

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 one of Lucille Ball's last theatrical films prior to the debut of "I Love Lucy", and from the looks of things it was the final primer for her role as Lucy Ricardo. "The Fuller Brush Girl" was filmed in 1950 as a sequel to the very popular "The Fuller Brush Man", which starred Lucille's male counterpart, Red Skelton.

It's the story of a young couple, Sally and Humphrey, who want to get married, buy a house and live happily ever after. But just as they are able to place a down payment on their dream house, Sally causes an electrical fire at the shipping company where she and Humphrey work and loses her job. Undaunted Sally decides to try her hand at door-to-door sales as a Fuller Brush Girl (she actually sells cosmetics, not brushes). Meanwhile back at the shipping company Humphrey is promoted to shipping manager, only he doesn't realize that he is being set-up as the fall guy by a smuggling ring. Through a hilarious set of circumstances the bumbling Fuller Brush Girl and the smuggling ring get mixed-up with each other and all hell breaks loose. In the ensuing tangle, there is murder, talking parrots, police chases, a very funny striptease and some of the funniest sight-gags ever put on film.

The cast includes a very young Eddie Albert as Humphrey, Jeff Donnell as Sally's best friend and a who's Who cast of character actors.

If you are looking for a movie with Lucille Ball at her comical best, this is the one.

As a trivia note, the musical number in the film "Put The Blame On Mame" is the same recording used to dub Rita Hayworth's voice in the film "Gilda".

The one and only big screen teaming of Lucille Ball and Eddie Albert finds them as a pair of newlyweds wondering how they're going to make the payments on their dream house. Then Lucy gets the bright idea of getting a job as a Fuller Brush Girl. Just to show how good she is, she even takes her friend Jeff Donnell's sales route.

What I'm describing is typical Lucy Ricardo behavior and it brings typical Luc Ricardo results, all kinds of complications for everyone around her and much laughs for an audience.

The Fuller Brush Girl is like a dress rehearsal for I Love Lucy, she gets to try out some material that would become familiar on the small screen very shortly. From the beginning where she blows up a telephone switchboard to a drunk act straight from the classic Vitametavegimen routine, the film pulls out all the stops.

One thing that was different is that Eddie Albert being a different type than Desi Arnaz is far more passive and far more a victim in this film than Desi ever was.

Would you believe that poor Lucy who's just trying to make a little extra money winds up being accused of the murders of Albert's boss Jerome Cowan and his wife Lee Patrick? Frank Tashlin's script glides right into that with no effort. The twenty minute or so final chase scene on a freighter is a scream from start to finish.

Special mention should go to Mel Blanc who provided the voices for a pair of South American parrots who help as well as hinder Albert and Ball and provide a wonderful commentary on the proceedings. The Fuller Brush Girl is a must for fans of Lucy.

Bacon may have directed, but the sight gags are pure Tashlin. His cartoonish style is perfect for out-and-out slapstick. Note the number of physical exaggerations, right out of storyboard animation. Actually, Tashlin's the perfect spark to get Ball's comedic career in motion, which I gather this movie did.

The plot line itself is patterned after the many occupational comedies of the time—The Good Humor Man (!950), The Yellow Cab Man (1950), etc.-- as Sally (Ball) and Humphrey (Albert) get hilariously mixed up with cops and crooks. Red Skelton even puts in an amusing cameo from his Fuller Brush Man (1948).

The gags fly fast and furious maybe too much so, along with an overlong climax. Still, the set-ups are consistently inventive, while Ball gets to show a lot of sex appeal along with the clowning. Albert strives manfully to keep up, but it's Ball who gets the close-ups and the spotlight. Catch her versatility, for example, as she moves effortlessly into her amusing nightclub act.

I don't know why the pro's consistently downgrade the film—TCM giving it only two stars out of four. True, the slapstick gets a little frenetic at times, but the results remain pretty darn funny and provide a great early glimpse of TV's top comedienne in the making.