Marinai allegri

If you're a Lucille Ball fan, you would definitely want to see this movie. As a Lucille Ball fan, I have seen many of her movies, but this one would probably stand as one of the tops. In this movie, Lucille Ball plays as an average girl rather than a self-absorbed lady like in her other films. This movie also features her more than her other works, being seen in most of the scenes. I thought that the movie was great throughout except for the ending. The ending could have been better. Overall, it's a good movie to watch, especially with Lucile Ball in it.

The Duncans are sitting in the box seat at the opera. Pigeon found the tickets after shipping magnate Stephen Herrick (Edmond O'Brien) dropped them. Stephen is angry that someone else has taken his box and he makes a scene. Dot Duncan (Lucille Ball) discovers that her brother had lost the money in a horse race and runs out on the show. She drops her purse on Stephen's head and the next day, she finds that her new job is being Stephen's new secretary. Her boyfriend Claudius J. "Coffee Cup" Cup (George Murphy) returns from the Navy.

This starts with a great Meet Cute. Lucille Ball is doing a lot of funny stuff. It's a great rom-com start for Stephen and Dot. Then Coffee Cup comes in and it turns into something else. For it to be a better love triangle, Coffee Cup needs to be a lesser suitor and Dot can't be fully in love. I certainly don't want Stephen ending up with Cecilia but I don't want Dot to leave Coffee Cup either. Coffee Cup is too good. I really like a lot of funny bits and the three main characters especially Dot with Coffee Cup. The four inches is a weirdly fun unforgettable bit. They just need to recalibrate Coffee Cup to fit the rom-com formula. I also didn't know what a gob is.

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.

A couple of years ago one of our video rental stores went out of business. They sold off their stock. I knew that they had a good selection of movies from the 30's and 40's so I invested in about 20 of them. I just realized last week that I had overlooked viewing some of them. One of these was a 1941 flick called "A Girl, A Guy and a Gob" which I watched this evening. It starred Lucille Ball, George Murphy and Edmund O'Brien and was released in 1941.Much to my surprise it was very entertaining. The Producer was none other than Harold Lloyd of silent film fame. Evidently he produced 2 movies for RKO and they were both successful...don't know why the collaboration did not continue. "A Girl, A Guy and A Gob" has touches of silent film comedy and is also reminiscent in places of "You Can't Take It With You" since it deals with a similar "crazy" family. The principal stars look unbelievably young, especially O'Brien who later in his career became rather heavy. In this movie he looked somewhat like Franchot Tone. George Murphy also looks youthful and even does a bit of dancing although this is not a musical. Lucille Ball restrains herself in her comedy bits and mostly leaves the horseplay to Murphy (the Gob) and a fine cast of supporting players. So if you only like Lucy at her most outrageous you might be a little disappointed, but forget your disappointment because this is really a funny movie. The writing is good and the simple story line makes sense and the characters come through as believable. I attribute this to the involvement of Harold Lloyd who was really a comedy genius. I actually laughed out loud several times, something I don't often do for a Hollywood comedy. Try it, you might like it too.

Harold Lloyd the fabled comedian of the silent screen produced this comedy for RKO. Lloyd recognizing comic talent has Lucille Ball in the lead and her guy and gob in that order are Edmond O'Brien and George Murphy.

The day before she's to start a new job as the secretary of a big shipping firm, Ball and her family which consists of parents George Cleveland and Kathleen Howard and nimble fingered Lloyd Corrigan as her brother decide to go to the opera. They get into a row with Edmond O'Brien and his fiance Marguerite Chapman when they sit at his box at the Met.

The next day Ball reports for work and discovers her new boss is O'Brien and that sets off a row. But soon he rather likes the blue color girl. The problem is she has a blue collar guy in sailor George Murphy on leave from Uncle Sam's Navy and deciding whether he wants another hitch.

The comedy belongs to Ball and Murphy. O'Brien who is a rich but shy business executive serves as a foil primarily. Lloyd puts in a few nice touches including a great car chase that could have come from one of his silent screen classics.

Franklin Pangborn has a couple of scenes as a nervous pet shop owner whom they all seem to run into and put upon. Henry Travers is also featured as O'Brien's uncle and quite the matchmaker.

Curiously enough with one of the protagonists a sailor and the film coming out in March of 1941 not a word about current unpleasantness in the world that the Navy would be getting into before the year was out.

Films like these were putting Lucille Ball on the road to being the queen of comedy.