Accidenti che ragazza!

Once and a while you're lucky enough to see a film for the very first time that you never heard of before that you simply end up loving. Such is "The Fuller Brush Girl". Costarring Lucille Ball and Eddie Albert, this is one very funny film. It was written by the late/great Frank Tashlin and plays out like a live action cartoon. And no wonder. Tashlin is one of the all-time greats in the field of animated cartoons. While not as prolific as Tex Avery, his cartoons are among some of the best ever made. It was once said that Frank Tashlin directed cartoons like films and made films like cartoons. "The Fuller Brush Girl" is a perfect example. While directed by Lloyd Bacon, the real soul of the movie is Tashlin, who basically comes up with inventive gag after great inventive gag. And all of them are worked out in live action to perfection. Tex Avery once said that it was funnier if something was done in live action. And he was right! Had this been an actual cartoon, it wouldn't have been as satisfying. Ball is her usual hilarious self and Albert is at his best here as her fiancé'. So if you think you've seen every 1940s-50s comedy worth seeing and have yet to see "The Fuller Brush Girl" , then you really have something to look forward to! As they say, don't miss it! Enjoy!

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.

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.

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.

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".