Ele, Ela e Eu

It's films like this that never guaranteed LUCILLE BALL would become a big star in her early Hollywood comedies. There's nothing subtle here in this film produced by Harold Lloyd and directed by Richard Wallace.

Lucille is the scatterbrained daughter in a family of zanies who meets EDMOND O'BRIEN in a mix-up over theater tickets. He's a casual, laid back executive, not very assertive (unlike his later roles), and when he needs a substitute secretary Lucy shows up for the job. It's a hectic film from then on.

GEORGE MURPHY is her brash sailor boyfriend, LLOYD CORRIGAN her brother, HENRY TRAVERS her father and the befuddled FRANKLIN PANGBORN is a pet shop owner.

It's a more subdued Lucy than usual with the others having most of the heavy mugging and pratfalls to do. MARGUERITE CHAPMAN is wasted as O'Brien's neglected girlfriend. Nice cast but they all have mediocre material to deal with.

Summing up: Passes the time pleasantly enough, but is nothing special.

Lucille Ball was much more restrained in this 1941 comedy with Edmond O'Brien and George Murphy.

O'Brien appears so young and dashing in this film. He plays an upper class businessman who meets and finds love with secretary Ball. Murphy plays her sailor boyfriend. To me, the biggest question in the film was who would Murphy wind up with?

The comedy here is tedious. O'Brien has a snobbish girlfriend with a high society mother to the bargain.

Ball comes from a real common family where the brother finds opera tickets that belong to O'Brien. By the next scene, Ball is going to apply for a job where O'Brien is the owner. How coincidental can we get?

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.

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.

Lucy, Murphy, and O'Brien make something out of this little B movie.