Son ange gardien

Saw this today and enjoyed it very much. Lucy and Desi of course are great and here seemed more like real people and less like stereotyped caricatures. Though made in the Fifties, much of the relationship philosophy here seemed sound and to still ring true today. One need only to look at I Love Lucy to see that limited options for wives were a widely accepted norm at that time, but this film tires to question and break out of that. When Susan is told that she and her husband have been traveling two separate paths for a long time, she asks something along the lines of, "Does the woman always have to follow her husband's path?" Her angel laughs and says "Of course not!" but gives good reasons why that's what she needs to do at this point. The well-intentioned but scary Fifties attitude toward the environment was uncomfortable but the marriage advice seemed good. The Long, Long Trailer may have had more laughs but this was more satisfying. And anything that ends in Yosemite is a plus.

This is a perfect example of how two great stars can make a bad film as a result of a very bad script. I love Lucy and Desi like everybody else, but getting through this movie is sheer torture. The fact that this movie has less than 50 votes indicates I'm not alone on this.

"Forever, Darling" is a 1956 comedy-romance with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, It's also a nice story about how things change in the first years of marriage. And, how people can salvage the love they have to make it last a lifetime. Lucy is visited by her guardian angel who tells her that her marriage is on the skids. Unless she does something to save it, they will wind up following the paths of others whom the couple know who no longer have any romance. Lucy plays Susan Vega and Desi is Lorenzo "Larry" Vega who is a scientist-researcher. James Mason plays Susan's guardian angel.

Those who might expect some zany antics that Ball made her signature trade in her long-running TV sitcoms may be disappointed. The star kept that zaniness for her TV shows. Her films mostly have a nice blend of witty dialog, some crazy antics and other comedic situations; This film also has a dramatic element concerning marriages. Ball and Arnaz ended their marriage four years after this film. That' also when The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour on TV ended. The two had been together on that and the initial sitcom, I Love Lucy. Two years later, Lucy began her third TV series, The Lucy Show, which ran for seven seasons.

This won't have one rolling with laughter, but it will bring some chuckles. It's a nice comedy romance, in which we get to see Lucy mostly outside her trademark Lucy role. The zaniness takes over toward the very end. Susan decides to go with Larry on a field trip – a real field trip, camping out, to test a mosquito insecticide that he had been developing for five years.

Here are a couple samples of funny dialog. The first night out, Larry turns off the lantern in the tent. Susan, "This is some of the darkest dark I've ever seen. Larry, if you put the lantern on again, I think I'll sleep better." Larry, "Look, Susan, it's dark in our bedroom at home and you sleep all right there." Susan, "Well, there's a streetlight outside our bedroom at home. Boy, when it gets dark in a tent, it doesn't mess around."

In the morning they get into a raft on a lagoon. Susan has to row while Larry checks the water for mosquito larvae. Larry is impatient with Susan's rowing and she replies, "Us galley slaves don't row very well unless we're whipped." Later, after several mishaps, Larry begins chewing her out, in his native Cuban language. Susan, "If you're gonna bawl me out, bawl me out in English." He switches to English, and she says, "Never mind, go back to Spanish."

First of all, I am a big I Love Lucy fan. I own this movie as part of the three movie DVD set (Forever Darling; Long Long Trailer; Too Many Girls). This is the least enjoyable of the three.

Even being a big Lucy/Desi fan, I didn't find much to enjoy about this movie. Even the funny scenes weren't funny. This is a pretty boring movie. It's kind of like a long, unfunny I Love Lucy episode in color. And when the two main characters fight, you can't help but think of how Lucy and Desi fought in real life.

I will say that the camping scenes looked so beautiful that it made me want to take my husband up on his standing offer to go camping together.

I haven't been a big fan of The Long, Long Trailer. It has some funny bits, but there's a lot of yelling at the end, it goes from funny to yelling, and that whole thing about her collecting big rocks! Forever Darling actually begins as a fairly witty and sharp film--it had been written for someone else--and Desi gets to play someone different. James Mason is a good sport--playing a guardian angel, doing a parody of himself (maybe in Botany Bay) in a parody of Mogambo film-within-the film. He's not really adept at situation comedy, although he did well in a few comedic films like Touch of Larceny. The film switches gears at the end, with a lot of slapstick yelling in a swamp. And the reason they took an old script was to quickly capitalize on the success of Trailer. Its failure ended their joint film career. But it's faster-paced than Trailer and it's a reasonable time-passer.