Miss Grain de sel

A small comedy with a nicely paced story about a bookie played by William Holden who tries to hide his operation behind the front of a real estate office that he opens in a medium sized town. He hires a secretary played by Lucille Ball who can't even type. To his consternation, she attracts interested first-time home buyers, WW2 vets and their wives and children. It almost has, at times, the feeling of George Bailey in Capra's IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, building homes for the emerging middle class. Taking us out to the construction site, Lucy is nearly crushed under tons of earth in a rather incredible scene, while Holden and his associates (who are given many funny lines) are reluctantly led by the positive goodness of the buyers into being pioneers in real estate development and early suburban sprawl.

I've always thought William Holden was an underrated comic actor and at his most charming in some of his comedies (Sabrina, Born Yesterday, Moon is Blue). Since he didn't make a lot of comedies, I was looking forward to this one with Lucille Ball. But it's not Holden's film. It's Lucy's film, with Holden playing the straight man. I'm not a big Lucy fan, but she's quite funny in this. Holden, on the other hand, seems a little stiff or disinterested. To be honest, there's not much to work with. Lucy probably succeeds because she's very good at physical comedy and can make us laugh without saying anything, which helps when the script is so weak. Holden's humor tends to come from his intelligence and his timing, which is harder to make work when the screenplay is mediocre or you don't want to be in the film to begin with. Miss Grant Takes Richmond came out the year before Sunset Blvd., so I imagine that Holden's frustration with his roles during much of the 1940s was reaching its peak around this time. But James Gleason and Frank McHugh, two wonderful actors, also seem to struggle a bit in this film, so I pin much of the blame on the writing. There are some funny bits here and there, but it's all a little sugary for me. Lucy fans will probably enjoy it, though - she does the best.

Ellen Grant (Lucille Ball) is the worst typist in class. Everyone is surprised when Dick Richmond (William Holden) hires her for his new secretary. He's actually a bookie running a horse race gambling operation out back and a fake property rental business front. He needs a dumb blonde as the face of his fake business but she starts making the fake operation real.

Lucy is showing off some of her physical humor which would come in handy later on her TV show. She does need to be much dumber. The comedy would work better if she's a complete moron. Ellen should be absolutely a young innocent. One can absolutely see the TV Lucy especially when she turns fake thug. The plot is a bit convoluted but a screwball comedy can do that. This is a great progression into one of the great TV shows of all times.

This is a not so funny comedy that does at least provide a few laughs, mostly because it's a set-up for some shenanigans that are reminders of what would happen when LUCILLE BALL left films for television to become America's number one comedienne with I LOVE LUCY.

There are more than a few hints of her deft handling of physical comedy and there's a nice chemistry between Lucy and her handsome boss, WILLIAM HOLDEN. Then too, there's the additional advantage of having JAMES GLEASON and FRANK McHUGH as supporting actors for a thin story about a daffy secretary who is slow in catching on to the fact that the real estate office she works for is really a front for bookies.

MISS GRANT TAKES RICHMOND has all the appearance of a low-budget programmer and it's surprising to find WILLIAM HOLDEN still drifting around in this sort of weak material when he had so many golden opportunities just ahead of him. Still, he's not bad and shows a definite flair for handling light romantic comedy. But there's no doubt about it, this is a vehicle designed to promote the comic flair of his co-star, soon to become famous as a scatterbrained housewife.

The thin script plays more like a half-hour TV comedy padded to the running time of a feature film. The funniest bits are the slapstick elements, particularly Lucy avoiding a building crane that seems intent on burying her in a pile of dirt and mud. But the stronger laughs are few and far between when the script is as painfully weak as this one.

Strictly for Lucy's most ardent fans.

This is the only big-screen movie I have seen in which the Lucille Ball of "I Love Lucy" was clearly apparent. The movie was released only a few years before the TV series started. The TV series: Of course I love it. The movie: It's nicely done but warmed-over from numerous earlier films.

Ball is hired by bookie William Holden from a secretarial school. What's odd about that? Only this: She is far and away, and very obviously, the worst student there. She makes a mess of typing, gets tangled in the typewriter ribbon, etc., Just like Lucy. A little like Charlie Chaplin.

And she uses that high, bleating voice we came to know and love in her television show. She'd made comedies before this but she was always kind of tough, the way she came across in most of her more serious outings too.

This has a fine supporting cast. Seeing James Gleason is always a pleasure. Ditto Frank McHugh, looking a little prosperous here but playing his usual sort of role. And Janis Carter is hilariously mean as Holden's onetime romantic interest.

Holden holds up his part of the movie but seems distracted. He was fine in "Golden Boy" but didn't come into his own until "Sunset Boulevard," also a few years later.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with "Miss Grant Takes Richmond." Maybe it's good, too, that if one dozes off for a bit, one will be right there and know exactly what's going on. It's familiar stuff, nicely handled.