I Love Lucy in the Movies – Whimsically Classic

For this installment of “I Love Lucy in the Movies,” I’m covering Ladies in Retirement (1941) which I watched last night. This is a very good gothic film noir starring Ida Lupino. Also starring in this film was Elsa Lanchester as one of Lupino’s mentally ill sisters. Aside from this film, another thing Lupino and Lanchester have in common is that they both appeared in I Love Lucy. Lupino, to be accurate, actually played herself in an episode of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour. I’m counting it because The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour is more or less a one-hour episode of I Love Lucy.

In 1956, after six years and 180 30-minute episodes, Desilu president and I Love Lucy star, Desi Arnaz, was eager to leave the hectic pace of producing a new episode every week. He had tried to end the series a year prior with “Return Home From Europe” being the final episode, but CBS threw money at him and Lucy to convince them to stay on another year. The ending dialogue in “Return Home From Europe” sounds like it was written to be a series finale. To convince CBS to allow him to pull the plug on I Love Lucy, Desi convinced them to allow him to air I Love Lucy as a 60-minute special sporadically throughout the year. CBS agreed and The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour was born.

The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, while more or less an hour long episode of I Love Lucy, it did have the minor difference in that each episode featured a celebrity who has an unfortunate encounter with Lucy. Logically, it makes sense, as Ricky Ricardo’s celebrity and ownership of Club Babalu makes it logical that he’d either hire these celebrities at his club, or he’d met them previously because of his time in Hollywood.

Ida Lupino and Elsa Lanchester appeared together in 1941’s Ladies in Retirement. In this film, Lupino plays Ellen, the spinster sister of her two mentally ill sisters, Emily and Louisa. Lanchester played Emily. In the film, Ellen receives a letter from the boarding house in London where her sisters are living. The letter informs her that Emily and Louisa are being evicted from the home due to their behavior. Not wanting her sisters to be institutionalized, Ellen brings them to the home on the English moors where she works and lives. Ellen’s employer, Miss Fiske, graciously allows the two sisters to stay in her home, but quickly grows tired of their behavior. Eventually Miss Fiske gives Ellen the ultimatum that the sisters need to leave. Ellen tries to defend her sisters, but insults Miss Fiske in the process, and is fired. Later, taking matters into her own hands, Ellen strangles Miss Fiske to death. She makes it look as if Miss Fiske decided to take an extended trip. Ellen tells her sisters that she purchased the home for them. Eventually Miss Fiske’s absence and Ellen’s behavior arouses the suspicions of her nephew and the maid, Lucy.

Ida Lupino (center) and Elsa Lanchester (right) in “Ladies in Retirement”

The film never makes it clear what mental illness is that that the two sisters have, nor is there any indication that an event may have triggered or caused their mental illness. It is also unclear whether Emily and Louisa are actually mentally ill, or whether they are just eccentric. Elsa Lanchester excelled at playing these slightly off-kilter personalities.

Lanchester made her appearance on I Love Lucy first, playing “Mrs. Grundy” in a season 5 episode, “Off to Florida.” In the episode, Ricky is playing with his band at the Eden Roc Hotel in Miami, Florida. Ricky, Fred, and Little Ricky go ahead to get some fishing in before Ricky has to work. Lucy and Ethel plan to take the train and meet the men down there. However, Lucy has lost the train tickets. To save face, she decides that she and Ethel will answer a “Share a Ride” classified ad to split the travel costs with another traveler who is also headed from New York City to Miami. Mrs. Grundy answers the ad.

Vivian Vance, Lucille Ball, and Elsa Lanchester in “I Love Lucy.”

Lucy and Ethel find Mrs. Grundy’s behavior odd. She prefers to travel at night or early in the morning. She won’t stop for meals, preferring to subsist on watercress sandwiches instead. Later, Mrs. Grundy gets a flat tire and expects Lucy and Ethel to change it while she naps. While looking for tools, Lucy and Ethel find a hatchet in the trunk. Thanks to a convenient radio bulletin about gray-haired escaped hatchet murderess, Evelyn Holmby, Lucy and Ethel jump to the conclusion that this must be Mrs. Grundy. Her weird eccentricities all make sense for a woman on the lam. Later, Lucy and Ethel are asleep while Mrs. Grundy is at the wheel. She also hears a radio bulletin about Evelyn Holmby, except this bulletin has more information. Mrs. Holmby, despite being gray haired, is thought to have dyed her hair red, and is also thought to be traveling with a blond companion. Comedy ensues with Lucy and Ethel suspecting Mrs. Grundy and Mrs. Grundy suspecting them.

This is the funniest episode of the Florida trilogy, with much of the humor coming from Elsa Lanchester. Her sing-songy line delivery, and her delightful eccentricity makes the episode.

Flash forward 3 years to the 10th installment of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, “Lucy’s Summer Vacation.” There would be 13 total. Celebrity couple Ida Lupino and Howard Duff are the guest stars, playing themselves. In the episode, a mutual friend of Ricky’s and the Lupino/Duff’s double books his cabin on the lake–promising it to both of them. Both couples go to the cabin expecting a romantic week with their partner. However, when they all meet, Ricky and Howard hit it off over their mutual love of fishing and see it has an opportunity to fish, since their wives can talk to each other. The men end up spending the entire week fishing, with the women getting stuck cleaning the fish. Towards the end of the week, the women are desperate for some romantic time with their husbands and decide to sabotage the fishing expedition. The joke is on them however, when the husbands decide to throw their wives a bone and plan a romantic evening on the lake. Too bad Lucy and Ida have already sabotaged the boat.

From left to right: Ida Lupino, Desi Arnaz, Lucille Ball, and Howard Duff (hunched over) in “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.”

This episode has some funny moments. Lucy and Ida trying to discreetly plug the holes in the boat (that they put there earlier) with gum and their bodies while also trying to be romantic is pretty funny. There are some good lines. However, on a whole this isn’t one of the better hour long episodes, though it’s not the worst one (I’d give that one to the Milton Berle episode). Often in these hour long episodes, the Mertzes are kept on the sidelines during the celebrity scenes. If there’s a female celebrity, she’s often given the role that we would expect for Ethel. In this episode, Ida is definitely in the Ethel Mertz part. In the Betty Grable episode, Lucy even calls her “an Ethel Mertz with money.” The Mertzes are barely in “Lucy’s Summer Vacation.” I believe they only appear at the beginning to pick up Little Ricky to explain why he’s not in the rest of the episode.

By this point in the series, Lucy and Desi’s marriage was so strained, that they were barely speaking. The tension and stress in their marriage comes through in the last episodes of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, and it makes these episodes less enjoyable to watch. Each episode of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour is worth watching, but they are not the same as I Love Lucy. Lucy and Desi would divorce only a year after “Lucy’s Summer Vacation” aired. For what it’s worth, Ida Lupino and Howard Duff would divorce in 1984 after 33 years of marriage.

Today, October 15, 2026 marks the 75th anniversary my favorite show of all time–I Love Lucy. Aside from being my favorite show, and I’m sure a lot of people’s favorite show, I Love Lucy is also iconic and groundbreaking, establishing many of the sitcom production techniques still in use today. On Monday, October 15, 1951, the episode “The Girls Go into Business” aired at 9pm and introduced the nation to the exploits of the Ricardos and Mertzes. The episode, “Lucy Thinks Ricky is Trying to Murder Her” was filmed first, but was the fourth episode to air.

For the first episode, the I Love Lucy crew was still working out how they were going to film this show. While there were shows on television at the time of I Love Lucy’s debut in 1951, they were shot on kinescope. Kinescope was essentially the equivalent of someone filming something playing on their television and posting the video on You Tube. Suffice it to say the quality was terrible. CBS was also insistent that Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz relocate the production to New York City, for the kinescope–simply because more of the country’s population lived on that side of the country. CBS wanted most people to receive the live feed and then the populations living in other regions of the country would receive the kinescope recording.

Lucy and Desi did not want to move to New York, nor did they want their show looking like garbage to part of the population. Desi insisted that the show would be produced in Los Angeles and recorded on 35mm film–just like movies. CBS balked at the higher cost. As a compromise, Desi offered that he and Lucy would take a $1,000/week pay cut to make up the production difference. CBS agreed, thinking that this entire project was just a lark for Lucy and Desi. At the very least, Lucy and Desi figured that if the show failed, they’d have some fun recordings for their kids. Little did they know that 75 years later, their show would still be airing and still being talked about.

I discovered I Love Lucy in 1994 when I was 10. I came across it when flipping channels and I came across Nick at Nite. I was immediately hooked and I Love Lucy and the rest of the Nick at Nite lineup became must-see TV. I also credit I Love Lucy and Lucille Ball with getting me interested in classic film. While I’d seen some classic movies like The Wizard of Oz, thanks to the annual television screenings, I hadn’t see very many old films at all until I discovered I Love Lucy and Lucille Ball. My family used to go to the library about once a month and I was fortunate that my library had a large number of books about I Love Lucy and Lucy. I read every single one. From these books, I learned about Lucy’s film career. My library also just happened to have a large number of volumes from the Lucille Ball Signature Collection on VHS. I borrowed every single one.

From Lucy’s films, I discovered more favorite classic films and stars, such as Ginger Rogers and Katharine Hepburn (Stage Door), Ann Miller (Too Many Girls), and Henry Fonda (The Big Street). At the same time, TCM had just debuted, and we had the channel as part of our cable package. I used to scour the tv guide (not the periodical) that came in the Sunday paper, and look for any of Lucy’s films airing on TCM. I’d then set them up on the VCR to record. I’ve seen almost all her films. There are only a few I haven’t seen yet.

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Iwould like to segue into my new feature I’m going to introduce on my blog–I Love Lucy in the Movies. Lucille Ball loved to surround herself with people she knew and liked from working with them during her film career. As a result, I Love Lucy features not only some big guest stars, but also a lot of great performances by character actors. In my blog feature, I’d like to spotlight the actor I recognized from a classic film and discuss their appearance in an I Love Lucy episode.

For my first installment of I Love Lucy in the Movies, I’m discussing Sheldon Leonard’s appearance in Another Thin Man (1939) which I recently watched on TCM for Myrna Loy’s star of the month.

In Another Thin Man, Leonard plays Phil Church, an employee of a man named McFay, who is hosting Nick and Nora Charles at his estate. However, McFay has been receiving death threats from Church who has been in prison for 10 years after being used by McFay as the fall guy to take blame for some illegal business activities. Nick visits Church in jail to ask about the death threats. Church tells him about dreams he has about McFay’s murder. He’s had the same dream three times and warns Nick that typically his dream comes true after the third time. Sure enough, McFay turns up dead.

In I Love Lucy, Sheldon Leonard appears in the episode “Sales Resistance” as a door-to-door salesman for the Handy Dandy company. He uses various sales tactics to pressure Lucy into making a purchase, though she tries to resist. He appeals to her ego by telling her fake anecdotes about previous customers who were foolish enough to pass up the great products and deals he was offering. Eventually he convinces Lucy to purchase a new vacuum cleaner, a “deal” that results in her having to buy every component (e.g., vacuum, cord, case, hose, etc.) separately. For $1.50, Leonard’s character throws in “the Kitchen Helper,” the first device he tries selling Lucy. It’s supposed to help the busy housewife with chopping.

In both Another Thin Man and I Love Lucy, Leonard plays a sleazy character. His distinctive New York accent and appearance lent themselves well to the world of unsavory characters. He would later go on to become a prolific producer at Desilu, home of I Love Lucy. Three of Leonard’s biggest shows were The Danny Thomas Show, The Andy Griffith Show, and The Dick Van Dyke Show.