Lucille BallFilmography

Intimate Portrait: Lucille Ball

Lucy's Lost Episodes

Synopsis: In addition to highlighting some of Lucille Ball's funniest TV moments, Lucy's Lost Episodes includes various commercial endorsements and appearances, as well as providing information on her contribution to charities. The actress herself was very much involved with making a difference in the lives Read More

Army-Navy Screen Magazine

Synopsis: The original Army Navy "screen magazine" was a news and information film that was shown before the main feature in military movie theaters during World War II. These presentations consisted of human-interest stories from the home front, news about combat events, updates on defense-related Read More

The Best of the Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts

Actors: Dean Martin

Judy Garland's Hollywood

Synopsis: Though many fans will always fondly recall Judy Garland's wonderful portrayal of young Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Garland herself was apparently most proud of the role she played in A Star Is Born. In this film, which opened in 1954, Garland portrayed an actress who sees her career blossom as Read More

Lucy and Desi: A Home Movie

Synopsis: Lucy Arnaz, daughter of comedy duo Desi and Lucie Arnaz, hosts this intimate retrospective of her legendary parents' lives. Featuring never-before-seen color family movies, as well as a variety of interviews with family, friends, and business associates, this documentary sheds a sometimes painful Read More

Babalu Music! I Love Lucy's Greatest Hits

Synopsis: Here's a slew of songs taken from the popular I Love Lucy series. Included here are: "Babalu Rap" (Produced by "Weird" Al Yankovic), and Lucy's theme song, the "Friendship" duet, "Cuban Pete," "Straw Hat Song," "Cheek to Cheek," "Babalu," "California Here I Come," "We're Having a Baby." ~ All Read More

Wisecracks

Actors: Phyllis Diller, Whoopi Goldberg, Sandra Shamas, Jenny Lecoat

Synopsis: This concert and interview documentary features the racy wit of Canada and the U.S.'s most popular female comedians, including Jenny Jones, Whoopi Goldberg, Phyllis Diller, Ellen DeGeneres, and Paula Poundstone. In addition to screening their stand-up gigs and providing interviews with these funny Read More

Lucy, Queen of Comedy

Synopsis: Lucille Ball is honored in this program which features many of her television and film appearances. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

A Tribute to Lucy

Entertaining the Troops: American Entertainers in World War II

Synopsis: Entertainment history. Uses film clips and contemporary interviews to show what Hollywood did during World War II in raising money for the war and entertaining the troops. Shows entertainer Bob Hope and his performing troupe today. Other entertainers include Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour, The Andrews Sisters Read More

Smoke That Cigarette

Synopsis: This program includes a parade of jingles and authentic advertisements for cigarettes - all from the carefree days when smoking still seemed to be fun and glamorous (before sobering medical information made abstaining from smoking both a prudent lifestyle choice and an inflammatory social cause). Read More

Stone Pillow

Actors: Lucille Ball, Daphne Zuniga

Synopsis: The ads for The Stone Pillow tended to suggest that this TV movie was Lucille Ball's dramatic debut--completely ignoring the fact that Ball had started out as a "straight" actress in the 1930s who only occasionally played comedy until I Love Lucy came along. Whatever the case, the Ball we see in Read More

Celebrity Commercials and Bloopers

Synopsis: This entertaining vintage video offers up some very funny classic commercials from TV and movie personalities. Watch for "Kukla, Fran and Ollie" and "You Bet Your Life." ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Lucy Calls the President

Actors: Lucille Ball, Vivian Vance, Gale Gordon, Ed McMahon

Mame

Actors: George Chiang, Lucille Ball, Robert Preston, Bea Arthur, Kirby Furlong, Bruce Davison

Synopsis: Lucille Ball stars in this film version of the hit Jerry Herman Broadway musical, which featured an electrifying performance by Angela Lansbury. As Patrick Dennis' plucky and resilient Auntie Mame, Ball's low-pitched, growling moan of a voice (a spine-chilling reminder of the sound of Linda Read More

Lucky Luciano

Actors: Gian Maria Volontè, Rod Steiger, Charles Siragusa, Edmond O'Brien, Vincent Gardenia

Synopsis: Director Francesco Rosi returns to his recurring theme of the connections between legal and illegal exercises of power in this sensationalized account of the infamous gangster Charles "Lucky" Luciano (Gian Maria Volonte). The film examines the life of Luciano after serving nine years of his Read More

Here's Lucy: Season 06

Actors: Lucille Ball

Here's Lucy: Season 05

Actors: Lucille Ball

Here's Lucy: Season 04

Actors: Lucille Ball

Here's Lucy: Season 03

Actors: Lucille Ball

Here's Lucy: Season 02

Actors: Lucille Ball

Yours, Mine and Ours

Actors: Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda, Van Johnson, Tom Bosley, Louise Troy

Synopsis: This story is taken from the real-life marriage of two people in the early 1960s. Helen North (Lucille Ball) is a widow with eight children who falls in love with Naval officer Frank Beardsley (Henry Fonda), a widower with ten children of his own. The two marry as comedy ensues from the sheer Read More

Here's Lucy [TV Series]

Actors: Lucille Ball

Here's Lucy: Season 01

Actors: Lucille Ball

Critic's Choice

Actors: Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Marilyn Maxwell, Rip Torn, Jesse Royce Landis

Synopsis: Ira Levin wrote the stage comedy Critic's Choice as a good-natured retort to a comment made by critic Walter Kerr. In his essay How Not to Write a Play, Kerr noted that the worst possible scenario would involve a drama critic forced to review a play written by his wife (we should mention that Read More

Hedda Hopper's Hollywood

Synopsis: Originally aired as an NBC special on Sunday, January 10, 1960, this program went head-to-head with the hit Ed Sullivan Show and had the star power to garner decent ratings. This video features gossip columnist Hedda Hopper interviewing some of the top entertainers of the day. Highlights include Read More

The Facts of Life

Actors: Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Ruth Hussey, Don DeFore, Louis Nye

Synopsis: Unlike the typical Bob Hope and Lucille Ball vehicles, The Facts of Life is essentially a domestic drama with comic undertones. Hope is married to Ruth Hussey, while Ball is the wife of Don DeFore. All four are old friends, who for many years have taken each other for granted. A series of Read More

The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show [TV Series]

Actors: Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, William Frawley

I Love Lucy: Season 06

Actors: Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, William Frawley, Richard Keith

Synopsis: Several changes occurred in the I Love Lucy format during the series' sixth and final season on the air. For one thing, little Richard Keith, a talented six-year-old drummer, was cast in the role of Little Ricky, the son of Cuban bandleader Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz) and his wacky wife Lucy (Lucille Ball Read More

Forever Darling

Actors: Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, James Mason, Louis Calhern, John Emery

Synopsis: When Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz beat the odds against TV stars succeeding on the big screen in The Long, Long Trailer (1954), MGM contracted America's favorite couple for a second theatrical feature. Forever Darling casts Desi as Lorenzo Xavier Vega, a brilliant scientist and Lucy as Susan, his Read More

I Love Lucy: Season 05

Actors: Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, William Frawley

Synopsis: I Love Lucy boasted a new sponsor (General Foods, taking over from Philip Morris Cigarettes), a new director, and new addition to its writing staff for its fifth season on the air. Otherwise, it's the same old zany redhead Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball) making life hilariously chaotic for her Cuban Read More

I Love Lucy: Season 04

Actors: Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, William Frawley

Synopsis: Even though I Love Lucy was still America's top-rated series as it entered its fourth season, the producers -- including Desi Arnaz, who also starred as Cuban bandleader Ricky Ricardo -- decided it was time to freshen up the format a bit with a change of scenery. Thus, Ricky, his zany wife Lucy (Lucille Ball Read More

The Long, Long Trailer

Actors: Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Marjorie Main, Keenan Wynn, Gladys Hurlbut

Synopsis: At the height of their TV fame, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were contracted by MGM to make two theatrical films. The first of these, The Long, Long Trailer, stars Lucy and Desi as an upwardly mobile couple who decide to buy a trailer so they can live together while his job takes him around the Read More

I Love Lucy: Season 03

Actors: Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, William Frawley

Synopsis: Though it was hard to top the "pregnancy" throughline that permeated the second season of I Love Lucy, the series maintained its ranking as America's favorite TV program throughout its third year on the air. Back for more fun and laughter were Lucille Ball as wacky housewife Lucy Ricardo, Desi Arnaz Read More

I Love Lucy: New Neighbors

Actors: Allen Jenkins, Hayden Rorke, K.T. Stevens

Synopsis: Dying of curiosity, Lucy (Lucille Ball) and Ethel (Vivian Vance) are determined to get a glimpse of their somewhat secretive new neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. O'Brien (Hayden Rorke, K.T. Stevens). Unbeknownst to the girls, the O'Briens are professional actors, currently rehearsing a play in which they Read More

I Love Lucy: Season 02

Actors: Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, William Frawley

Synopsis: America's third most popular TV show during its first season, I Love Lucy skyrocketed to number one during Season Two -- no small thanks to the fact that the real-life pregnancy of Lucille Ball was brilliantly written into the script (though such was TV censorship at the time that the would Read More

I Love Lucy: Season 01

Actors: Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, William Frawley

Synopsis: By the time the first 35 episodes of I Love Lucy had been shown on CBS' Monday night lineup, virtually everybody in America loved zany redhead Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball), her Cuban bandleader husband Ricky (Desi Arnaz) and their landlords and best friends, Fred and Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance, William Frawley Read More

I Love Lucy [TV Series]

Synopsis: Arguably the most popular TV situation comedy in the known world (and possibly a few worlds beyond that!), I Love Lucy has never stopped playing in rerun form since it originally aired over CBS from October 15, 1951, through June 24, 1957. It can be said without much fear of contradiction that Read More

The Magic Carpet

Actors: Lucille Ball, John Agar, Patricia Medina, George Tobias, Raymond Burr

Synopsis: Hoping to force Lucille Ball into breaking her contract, Columbia Pictures chieftain Harry Cohn assigned her to the low-budget Arabian Nights escapade The Magic Carpet. Much to Cohn's amazement, the plucky Ball agreed to appear in the film, forcing Columbia to pay her salary until her option ran Read More

Fancy Pants

Actors: Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Bruce Cabot, Jack Kirkwood, Lea Penman, Eric Blore

Synopsis: Fancy Pants is a musicalized remake of the oft-filmed Harry Leon Wilson story Ruggles of Red Gap, tailored to the talents of "Mr. Robert Hope (formerly Bob)". The basic plotline of the original, that of an English butler entering the service of a rowdy nouveau-riche family from the American West Read More

The Fuller Brush Girl

Actors: Lucille Ball, Eddie Albert, Carl Benton Reid, Gale Robbins, Jeff Donnell

Synopsis: Hot on the heels of such Red Skelton slapstick comedies as The Fuller Brush Man and The Yellow Cab Man came The Fuller Brush Girl, starring Lucille Ball in a fascinating dry run for her wacky "Lucy Ricardo" TV character. Unable to hold a job because of her tendency to get into trouble, Sally Read More

Easy Living

Actors: Victor Mature, Lizabeth Scott, Lucille Ball, Sonny Tufts, Lloyd Nolan

Synopsis: No relation to the 1937 screwball comedy of the same name, Easy Living is a film about the world of professional sports. Victor Mature plays Pete Wilson, star halfback of the New York Chiefs. Well past his prime, Wilson would like to retire to a coaching job, but his rival Tim McCarr (Sonny Tufts) Read More

Miss Grant Takes Richmond

Actors: Lucille Ball, William Holden, Janis Carter, James Gleason, Gloria Henry

Synopsis: Lucille Ball is Miss Grant, an efficient but naïve secretary hired by William Holden. Ostensibly a legit real estate salesman, Holden is actually the brains of a bookie ring. It takes forever for Ball to tumble to what's going on, but when she does she settles matters in the same fashion as her Read More

Sorrowful Jones

Actors: Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, William Demarest, Mary Jane Saunders, Bruce Cabot, Thomas Gomez

Synopsis: This second of four film adaptations of Damon Runyon's Little Miss Marker is tailored to the talents of Bob Hope. A shifty Broadway bookie, Sorrowful Jones (Hope) becomes a reluctant foster parent when an anxious gambler leaves behind his little girl Martha Jane (Mary Jane Saunders) as a "marker," Read More

Lured

Actors: George Sanders, Lucille Ball, Charles Coburn, Alan Mowbray, Cedric Hardwicke

Synopsis: Lucille Ball is an American taxi-dancer living in London whose roommate has disappeared. The missing girl had left to answer a job offer in the "personal" column of the Times...just like several other women who've vanished without a trace. Scotland Yard detective George Zucco suggests that Ball Read More

Her Husband's Affairs

Actors: Lucille Ball, Nana Bryant, Franchot Tone, Edward Everett Horton, Mikhail Rasumny, Gene Lockhart, Jonathan Hale

Synopsis: Lucille Ball offers a seminal version of her Lucy Ricardo TV character in Her Husband's Affairs. Ball is cast as Margaret Weldon, the wife of advertising executive William Weldon (Franchot Tone). Though Weldon is successful, Margaret can't help but feel that he'd be more successful if she were to Read More

Two Smart People

Actors: Lucille Ball, John Hodiak, Lloyd Nolan, Hugo Haas, Lenore Ulric

Synopsis: One of two con-artists ends up arrested and given five days of freedom before he must go to jail. This comedy chronicles those five days. The man loves to eat; knowing that prison food is lousy, he decides to spend his days stuffing himself with the finest foods available. He is accompanied to Read More

Easy to Wed

Actors: Van Johnson, Esther Williams, Lucille Ball, Keenan Wynn, Cecil Kellaway

Synopsis: This Technicolor musical remake of the 1936 comedy classic Libeled Lady isn't quite up to the standards of the original, but on its own terms is quite entertaining. Van Johnson, Esther Williams, Lucille Ball and Keenan Wynn expertly assume the roles originally played by William Powell, Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow Read More

The Dark Corner

Actors: Lucille Ball, Clifton Webb, Mark Stevens, William Bendix, Cathy Downs

Synopsis: This grade-A example of "film noir" stars Mark Stevens as Brad Galt, an embittered ex-convict who returns to the private detective business upon his release. Sour and surly, Galt behaves himself only when he's around his faithful and adoring secretary Kathleen (top-billed Lucille Ball). When Read More

Lover Come Back

Actors: George Brent, Lucille Ball, Vera Zorina, Charles Winninger, Carl Esmond

Synopsis: Lucille Ball stars as the wife of a war correspondent, anxiously awaiting her husband's return. Ball is convinced that hubby (George Brent) is looking forward to feminine companionship after four long years at the front. Imagine her surprise when it looks as though her husband wasn't quite as Read More

Ziegfeld Follies

Actors: Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, Lucille Bremer, Fanny Brice, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly

Synopsis: The presence of William Powell as legendary showman Flo Ziegfeld at the beginning of Ziegfeld Follies might lead an impressionable viewer from thinking that this 1946 film is a Technicolor sequel to the 1936 Oscar-winning The Great Ziegfeld. Not so: this is more in the line of an all-star revue Read More

Without Love

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Keenan Wynn, Gloria Grahame, Patricia Morison, Carl Esmond, Lucille Ball

Synopsis: In their third film together, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn created one of the box-office sensations of 1945, a sparklingly witty wartime comedy about a marriage entered on the theory that love only gums up a relationship. Invited by a drunken Quintin Ladd (Keenan Wynn), devoted scientist Read More

Meet the People

Actors: Lucille Ball, Dick Powell, Virginia O'Brien, Bert Lahr, Rags Ragland

Synopsis: MGM's musical extravaganza Meet the People top-bills two future powerful TV executives: Dick Powell and Lucille Ball. Ball plays a popular but stuck-up Broadway star who leaves the bright lights to become a welder in a shipyard. Here she meets and falls in love with coworker Powell. This being a Read More

Best Foot Forward

Actors: Lucille Ball, Tommy Dix, William Gaxton, Virginia Weidler, Nancy Walker, June Allyson, Gloria de Haven

Synopsis: Five original cast members of the hit Broadway musical Best Foot Forward appear in this Technicolor MGM screen adaptation. Set at a small town military prep school, the story gets under way when movie star Lucille Ball (played by movie star Lucille Ball) pays a visit to the campus for publicity Read More

Du Barry Was a Lady

Actors: Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Gene Kelly, Virginia O'Brien, Zero Mostel, Rags Ragland

Synopsis: The racy, ribald Cole Porter musical Du Barry Was a Lady is here given a thorough dry-cleaning by prudish MGM. Richard "Red" Skelton takes over the role of Louis Blore (played on Broadway by Bert Lahr), while Lucille Ball steps into the shoes of the original play's Ethel Merman. The story proposes Read More

Valley of the Sun

Actors: Lucille Ball, James Craig, Cedric Hardwicke, Dean Jagger, Peter Whitney

Synopsis: Though officially based on a Saturday Evening Post story by Clarence Buddington Kelland, RKO Radio's Valley of the Sun was obviously inspired by the blockbuster comedy western Destry Rides Again (indeed, both films were directed by George Marshall). James Craig stars as Indian scout Jonathan Read More

Seven Days Leave

Actors: Victor Mature, Lucille Ball, Harold Peary, Mapy Cortes, Ginny Simms

Synopsis: Victor Mature and Lucille Ball top the star-studded cast of RKO Radio's Seven Days Leave. Mature plays Johnny Grey, an eternally smiling GI who suddenly falls heir to $100,000. There's just one catch: Johnny must marry heiress Terry (Ball), whom he's never met, within a seven-day period. Once this Read More

The Big Street

Actors: Henry Fonda, Lucille Ball, Agnes Moorehead, Barton MacLane, Eugene Pallette

Synopsis: Lucille Ball delivers the finest dramatic performance of her career in this satisfying adaptation of Damon Runyon's The Big Street. Ball is cast as Gloria, aka "Your Highness," the vain and thoroughly selfish star attraction of gangster Case Ables' (Barton MacLaine) New York nightclub. Henry Fonda Read More

A Girl, a Guy and A Gob

Actors: George Murphy, Edmond O'Brien, Henry Travers, Franklin Pangborn

Synopsis: The girl is stenographer Dot Duncan (Lucille Ball); the guy is her boss, stuffy young shipping magnate Stephen Herrick (Edmond O'Brien); and the gob is a brash sailor known as Coffee Cup (George Murphy). Not surprisingly, the plot involves the efforts by the self-effacing Stephen and the Read More

Look Who's Laughing

Actors: Edgar Bergen, Dummy: Charlie McCarthy, Jim Jordan, Marian Jordan, Lucille Ball

Synopsis: Several popular radio personalities converge in the RKO Radio "comedy salad" Look Who's Laughing. Taking a vacation from his radio series, ventriloquist Edgar Bergen sets out in his private plane, accompanied by his dummy Charlie McCarthy. Developing engine trouble, Bergen makes a forced landing Read More

Too Many Girls

Actors: Lucille Ball, Ann Miller, Eddie Bracken, Frances Langford, Desi Arnaz

Synopsis: Now immortalized as the film on which Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz met, Too Many Girls is a faithful adaptation of the Richard Rodgers-Lorenz Hart-George Abbott Broadway musical hit. The light-as-a-feather plotline finds four football players hired to escort dizzy heiress Connie Casey (Lucille Read More

The Marines Fly High

Actors: Richard Dix, Chester Morris, Lucille Ball, Steffi Duna, John Eldredge

Synopsis: Set in the Central American jungle, Lucille Ball plays plantation owner Joan Grant in The Marines Fly High. When a platoon of US Marines need a safe place to stay, Joan (Ball) allows them inside of her home, oblivious to the fact that two of the Marines would later compete for her affections. All Read More

You Can't Fool Your Wife

Actors: Lucille Ball, James Ellison, Robert Coote, Virginia Vale, Emma Dunn

Synopsis: In the RKO programmer You Can't Fool Your Wife, Lucille Ball gets mixed up in a storyline that would have been right at home on her future TV series I Love Lucy. Feeling neglected by her husband Andrew (James Ellison), drab housewife Clara Hinklin (Ball) walks out on him, much to the delight of Read More

Dance, Girl, Dance

Actors: Maureen O'Hara, Louis Hayward, Lucille Ball, Ralph Bellamy, Virginia Field

Synopsis: Based on a story by Vicki Baum (of Grand Hotel) fame, Dance, Girl Dance finds innocent young Judy (Maureen O'Hara) journeying to the Big Apple in hopes of gaining fame as a classical dancer. Instead she ends up as the "stooge" for raucous strip-tease artist Bubbles (Lucille Ball), who attempts to Read More

Panama Lady

Actors: Allan Lane, Lucille Ball, Steffi Duna, Evelyn Brent, Donald Briggs

Synopsis: Panama Lady is a cleaned-up remake of the 1932 Helen Twelvetrees vehicle Panama Flo. Lucille Ball essays the old Twelvetrees role as Lucy, a nightclub "hostess" stranded in Panama by her ex-lover Roy (Donald Briggs). Victimized by a shakedown orchestrated by Roy, oil rigger McTeague (Allan Lane) Read More

Twelve Crowded Hours

Actors: Richard Dix, Lucille Ball, Donald MacBride, Cy Kendall

Synopsis: Another worthwhile entry from the RKO Radio B-picture division, 12 Crowded Hours stars stalwart Richard Dix as crime-busting reporter Nick Green, who within the course of a single night (hence the title) topples a gangland empire. Hoping to gather enough evidence to send numbers racketeer Costain Read More

Five Came Back

Actors: Chester Morris, Lucille Ball, Wendy Barrie, John Carradine, Allen Jenkins

Synopsis: Often cited as a "model" B picture, Five Came Back is set in motion when the twelve-seat passenger plane "Southern Star" crashes into a treacherous South American jungle. With a hostile tribe of headhunters drawing ever closer, pilots Bill (Chester Morris) and Joe (Kent Taylor) race against time Read More

Beauty for the Asking

Actors: Lucille Ball, Patric Knowles, Donald Woods, Frieda Inescort, Inez Courtney

Synopsis: According to RKO Radio's publicity folks, Beauty for the Asking was supposed to have been an expose of the lucrative beauty-parlor "racket". What emerged on screen, however, was a pedestrian romantic triangle involving socialite Denny Williams (Patric Knowles), his wealthy wife Flora (Frieda Inescort Read More

That's Right - You're Wrong

Actors: Adolphe Menjou, May Robson, Lucille Ball, Dennis O'Keefe

Synopsis: Lucille Ball plays young starlet Sandra Sand in That's Right -- You're Wrong, the 1939 musical comedy directed by David Butler. Led by musician Kay (Kay Kyser), a popular band sets off for Hollywood in hopes of making their debut on the big screen. A series of misadventures follow, including a Read More

Joy of Living

Actors: Irene Dunne, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Alice Brady, Guy Kibbee, Jean Dixon

Synopsis: Given the talent involved, The Joy of Living should have been far better than it is. Irene Dunne plays Maggie, a popular musical-comedy star saddled with a possessive, spendthrift family. Maggie would like to leave the house once in a while and experience "real life," but her parents (Alice Brady, Guy Kibbee Read More

Room Service

Actors: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Lucille Ball, Ann Miller

Synopsis: Having paid $255,500 for the rights to John Murray and Allen Boretz' Broadway hit Room Service, RKO Radio then scouted about for a "perfect" cast. Thanks to the persistence of show-biz agent Zeppo Marx, RKO was able to secure the services of Zeppo's brothers Groucho, Harpo and Chico Marx for Read More

Having Wonderful Time

Actors: Ginger Rogers, Peggy Conklin, Lucille Ball, Lee Bowman

Synopsis: Based upon Arthur Kober's play (which was subsequently musicalized onstage as Wish You Were Here, Having Wonderful Time stars Ginger Rogers as Teddy Shaw, a typist who goes to a summer camp for a little rest and relaxation. She's also getting away from Emil (Jack Carson), whose interest in Teddy Read More

The Affairs of Annabel

Actors: Jack Oakie, Lucille Ball, Ruth Donnelly, Bradley Page, Fritz Feld

Synopsis: Lucille Ball landed her first starring comedy role in the mile-a-minute farce The Affairs of Annabel. Lucy of course plays the title character, a screwball movie actress who indulges in one wacky publicity stunt after another at the behest of her press agent Morgan (Jack Oakie). To promote an Read More

Next Time I Marry

Actors: Lucille Ball, James Ellison, Lee Bowman, Granville Bates, Mantan Moreland

Synopsis: The Next Time I Marry stars actress Lucille Ball as an heiress who can only receive her 20 million dollar inheritance by marrying an American citizen. In love with a handsome foreigner, the young heiress marries the first man she comes across--a ditch-digger (James Ellison) whom she intends to Read More

Annabel Takes a Tour

Actors: Lucille Ball, Jack Oakie, Pepito, Ruth Donnelly, Bradley Page, Ralph Forbes

Synopsis: Zany actress Annabel goes on a promotional tour in this lively comedy, the second in the Annabel series. During her tour, she allows her promoter to "leak" a story that she is having a romantic fling with a famous romance novelist. The ploy is successful, until she really does fall in love with Read More

Go Chase Yourself

Actors: Joe Penner, Lucille Ball, Jack Carson, June Travis, Richard Lane, Fritz Feld

Synopsis: When mild-mannered bank clerk Wilbur Meely (Joe Penner) finds himself stuck in a speeding trailer after a bank robbery gone wrong, he doesn't think the situation could get much worse than it already is. Unbeknownst to him, however, both the police department and his domineering wife Carol (Lucille Read More

Don't Tell the Wife

Actors: Guy Kibbee, Una Merkel, Lynne Overman, Thurston Hall, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams

Synopsis: Guy Kibbee, moviedom's archetypal small-town bigshot, stars in RKO Radio's Don't Tell the Wife. On this occasion, Kibbee, playing Malcolm Winthrop, has greatness thrust upon him when he buys a few shares of supposedly worthless mining stock. Though it looks as though he and the entire town will be Read More

Stage Door

Actors: Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Adolphe Menjou, Gail Patrick, Constance Collier

Synopsis: Adapted from the Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman play, Stage Door is a comedic portrait of the theatrical community in New York. Katharine Hepburn stars as Terry Randall a young woman who comes from a wealthy, socially connected family. Aspiring for a career on the stage, Terry opts to see if Read More

Hitting a New High

Actors: Lily Pons, Jack Oakie, Eric Blore, Edward Everett Horton, John Howard

Synopsis: In this musical, a nightclub singer (Lily Pons) secretly aspires to sing at the Met. To help her, her agent (Jack Oakie) decides to dress her up as "Ooga-Hunga, the Bird Girl" and send her off on a merry chase of an influential opera lover (Eric Blore) who has gone on an African safari. When he Read More

Chatterbox

Actors: Anne Shirley, Phillips Holmes, Edward Ellis, Erik Rhodes, Margaret Hamilton

Synopsis: Stagestruck Vermont girl Jenny Yates (Anne Shirley) manages to land a job with a ragtag stock company. This she does over the objections of her grandfather (Edward Ellis), who'd disowned Jenny's mother when she became an actress. After a series of amusing and bemusing setbacks, Jenny is discovered Read More

Dummy Ache

That Girl from Paris

Actors: Lily Pons, Gene Raymond, Jack Oakie, Herman Bing, Lucille Ball

Synopsis: This light-hearted musical romance follows the exploits of Nikki Martin (Lily Pons), a beautiful French opera star who stows away on an ocean liner in hopes of escaping her jealous fiancee. Once aboard, she joins an American swing band and falls in love with its leader (Gene Raymond), who, after Read More

Winterset

Actors: Burgess Meredith, Margo, Eduardo Ciannelli, John Carradine, Edward Ellis

Synopsis: Maxwell Anderson combined the Sacco-Vanzetti story with elements of the still-unsolved disappearance of Judge Crater, and the result was the blank-verse theatrical piece Winterset. Burgess Meredith, Margo and Eduardo Cianelli repeat their Broadway roles, respectively playing the grown son of an Read More

Follow the Fleet

Actors: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Randolph Scott, Harriet Hilliard, Astrid Allwyn

Synopsis: This lesser Astaire/Rogers vehicle is one of several screen versions of the venerable Hubert Osborne stage play Shore Leave. For reasons unknown, Fred and Ginger are virtually supporting players here, spending most of their time trying to patch up the romance between Fred's fellow sailor Randolph Scott Read More

Bunker Bean

Actors: Owen Davis, Jr., Louise Latimer, Robert McWade, Jessie Ralph, Eddie Nugent

Synopsis: Owen Davis Jr. plays Bunker Bean, a meek and mild office worker who loves the boss' daughter (Louise Latimer) from afar. Bunker impulsively visits a mystic, who gazes into a crystal ball and determines that Mr. Bean is the reincarnation of such past leaders of men as Napoleon and an Egyptian Read More

The Farmer in the Dell

Actors: Fred Stone, Jean Parker, Esther Dale, Moroni Olsen, Frank Albertson

Synopsis: In this homespun comedy, a farm family in Iowa lead a pastoral existence until old Ma decides that they must pull up stakes and head for Hollywood so their daughter can become a movie star. As it turns out, it is Pa who becomes the movie star, while the domineering stage Ma almost destroys her Read More

The Whole Town's Talking

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Jean Arthur, Wallace Ford, Arthur Hohl, Donald Meek, Arthur Byron

Synopsis: The film that revived Edward G. Robinson's career after a string of flops, along with A Slight Case of Murder (1938), it was one of the few comedies on his lengthy list of credits. The gangster-comedy was unusual in the composition of its writing staff, which included frequent Frank Capra Read More

Roberta

Actors: Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Randolph Scott, Helen Westley

Synopsis: Alice Duer Miller's novel Gowns by Roberta was adapted into the 1933 Broadway musical Roberta, with music by Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach. The 1935 filmization of Roberta was slightly adapted to accommodate the dancing talents of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, though their roles are secondary to Read More

Top Hat

Actors: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edward Everett Horton, Erik Rhodes, Helen Broderick

Synopsis: One of the best of the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals, Top Hat centers on a typical mistaken-identity plot, with wealthy Dale Tremont (Rogers), on holiday in London and Venice, assuming that American entertainer Jerry Travers (Astaire) is the husband of her friend Madge (Helen Broderick) Read More

Carnival

Actors: Lee Tracy, Sally Eilers, Jimmy Durante, Dickie Walters

Synopsis: In this melodramatic comedy a carnival puppeteer must cope with the death of his wife who expired while birthing his daughter. His father-in-law, decides to sue him for custody of the little girl because he believes carnival life with a single father will be harmful to her. The puppeteer takes the Read More

Old Man Rhythm

Actors: Charles "Buddy" Rogers, George Barbier, Barbara Kent, Grace Bradley, Betty Grable

Synopsis: In this musical campus comedy, trouble ensues when a meddlesome, overprotective father enrolls in the same college as his son so he can watch over his love life. The son soon finds himself involved with a conniving golddigger who dumps him when she discovers that his family fortune has been Read More

I Dream Too Much

Actors: Lily Pons, Henry Fonda, Eric Blore, Osgood Perkins, Lucien Littlefield

Synopsis: If Columbia could make an acceptable movie star out of opera-diva Grace Moore, then RKO Radio could do the same with Lily Pons. At least that was producer Pandro S. Berman's reasoning when he cast Pons in the 1935 musical romance I Dream too Much. The actress plays Annette, a rural French musical Read More

Three Little Pigskins

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard, Lucille Ball, Gertie Green

Synopsis: In their fourth two-reeler for Columbia, the Three Stooges are mistaken for college football heroes by a beautiful gangster's moll. The latter was played by a very young Lucille Ball, who would always credit the Stooges with introducing her to "slapstick and physical comedy." According to Jack Read More

Broadway Bill

Actors: Warner Baxter, Myrna Loy, Walter Connolly, Helen Vinson, Douglas Dumbrille

Synopsis: Just after completing It Happened One Night, director Frank Capra churned out a bread-and-butter picture titled Broadway Bill. Warner Baxter plays the carefree scion of a wealthy, highly-respected family. Baxter's cold but socially correct wife Helen Vinson forces her husband into the family Read More

Kid Millions

Actors: Eddie Cantor, Stanley Fields, Ann Sothern, Ethel Merman, Doris Davenport, George Murphy, Otto Hoffman, Paul Harvey, Eve Sully

Synopsis: Brooklyn tugboat worker Eddie (Eddie Cantor), bullied and cowed by his tough-guy stepfather and stepbrothers (a la Harold Lloyd's The Kid Brother), inherits $77 million from his uncle, an Egyptologist. Con artist Dot (Ethel Merman) wants to get her lunchhooks on the money, and to this end offers Read More

Men of the Night

Actors: Bruce Cabot, Judith Allen, Ward Bond, Charles Sabin, John Kelly

Synopsis: Columbia Pictures workhorse Lambert Hillyer was both writer and director of Men of the Night. Bruce Cabot plays Kelly, a Hollywood detective, assigned to capture a holdup gang. While dallying with carhop Mary (Judith Allen), Kelly jumps to the hasty conclusion that the girl is somehow tied in with Read More

Nana

Actors: Anna Sten, Phillips Holmes, Lionel Atwill, Richard Bennett, Mae Clarke

Synopsis: In this handsomely-staged adaptation of the story by Emile Zola, Anna Sten plays Nana, a woman of the streets who is spotted by noted theatrical producer Gaston Greiner (Richard Bennett). Greiner is so impressed by Nana's beauty that he gives her a part in his latest revue. Almost overnight, Nana Read More

Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back

Actors: Ronald Colman, Loretta Young, Warner Oland, Charles Butterworth, Una Merkel

Synopsis: This second and final "Bulldog Drummond" film to star Ronald Colman, finds the famed sleuth in the midst of a sinister plan orchestrated by Warner Oland. Damsel in distress Loretta Young reports that her wealthy and influential uncle is missing, but all those concerned insist that the uncle never Read More

The Affairs of Cellini

Actors: Constance Bennett, Fredric March, Frank Morgan, Fay Wray, Vince Barnett

Synopsis: The Affairs of Cellini is based on Edwin Justus Mayer's popular stage play The Firebrand, which in turn was based on the life and times of Renaissance artist/political reactionary Benvenuto Cellini. Fredric March plays the tempestuous, amorous Cellini, who spends as much time in swordplay with Read More

Jealousy

Actors: Nancy Carroll, George Murphy, Donald Cook, Raymond Walburn, Arthur Hohl

Synopsis: In this drama, a fighter's fiancee refuses to marry him until he can overcome his insane jealousy. He does and they marry. The jealousy resurfaces when he finds his wife and her boss in a hotel room. He goes mad with rage and kills her boss. His wife is blamed for the killing. Just before the Read More

Bottoms Up

Actors: Spencer Tracy, John Boles, Pat Paterson, Herbert Mundin, Sid Silvers

Synopsis: In his only musical-comedy appearance, Spencer Tracy stars as fast-buck promoter Smoothie King. Our hero's latest scam is to pass off Hollywood extra Wanda Gale (Pat Patterson) and forger Limey Brook (Herbert Mundin) as British nobility, getting both of them prestigious jobs at a movie studio. Read More

Fugitive Lady

Actors: Neil Hamilton, Florence Rice, Donald Cook, Clara Blandick, Nella Walker

Synopsis: In this thriller, a young woman marries a dashing young man who, unbeknownst to her, is a jewel thief. After his latest job, he takes off and leaves her to take the rap. In court she is found guilty. She is riding a train en route to prison when the train crashes. Her identity is confused with Read More

Blood Money

Actors: George Bancroft, Frances Dee, Chick Chandler, Judith Anderson, Blossom Seeley

Synopsis: Roland Brown's Blood Money (1933) has lost none of its ability to entertain and startle over the seven decades since its release. The title refers to the business of affable, ambitious bail bondsman (and politically-connected grifter) Bill Bailey (George Bancroft), who, in the course of his work Read More

Broadway Through a Keyhole

Actors: Constance Cummings, Russ Columbo, Paul Kelly, Blossom Seeley, Gregory Ratoff

Synopsis: This drama was written by famed radio announcer Walter Winchell. It chronicles the tragic love between a racketeer and a singer. So smitten is he by the chorus girl's charms that he buys her a nightclub. Unfortunately for him, the club's male crooner/bandleader also loves the girl. Realizing that Read More

The Bowery

Actors: Wallace Beery, George Raft, Jackie Cooper, Fay Wray, Pert Kelton

Synopsis: In this rough-and-tumble action comedy, Chuck Connors (Wallace Beery) and Steve Brodie (George Raft) are friendly rivals on New York's Bowery in the 1890s. Connors owns a fancy tavern and looks after a streetwise kid named Swipes McGurk (Jackie Cooper), while Brodie is a daredevil willing to do Read More

Roman Scandals

Actors: Eddie Cantor, Ruth Etting, Gloria Stuart, David Manners, Veree Teasdale

Synopsis: Easily the best of Eddie Cantor's gargantuan musical comedies for producer Sam Goldwyn, Roman Scandals begins in the middle-America community of West Rome, where our hero Eddie (Cantor) is employed as a delivery boy. A self-styled authority of Ancient Roman history, Cantor bemoans the fact that Read More

The Kid from Spain

Actors: Jane Wyman, Eddie Cantor, Lyda Roberti, Robert Young, Ruth Hall, John Miljan

Synopsis: In director Leo McCarey's film The Kid From Spain, actor Eddie Cantor plays mischievious college boy Eddie Williams, who, with his buddy Ricardo (Robert Young), is kicked out of college for sneaking into the women's dormitory. Ricardo (Young), on his way back to Mexico, suggests Eddie (Cantor) Read More

Bulldog Drummond

Actors: Ronald Colman, Claud Allister, Joan Bennett, Lilyan Tashman, Lawrence Grant, Montagu Love

Synopsis: Tired of his sedentary postwar existence, Col. Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond (Ronald Colman) offers his services as adventurer for hire. This gets him mixed up with lovely Joan Bennett, whose wealthy father is being held against his will in a gloomy sanitarium. Armed with little more than bravado Read More

The Lucy Show: Season 01

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Lucille Ball, Vivian Vance, Candy Moore, Jimmy Garrett, Ralph Hart

Synopsis: Lucille Ball proves that her two-year absence from network television has not in any way blunted her comic expertise as The Lucy Show launches its first season. The episodes herein are pleasantly schizophrenic, with widowed mother Lucy Carmichael (Ball, of course) harvesting new comedy Read More

The Lucy Show: Season 04

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Lucille Ball, Gale Gordon

Synopsis: The Lucy Show undergoes a number of major changes as the series enters it fourth season. For one thing, the show is now lensed in color rather than black-and-white. For another, wacky widow Lucy Carmichael (Lucille Ball) has moved from Danfield, CA to San Francisco -- as has banker Theodore J. Read More

Laugh Along with Lucy

The Lucy Show: Season 02

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Lucille Ball, Vivian Vance, Candy Moore, Jimmy Garrett, Ralph Hart

Synopsis: The second season of The Lucy Show finds zany redheaded widow Lucy Carmichael (Lucille Ball) and her more levelheaded divorced housemate Vivian Bagley (Vivian Vance) still enmeshing themselves in comic situations cheerfully reminiscent of the actresses' glory days on I Love Lucy -- and still in Read More

The Lucy Show: Season 06

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Lucille Ball, Gale Gordon

Synopsis: As The Lucy Show entered its sixth season in the fall of 1967, star/producer Lucille Ball had already determined that the show had run its course and would not be returning the following fall. This, however, did not mean that Ball was bidding farewell to series television. Season six offers Read More

The Lucy Show: Season 03

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Lucille Ball, Vivian Vance, Gale Gordon, Candy Moore, Jimmy Garrett

Synopsis: Season three of The Lucy Show is something of a watershed for the series. To be sure, most of the episodes adhere to the formula established during the first two seasons, with wacky widow Lucy Carmichael (Lucille Ball) and her divorced best friend and housemate Vivian Bagley (Vivian Vance) getting Read More

The Lucy Show: Season 05

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Lucille Ball, Gale Gordon

Synopsis: Although actress/producer Lucille Ball had gone through her usual song and dance with CBS by insisting that the fourth season of The Lucy Show would be the last, the network came through with enough incentives and perks -- financial and otherwise -- to encourage the actress to continue the series Read More