“Lucy Visits Grauman’s”

(S5;E1 ~ October 3, 1955) Directed by James V. Kern. Written by Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh, Bob Carroll, Jr., Bob Schiller, and Bob Weiskopf. Filmed September 9, 1955 at Ren-Mar Studios. 

Rating: 42.7/61

Synopsis ~ The trip to Hollywood is coming to an end and Lucy has her heart set on one last great souvenir – John Wayne’s footprints from the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre!

The day this episode first aired (October 3, 1955) Rock Hudson was on the cover of LIFE Magazine. Hudson had guest-starred on “I Love Lucy” at the end of season four. 

No doubt William Frawley was pre-occupied during the filming of this episode due to the World Series. Frawley was a long-time New York Yankees fan and reportedly had it in his original contract that he would get time off should they be in the World Series. The 1955 World Series matched the Brooklyn Dodgers against the Yankees, with the Dodgers winning the Series in seven games to capture their first championship in franchise history. It would be the only Series the Dodgers won while based in Brooklyn, as the team relocated to Los Angeles after the 1957 season.

This is the first episode to be written by new writers Bob Schiller and Bob Weiskopf. As a season 5 premiere, the episode wasn’t very well-received. Critics took issue with the script, saying that the episode was only enjoyable because of Lucille Ball’s ad-libs. Needless to say, the critics mistook carefully scripted dialogue written by the new writers for ad-libs delivered by masterful Lucille Ball. Also new this season is Irma Kusely, who took over for Bert French as Lucy’s hairstylist. Kusely had previously done Lucy’s hair while she was pregnant during season two. In honor of her return, Ball works her first name into the script of the next episode in this two-part opener. 

The episode opens with Lucy, Fred, and Ethel thowing a party for Ricky to celebrate the completion of his movie, although the title of the film will go unmentioned for the rest of the series. 

For a native New Yorker, Lucy has an unusually cultured way of pronouncing ‘caviar’ as ‘cah-viahr.’

Oops! Perhaps it was intentional to give it a ‘home made’ quality, but the banner omits the possessive apostrophe in “Hollywood’s”! 

Seven months earlier, Marlon Brando (1924-2004) won an Oscar for 1954′s On The Waterfront.  A month later, in New York City, his film Guys and Dolls premiered. The film was promoted with a scene inserted into “Lucy and The Dummy” (S5;E3) which airs two weeks later.

RICKY: “Well, I guess Brando and I do have a lot in common.”
FRED: “Yeah, I can’t understand either of you when you talk.”

Brando was famous for muttering his lines under his breath. Most actors of the time were taught to use proper diction and projection. This became his ‘trademark’. 

Fred makes a bad joke that the only Marlon he knows is “Marlon” Monroe.  

Perhaps the two most famous actors of their generation, Monroe and Brando were rumored to have briefly dated in 1955.

When Ricky arrives, they regale him with “Happy Party To You” a somewhat awkward rendition of the traditional “Happy Birthday” song. 

When Lucy learns her time in Hollywood is drawing to a close, we get to see Lucy and the Mertzes’ prized souvenir collection, which includes:

• a Robert Taylor-autographed orange
• a Richard Widmark-autographed grapefruit
• a handkerchief with Lana Turner’s lipstick print on it (Fred’s) 
• a tin can that was crushed by Cary Grant’s left rear tire 
• menus from the Hollywood Brown Derby 
• matchbooks from Ciro’s 
• an ashtray from the Beverly Hilton 
• chopsticks from the Beachcomber 

Of these places, viewers only saw the Brown Derby and Lucy picking the grapefruit from Widmark’s backyard. Interestingly, references to Lucy’s prized produce were cut from the syndicated version of the show, probably to make time for more commercials. Ethel’s line about not being able to look at Fred and smile at the same time was also cut out from the syndicated version. 

When Lucy is unpacking in “The Homecoming” (S5;E6), some of these same props will be seen once again.

Begging to stay longer (six years?), Lucy tells Ricky that she still has yet to see:

• Coconut Grove
• Olvera Street
• The Hollywood Bowl
• Catalina Island
• Grauman’s Chinese Theatre

Fred repeatedly states that he has yet to see Ava Gardner, so it can be inferred that when he heard her paged at the Brown Derby in “Hollywood at Last!” (S4;E16), he didn’t actually catch sight of her.

Although Fred and Ethel want to see Catalina, Lucy wants to see Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and she has the car.  Grauman’s it is. 

Graumans Chinese Theatre was opened by Sid Grauman on May 18, 1927 in partnership with Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, located at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard along the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame. Their first premiere was Cecil B. DeMille’s The King of Kings (1927). Grauman had already built an opulent movie palace in 1922 called the Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre, which also still stands today. In 1973, Grauman’s Chinese was renamed Mann’s Chinese, and a few years ago TCL Chinese Theatre, which is (ironically) a Chinese held company. 

The huge marquee glimpsed in the episode’s establishing footage promoting The Tall Men starring Clark Gable and Jane Russell has long since been removed, leaving an open forecourt and a better view of the iconic pagoda entrance. The film premiered on September 22nd, meaning that the footage was shot after the studio portions of the episode and inserted before the October 3, 1955 air date. Blood Alley, the film that Lucy briefly mentions to Ethel while standing on John Wayne’s block

premiered on October 1st, two days before this episode aired.
Wayne promotes the film more thoroughly in the next episode. 

The reason the Chinese Theatre is such a popular tourist stop is the many footprints in cement that adorn the theatre’s forecourt. History differs on exactly how the tradition got started, but many say it was Norma Talmadge accidentally stepping into wet cement arriving for a premiere. Sid Grauman himself said he accidentally did the same thing during the theatre’s construction, then convinced Mary Pickford to do likewise. 

In this episode, Lucy and Ethel find slabs dedicated to: 

• Gloria Swanson 
• Tyrone Power 
• Joan Crawford 
• Gary Cooper 

• Harold Lloyd’s eyeglasses

• Trigger’s horseshoe
• Betty Grable’s leg 
• and, of course, John Wayne 

When trying to fit her leg into the print of Betty Grable’s, Lucy mentions Grable’s husband Harry James. Little Did Lucy know that Betty Grable and James would guest star on “Lucy Wins a Racehorse,” a 1958 episode of “The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour.” Lucy finds that her feet are smaller than Joan Crawford’s. Likewise, Joan Crawford will appear on a 1968 episode of "The Lucy Show.” 

In reality, there are approximately 200 cement slabs in Grauman’s forecourt, all selected by private committee. Somewhat surprisingly, Lucille Ball has never been among them! John Wayne does indeed have his boot prints at Grauman’s, but it is not the same as the one seen in the episode. The real-life slab is inscribed “Sid – there are not enough words. John Wayne, January 25, 1950” while the prop in the episode simply has his signature and boot prints.

To get rid of John Wayne-seeking tourists at Grauman’s, Lucy says that she and Ethel are sitting on Bill Holden’s footprints, and that Ethel is President of the Bill Holden Fan Club. Their disastrous encounter with Holden at the Brown Derby was seen in “Hollywood at Last!” (S4;E16), the first of the California-set episodes.

Fred calls Lucy and Ethel’s scheme to steal Wayne’s footprints “regular Bellevue bait”!  Bellevue Hospital, founded on March 31, 1736, is now the oldest public hospital in the United States. Located on First Avenue in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan, Bellevue Hospital first earned notoriety for its psychiatric facilities, home to New York City’s mentally ill in a time when they were simply called crazy, demented, or freaks.

This episode is directly linked to the following one, “Lucy and John Wayne” (S5;E2), in which Lucy tries to get Wayne to reproduce the footprints to avoid her going to jail. Both episodes, however, can be enjoyed on their own. This is also true of loosely linked episodes “The Dancing Star” (S4;E27) and “Lucy Meets Harpo Marx” (S4;E28).

The cement used in this episode was mostly made of Styrofoam with some solid material added so that Ricky could chip away at with the hammer. Why there is a hammer on the dresser of Fred’s hotel room is never fully explained! 

Hal Gerard and Ge Ge Pearson played the tourists, Mr. and Mrs. Irving Massey of New York City.  We don’t learn the character’s names until the next episode, when Ricky reads aloud the newspaper report of the footprint’s disappearance. The two actors were married in real-life. A year later the couple returned to CBS to appear in the same episode of “Damon Runyon Theatre.” Pearson had appeared on a few episodes of Lucy’s radio show "My Favorite Husband.” She is perhaps best remembered as the voice of Crusader Rabbit. The couple died just a year apart in 1975 and 1976.

Clarence Straight and Ben Neims played the policemen. This is just one of many law enforcement officials Straight played throughout his career. Neims only has one other television credit of record: a 1956 episode of "Schlitz Playhouse of Stars,” also on CBS.

Also passing through the forecourt is Vivian Vance’s camera and lighting stand-in Renita Reachi (black dress). She was also a talented costumer who made several background appearances on the series as well as “The Lucy Show”. 

While one of the policemen is gone, the other stands in Gary Cooper’s footprints and says “Yup” something Cooper frequently said in the 1949 Warner Brothers picture It’s a Great Feeling. Lucy did the same thing when she imitated Cooper for nearsighted Caroline Appleby in “Lucy and Harpo Marx” (S4;E28). 

Little Ricky is played by The Mayer Twins. 

This is the first episode to be sponsored by General Foods, who primarily used the series to promote their signature product, Sanka an instant decaffeinated coffee. The name Sanka is derived from the French (SAns CAffeine). 

FAST FORWARD

Although she was never asked to do this for Grauman’s, Lucy and Hedda Hopper put their handprints in cement during Lucy Day at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. 

On May 20, 2016, CBS re-broadcast this episode colorized and in primetime along with “Lucy and John Wayne” (S5;E2) under the title “The I Love Lucy Superstar Special.”  

In 1978, during a timeline on “CBS on the Air: A Celebration of 50 Years”  a still photo from this episode overlaps 1954 and 1953, despite the fact that the actual air date was 1955!