“New Neighbors”

(S1;E21 ~ March 3, 1952) Directed by Marc Daniels. Written by Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh, and Bob Carroll, Jr. Filmed on January 25, 1952 at General Service Studios. Rating: 58.0/78

Synopsis ~ New neighbors have just moved in to 323 East 68th Street and Lucy and Ethel can’t help but snoop around their apartment. When Lucy gets stuck hiding in their closet, she overhears the couple practicing their lines for a TV play and jumps to conclusion that they are foreign spies ready to kill them and blow up the Capitol!

The day this episode was filmed Hollywood actress Polly Moran died at age 68. Moran and William Frawley (Fred Mertz) both appeared in the 1939 film Ambush. 

The episode features classic farce elements: overheard and misunderstood conversations, hiding and escaping, and physical comedy. Lucy even has to pretend to be an armchair to get out of the apartment! 

Although we never learn the title of the teleplay the O’Briens are rehearsing, judging by their accents it is obvious that they are playing Communist spies from the Soviet Union. This episode was filmed at the start of Cold War, which most historians date from approximately 1947 to 1990, and less than two years before Lucille Ball herself was accused of being a Communist.

This season 1 episode features a couple of ‘firsts’. 

• This is the first (and only) time we literally ‘break the fourth wall’ and see a window in the living room of the Ricardo’s first apartment. At the end of season 2 they switch apartments with the Bensons, whose roomier flat has a picture window. 
• Another first is seeing the gang behind bars. They would be jailed again while “Tennessee Bound” (S4;E14) on their way to Hollywood. 

• In this episode, we learn that Lucy’s middle name is Esmeralda.

The opening of the episode, with everyone looking through the window with binoculars at the new neighbors moving in, was taken from the “My Favorite Husband” episode “Is There A Baby In The House” aired on November 27, 1948. 

Speaking of neighbors, Fred mentions “the Lewis apartment.”  Miss Lewis was an elderly spinster that was played by Bea Benadaret in “Lucy Plays Cupid” (S1;E15, above). Her name will crop up from time to time throughout the series, although the character was never seen again. 

Anxious to meet the ‘new blonde’ in the building, Fred calls the operator to find out their number.  The voice of the telephone operator (who we never see) is actually Lucille Ball, doing her nose-pinched operator voice!  The O’Briens’ new phone number is MUrray Hill 5-9579. 

Trying to hide what he was doing when Ethel comes into the room, Fred pretends to be talking to Mr. Thompson, a tenant on a lower floor. The surname is likely a reference to Maury Thopmson, a Desilu crew member. On camera, however, we never see Mr. Thompson, or hear about him again. 

Having established in the first scene that the movers broke one of the O’Briens’ lamps (a comic bit we never see but only registers on Lucy and Ethel’s faces and a sound effect), the props department shows great attention to detail by having the broken lamp prominently displayed on the mantle!

When Ethel is looking through the O’Brien’s belongings, she holds up a bronze of a man on horseback. She deems it “early Pullman.”  Pullman refers to railroad sleeping cars that were built and operated by the Pullman Company from 1867 to 1968. The cars were often decorated with inexpensive items that sometimes found their way into travelers’ suitcases!  

The new neighbors have yet to hang their artwork, including Red Deer (1912) by German Expressionist Franz Marc (1880-1916). It is a horizontal image being stored on its left side in the episode.

In the hallway just outside the O’Brien’s apartment is a framed lithograph of Off to Market (1937) painted by Mexican artist Diego Rivera (1886-1957). The original is now in the gallery of Ferdinand Roten of Baltimore, Maryland.

“That’s pretty corny dialogue, even for television. Well, it’s a living!”

The new neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Tom O’Brien, are played by Hayden Rorke and K.T. Stevens. William Henry Rorke (1910-87) trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He appeared with Lucille Ball onstage in the play Dream Girl (1947), and made his first television appearance on “I Love Lucy.” Ironically, “I Love Lucy” was an early credit for Barbara Eden, who played the title role in the sitcom that Rorke is best known for, “I Dream of Jeannie.” Eden played the sexy Diana Jordan in “The Country Club Dance” (S6;E25) in 1957. Rorke played the incredulous Dr. Alfred Bellows from 1965 to 1970, even returning for a “Jeannie” reunion special in 1985, his last screen project. 

In 1971, Rorke was seen as a Judge on “Here’s Lucy” in 1971. After his death, Barbara Eden disclosed that Rorke was unabashedly gay, calling him a ‘prince of a man.’

K.T. Stevens (1919–94) was one of Vivian Vance’s best friends. They met while Stevens was performing with her husband, Hugh Marlowe, in The Voice of the Turtle in Chicago in 1945. Ironically, this is the same play Desi Arnaz saw Vivian performing at La Jolla Playhouse in July 1951 when he cast her as Ethel Mertz. Stevens was the daughter of Academy Award-nominated director Sam Wood (Goodbye, Mr. Chips) and made her screen debut in one of her father’s films when she was just two years old. On Broadway she was seen as Laura (1947) with Marlowe in roles made famous on film by Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews. Her last screen role was in 1994’s Corrina, Corrina, released posthumously. Ironically, in this episode Stevens and Vance do not have any scenes together!

LUCY: “He better see his dentist.”

LUCY: “These people are agents of some foreign government!”
SERGEANT MORTON: “What’s their name?”
LUCY: “O’Brien!” 

Oops! Ricky says he will go get his shotgun and Fred says he’s got two guns downstairs, but in the next scene all four have rifles. Where did the fourth gun come from? 

Before creating their own vigilante militia, Lucy reports the spies to the police, who apathetically ask if she’s been nipping at the cooking sherry. Allen Jenkins plays Sergeant Morton, who turns up at the Ricardo apartment to investigate. 

From this unique angle, we get the one and only glimpse of Georges Braque’s Still Life With Jug and Lemons seen on the wall of the hallway to the bedroom. Braque (1882-1963) produced hand signed lithographs of this print and this could be one of them. He worked closely with Picasso to develop the cubist style of painting.

David Allen Curtis Jenkins (Sergeant Morton) also studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, like Hayden Rorke. He made a career out of playing policemen and tough guys in films throughout the ’30s and ’40s including Five Came Back (1939) with Lucille Ball. This was the first of his three appearances as a policeman on “I Love Lucy,” returning for “Ricky and Fred are TV Fans” (S2;E30) and “Too Many Crooks” (S4;E23).

The surname Morton was just used by Richard Crenna (Arthur Morton) in the previous episode  “The Young Fans” (S1;E20). Interestingly, ten years later Lucille Ball herself will have the surname Morton when she marries Gary Morton (nee Goldaper). 

Sitcom Logic!  When Sergeant Morton discovers the O’Briens are really just actors, the gang is released without any charges!  Even in 1952, opening fire on a police officer must have incurred some sort of penalty!  

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FAST FORWARD

Two years later, the Ricardos and Mertzes will also have trouble with new neighbors, Sam and Nancy Johnson from Texas, when they believe the couple own “Oil Wells” (S3;E18, above).  

Even when they move to Connecticut, there is trouble with the neighbors. This time it is the Ramseys: Ralph, Betty, and Bruce – in “Lucy Gets Chummy With the Neighbors” (S6;E18).  

In “Lucy and The Monsters” (TLS S3;E18), Lucy Carmichael encounters a haunted house with a living Morris Chair.  There is an actor inside the chair costume, just like Lucy Ricardo did to hide from the O’Briens. 

In 2001, a Polish remake loosely based on “I Love Lucy” titled “Kocham Klara” (”I Love Clara”), presented “New Neighbors” loosely based on this episode and co-written with the cooperation of the original “I Love Lucy” writers.

New tenants, a married couple of actors, move into the Nowak tenement house. Clara overhears them as they rehearse a scene from the movie. She takes an excerpt of dialogue from a crime movie as an actual conversation and is convinced that the new neighbors are a gangster couple.

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