“In Palm Springs”

(S4;E26 ~ April 25, 1955) Directed by William Asher. Written by

Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh and Bob Carroll, Jr. Filmed March 17, 1955 at Ren-Mar Studios. Rating: 44.0/62

Synopsis ~ Upset by a quarrel with their husbands, Lucy and Ethel leave for a weekend in Palm Springs, where they encounter Rock Hudson.

The day this episode first aired, actress Constance Collier died at age 77. She had co-starred with Lucille Ball in the film Stage Door (1937) along with Katharine Hepburn, Eve Arden, and Ginger Rogers. Collier and Ball were also seen together in 1946′s The Dark Corner.

While Lucy is looking through the newspaper for a movie to see, the back page of the paper has an ad for the musical film Hit the Deck, which was released two weeks before the episode was filmed. Ann Miller, one of the film’s featured players, was also in Too Many Girls with Lucy and Desi in 1940. 

For more about the newspapers seen on “I Love Lucy” – click here!

Before things get tense between the foursome, Ethel mentions the Pantages Theatre. Six months before this episode aired, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz attended the first televised Hollywood premiere for A Star is Born and were interviewed on camera. Its male star, James Mason, would star with them in Forever Darling (1956). Kathryn Card, who plays Lucy’s mother in this episode, had a small role in A Star is Born as did “I Love Lucy” character actors Irving Bacon, Nancy Kulp, Strother Martin, Barbara Pepper, Dub Taylor, Ruth Brady, Olin Howland, and ‘Queen of the Extras’ Bess Flowers.

The couples are getting on each others’ nerves, each in their own particular way: 

• Ricky absentmindedly drums his fingers on a table top
• Lucy incessantly stirs her coffee 
• Ethel is a noisy eater 
• Fred continually jingles his pocket change and keys 

RICKY (to Lucy): “Breakfast wouldn’t be breakfast without you pounding out ‘The Anvil Chorus’ on your coffee cup.”

“The Anvil Chorus” is the English name for the “Coro di Zingari” (Italian for “Gypsy Chorus”) from Giuseppe Verdi’s 1853 opera Il Trovatore. The orchestration includes actual anvils!  The tune was parodied in Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1879 comic opera The Pirates of Penzance, and soon became a popular song with the lyrics “Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here.”

Ethel’s complaint compares Fred’s key and change noise to “Jingle Bells” and adds:

ETHEL: “For 25 years I’ve felt like I was married to the Good Humor Man.”  

The traditional holiday song “Jingle Bells” was sung by the gang in their Christmas Tag added to episodes airing closest to December 25. In “Lucy Goes to Sun Valley,” a 1958 episode of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour,” Lucy says that Ricky proposed to her at Christmastime, so their ‘song’ is “Jingle Bells,” or – as Ricky pronounces it – “Yingle Bells.”

The “Good Humor Man” quip refers to Good Humor brand ice cream, sold from ice cream trucks which were a fixture in American popular culture in the 1950s when the company operated up to 2,000 ‘sales cars’.  The trucks were painted white and outfitted with jangling bells to alert children (and parents with cash) that they were in the neighborhood. The Good Humor Man is also the title of a 1950 film which featured actors George Reeves (Superman) and Vernon Dent, who played Santa in the “I Love Lucy” Christmas Tag, which brings things full circle!

Fred retaliates by saying Ethel chews like a cow – calling her ‘Old Bossy’! 

In the mid-1800s, people began using ‘Bossy’ as a familiar name for a cow or calf. The bovine bossy is a diminutive form of boss, which came to English about 50 years earlier as a term for addressing a cow. The Latin ‘bos’ translates to ‘ox.’

ETHEL: “I’d like the key to the trunk, unless you need it to play a tune.”
FRED: “How’d you like to hear a couple of choruses of ‘Cow-Cow Boogie’.”

“Cow-Cow Boogie” is a song written by Don Raye, Benny Carter and Gene De Paul. It was written for the 1942 Abbott & Costello film Ride ‘Em Cowboy, which included frequent “Lucy” character actor Charles Lane in the cast.  

With all these insults, clearly a ‘vacation from marriage’ (also the title of a season 2 episode) is in order. The women win the (much repeated) coin toss and escape to Palm Springs.

Lucy and Desi first visited Palm Springs, California when they were dating. Once married, they built a home there, raised a family there, and even constructed a hotel. The Desi-Arnaz Western Hills Hotel opened 1957 and was located between the 11th and 12th fairways of the Indian Wells Country Club. It is now called the Indian Wells Resort Hotel. Additionally, Lucy was Palm Springs Desert Circus Parade Queen of 1963. There is also a bronze statue of Lucy Ricardo sitting on a bench in downtown Palm Springs. Her second husband Gary Morton died there in 1999.

Meanwhile, back in Hollywood, Fred bemoans that the rain has caused him to miss “Hollywood Stars.” He’s not referring to celebrities, but baseball. The Hollywood Stars were a minor league baseball team, rivals of the Los Angeles Angels. In 1952 CBS, owner of Gilmore Field where the team played, announced plans to tear down the stadium to build CBS Television City, their new headquarters. Before the owners could make plans, however, the Brooklyn Dodgers confirmed their long-rumored move to Los Angeles which forced both the Stars and the Angels to relocate. The Stars were sold to Salt Lake City, becoming the Salt Lake Bees in 1958.

Stuck indoors, Ethel pages through the May 1955 issue of McCall’s to pass the time. Viewers never knew it, but Vivian Vance was actually reading about herself!  This issue includes an article titled “I Don’t Run Away Anymore – Vivian Vance”. Vance was a staunch advocate of mental health, and talks about her award from the National Association of Mental Health. She shares with readers some of her darker days.

Back in Los Angeles, Fred thumbs through the March 21, 1954 issue of Sports Illustrated. Both Mertzes are waiting out a rainstorm.  Although McCall’s stopped publishing in 2002, Sports Illustrated is still on news stands as of this writing. Lucille Ball was featured in the January 1953 issue of McCall’s.  

For more about the magazines seen on “I Love Lucy” – click here!

Lucy reads in Hedda Hopper’s column that Rock Hudson is in Palm Springs resting up after a personal appearance tour for his latest film Captain Lightfoot (1955).  The film is given a verbal mention by the “I Love Lucy” announcer during the final credits. Hopper had appeared as herself in a prior episode, so now it was Hudson’s turn. Dore Schary is also mentioned in this episode. He will be the subject of “Don Juan is Shelved” (S4;E21) a month later. Unlike Hopper, however, Schary will not play himself. Phil Ober played the MGM producer. 

Munching on sweets, a star-struck Ethel nervously meets Rock Hudson for the first time:

ETHEL: “Would you like a piece of Rock, Mr. Candy?”

Rock Hudson (1925-85) was born Roy Harold Scherer, Jr. At the time this episode was filmed Hudson had already released Magnificent Obsession (1954) and the following year would appear in Giant (1956), which would earn him his only Oscar nomination. This is his first appearance in a scripted television series (albeit as himself), but he would go on to star on the small screen in “McMillan & Wife” (1971-77), “The Devlin Connection” (1982), and “Dynasty” (1984-85). He died of complications from AIDS in 1985, one of the first mainstream celebrities to go public with his illness. Just prior to his passing, he was part of “Night of 100 Stars II” with Lucille Ball and 98 others. 

Like Liberace (who played himself on “Here’s Lucy”), Rock Hudson’s hidden sexuality was only known to Hollywood insiders during the 1950s. A masculine man could easily pass for heterosexual with the help of a studio publicity department. It is telling, however, that as he walks around the pool to approach Lucy, he pauses to speak to the young man reclining in a swimsuit, and not the young lady sitting next to him. In public, Hudson would certainly be mobbed by female fans – if this were not a television show, that is. 

When the sun finally comes out, Lucy and Ethel go out and lounge by the pool. Lucy, however, is covered from head to toe in a robe and hat, claiming she doesn’t want to get sunburned, a callback to “The Fashion Show” (S4;E19), where a crippling sunburn almost cost Lucy a Don Loper dress! 

LUCY (to Ethel): “I paid for the sun. It’s my business whether I use it or not!”

Rock Hudson is sent by Ricky and Fred to tell the girls a made-up cautionary tale, hoping to inspire a reconciliation between the couples. His tragic tale surrounds the marriage of an imaginary studio script girl at the named Adele Sliff, which was also the name of “I Love Lucy”’s script clerk.

Kathryn Card plays Mrs. McGillicuddy (someone has to watch the baby) and Little Ricky is played by the Mayer Twins.  Lucy, Vivian, and Desi’s camera and lighting stand-ins Hazel Pierce, Renita Reachi and Bennett Green can be seen sitting around the Palm Springs pool. 

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FLASH BACK! 

In 1942, Lucille and Desi appeared in an installment of RKO’s ‘Picture People’ titled “Palm Springs Week End”. The series, narrated by Arlene Francis, was made to accompany RKO films in cinemas. 

The segment shows the couple biking in the desert and Lucy posing for photos taken by Desi. 

FAST FORWARD!

In 1966, Lucy Carmichael and roommate Carol Bradford (Carol Burnett) also went to Palm Springs for a getaway. 

In 1968, Lucy Carter and family also go on vacation to Palm Springs – staying in the home of notorious cheapskate Jack Benny, a fact they don’t know until they get there. 

When the girls arrive in Palm Springs, it is raining. Ethel says that according to the newspaper, it hasn’t rained in Palm Spring during that month for 20 years. 

The only other “I Love Lucy” episode in which it rains (on set) is “Lucy and Superman” (S6;E13) in 1957.

Lucy reads a newspaper article about a woman who became so irritated with her husband constantly cracking his knuckles that she ended up violently smashing them with a baseball bat. This incident bears some resemblance to a story from the Broadway musical Chicago’s “Cell Block Tango.” In the number, one of the ‘merry murderesses of the Cook County Jail’ explains how her boyfriend was  always loudly popping his gum. She gives him a warning not to pop his gum anymore. When he inevitably does, she fires off two warning shots… into his head.  Well, he had it coming.  Coincidentally, Lucille Ball’s friend and former co-star Ginger Rogers played the title role in Roxie Hart, the 1942 film the musical is based on. It also featured William Frawley (Fred Mertz)!