“Off to Florida”

(S6;E6 ~ November 12,1956) Directed by James V. Kern. Written by

Madelyn Martin, Bob Carroll, Jr., Bob Schiller and Bob Weiskopf. Filmed September 13, 1956 at Ren-Mar Studios. Rating: 34.7/45

Synopsis ~ When Lucy misplaces their train tickets to Miami Beach, she and Ethel must share a car ride to Florida with Edna Grundy, a woman they suspect might be a hatchet murderess. 

The long-awaited trip was first mentioned three episodes earlier in “Lucy Meets Orson Welles” (S6;E3). Lucy also gets in a plug for their destination, the Eden Roc Miami Beach Hotel. 

Preparing for her trip, Lucy comes home laden down with gift boxes from Saks Fifth Avenue. Their logo is clearly visible and their thatched pattern box was a tell-tale sign that something was from Saks. Lucy also shopped at Saks in the sixth season opened, “Lucy and Bob Hope” (S6;E1). Although the high-end department store opened in NYC in 1857, they didn’t open a store in Los Angeles until 1938. 

When Lucy can’t find the tickets, she asks Ethel how much money she has to re-buy them:

ETHEL: “Eighteen dollars and half a sheet of green stamps.”

Ethel is referring to S&H Green Stamps, which were a line of trading stamps popular from the 1930s until the late 1980s. They were distributed as part of a rewards program operated by the Sperry & Hutchinson company (S&H). Customers would receive stamps at the checkout counter of supermarkets, department stores, and gasoline stations among other retailers, which could then be redeemed for products in their catalog.  Trading stamps are part of punchlines in 
“Lucy, the Camp Cook” (TLS S3;E6), “Lucy Gets the Bird” (TLS S3;E12) and “Lucy and the Ring-a-Ding Ring” (TLS S5;E5). 

Oops! Lucy searches her purse and finds $32.24. One of the coins drops to the floor as Lucy lifts her purse. She looks at it when calculating her total, but does not pick it up off the floor! 

Lucy comes up with the idea of a ride share and consults the newspaper to find a driver headed south. Success!

What most viewers don’t realize is that although they look similar, two different model cars are used in the episode. 

For the exterior footage, a 1949 Dodge Wayfarer was driven.  

A 1951 Dodge Coronet was used in the studio shots.  

On the trip, Mrs. Grundy’s cream-colored convertible gets a flat tire and she tells Lucy and Ethel to fix it, allowing an opportunity for some funny physical comedy by Lucille Ball. Lucy claims that she knows how its done because she watched Ricky do it on the way to California, one of the many things not shown on camera.

Mrs. Grundy is played by British character actress Elsa Lanchester. She is probably best remembered for playing The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), in which she also played novelist Mary Shelley. In 1950 she was nominated for an Oscar for Come to the Stable (1949) and would be nominated again for Witness for the Prosecution, just one year after this episode aired. That film also starred her husband Charles Laughton. 

The Oscar-nominated actress received $2,000 for appearing in the episode, just $500 less than she was paid for The Bride of Frankenstein twenty years earlier. In “Lucy Writes a Play” (S1;E17), Ricky jokes that Ethel looks like the Bride of Frankenstein in her Spanish mantilla.

Lucy describes Miss Grundy’s watercress sandwiches as “buttered grass” – but eats it anyway. 

Oops!  When Miss Grundy reaches into the picnic basket behind Lucy and Ethel for her watercress sandwiches, the basket’s wicker lid hits the suitcase propped up behind Ethel and knocks it over – a domino effect. Had the valise been full, it would not have easily toppled over from a wicker basket lid. 

The front on driving scenes were called process shots using rear projection. It was a technique first done in “California Here We Come!” (S4;E13), which was believed to be the first process shot on television. 

The radio announcer is voiced by Roy Roberts.  The big band music in the background was also heard in “Country Club Dance” (S6;E25).  

The episode features second unit footage with cast doubles on location, likely in Southern California. 

When Mrs. Grundy finally pulls over at a cafe, the man behind the counter is played by Strother Martin. Martin achieved success as a recognizable character actor later in his career, appearing in such hits as Cool Hand Luke (1967), where he introduced the now iconic line, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” Two years later he was co-starring with Robert Redford and Paul Newman in and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). His first film was an uncredited appearance in The Asphalt Jungle in 1950. In 1953, Martin played a soldier in George Bernard Shaw’s Androcles and the Lion which starred — Elsa Lanchester!

Lucy and Ethel try to get a signal to the cafe waiter while not alarming Miss Grundy, who by now thinks Lucy is the hatchet murderess! 

At the end of the cross-fade between the second unit footage of the “North Miami” train station and the studio set of the same location, Lucy and Ethel’s doubles can be briefly glimpsed walking down the tracks on the left.

Having hitched a ride on a poultry truck, Lucy tries to explain the strange story of her journey to Ricky.  Little Ricky looks doubtful!  

FAST FORWARD! 

Lucy must have liked working with Elsa Lanchester, because she cast her again as another oddball criminal named Mumsy Westcott in a 1973 episode of “Here’s Lucy” called “Lucy Goes to Prison” (HL S5;E18).