“Lucy Gets a Paris Gown”

(S5;E20 ~ March 19, 1956) Directed by James V. Kern. Written by

Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh, Bob Carroll, Jr., Bob Schiller, and Bob Weiskopf. Filmed February 16, 1956 at Ren-Mar Studios. Rating: 48.4/63

Synopsis ~ Lucy is in Paris, the center of the fashion world, so naturally she sets her sights set on owning a Jacques Marcel original.

Two days prior to this episode’s first airing (March 17, 1956), Lucille Ball won the Emmy Award for Best Actress in a Continuing Performance. The series was not nominated. William Frawley lost to Art Carney in “The Honeymooners.” The “I Love Lucy” writers were nominated but lost to “The Phil Silvers Show.” Vivian Vance and Desi Arnaz (once again) were not nominated.

The same night this episode first aired (March 19, 1956), CBS aired a new episode of  “December Bride” immediately following “I Love Lucy.” The episode was titled “The Handcuffs,” and like the 1952 “I Love Lucy” episode of the same name, it concerned two of the series regulars shackled together – and then not being able to unlock their manacles. The series starred Verna Felton who had played Lucy’s intimidating maid Mrs. Porter as well as the woman without electricity that Lucy tries to sell a Handy Dandy vacuum cleaner. Like the “Lucy” episode, the cast included a locksmith. This one (cleverly named Mr. Bolten) was played by Irving Bacon. Bacon is best remembered as Ethel’s Father Will Potter, but also played Mr. Willoughby in “The Marriage License” (S1;E26). 

If the kitchen in the above scene from “December Bride” looks vaguely familiar, it should – both series’ were filmed by Desilu. Everything is in the same place as in the Ricardo kitchen, with slight decorative differences like the cabinet fronts and the Dutch door. 

This is the second time Lucy has been obsessed with designer labels. The first was in Hollywood during “The Fashion Show” (S4;E19) where Lucy risked melanoma for a Don Loper original! 

In Paris, when Lucy mentions wanting a Jacques Marcel dress, Ricky produces a note from from his wallet.

“February 28, 1955
If Ricky buys me a Don Loper original, 
I will never ask him for another expensive dress as long as I live.
Signed, Lucy Ricardo” 

The date of the note is the same as the air date for 

“The Fashion Show” (S4;E19). Lucy rips it up claiming that it is obviously a forgery. Writer Madelyn Pugh later said that the idea of the note traces back to Davis and Bob Carroll, Jr.’s partnership. They started writing notes as a way to reduce annoying each other with distracting thoughts or questions.

This is the third of three episodes set in Paris before the gang moves on to Switzerland. 

Unlike Don Loper, Jacques Marcel is a fictional fashion designer. His first name is a tribute to the late Jacques Fath, a French fashion designer who is considered one of the greatest influences on haute couture. He died of leukemia in November 1954.

An uncredited actor (in glasses, above center) plays Jacques Marcel, although the character has no lines of dialogue. 

“I Love Lucy” costume designer Edward Stevenson had the enormous task of designing the various Jacques Marcel dresses seen in the episode.

Stevenson had worked with Lucille Ball at RKO Studios and Lucy wooed him out of semi-retirement to replace Elois Jenssen. Along with Edith Head, he won an Oscar for the Lucille Ball / Bob Hope movie The Facts of Life in 1961. He died in 1968 after designing for “The Lucy Show” and “Here’s Lucy.”

ETHEL: “Look Lucy, there’s one of the models from the show.”
LUCY: “Did you ever see anything like that in your life?”
ETHEL: “Never. Absolutely out of this world.”
FRED: “That explains it. They’re from Mars!”

When Lucy and Ethel come back from shopping on the Champs-Elysees, Ricky smells perfume. Lucy says that she bought it for Mrs. Trumbull. The product name is not mentioned, but in “Bon Voyage” (S5;E13, above) Mrs. Trumbull whispers a request for Lucy to bring her back a bottle of My Sin. When Lucy is packing for her “Return Home from Europe” (S5;E26) she mentions the scent by name again.  

Ethel buys a leopard print handbag.  

This same bag was carried first by Lucy in “The Passports” (S5;E11). Perhaps Ethel wanted one just like Lucy’s or loaned it to her best friend? Ethel carries the purse again when she dressed like a gun moll in “Lucy Wants to Move to the Country” (S6:E15).  

The idea for the burlap potato sack dresses comes from real life. In 1951 Marilyn Monroe took a series of high fashion photographs wearing a potato sack as a response to a journalist who said that she might look sexier in a burlap sack than her usual fashion choices. Monroe was regularly mentioned on “I Love Lucy” and her 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes had recently inspired the plot of “Second Honeymoon” (S5;E14). 

Lucy first wore burlap at the end of “Mr. and Mrs. TV Show” (S4;E24) as her scary version of a Phipps make-over. 

Lucy cheats on her avowed hunger strike by hiding food all around the hotel room: 

• bologna and cheese are tucked into the pages of a book (pages 23 and 85, respectively); 
• mustard fills a perfume atomizer; 
• a loaf of bread is hidden inside a clock; 
• lettuce for the sandwich is concealed under the skirting of a table lamp; 
• milk is inside a vase of flowers;
• a roast chicken is in a camera case. 

Believing her self-imposed fast, Ricky feels sorry for her and gives in.

When he suddenly decides to take a photo of Lucy as she opens the box that holds the new Jacques Marcel dress, he discovers her deception. 

John Bleifer (the waiter at Restaurant Le Plaisir) makes his only appearance in the series, although he and Lucy were both extras in two 1933 films: Blood Money and The Bowery. Bleifer is actually Polish, not French, but he has very few lines to speak anyway. 

Bleifer is the only non-regular cast actor credited, but the model that wears the champagne bucket on her head (Ethel’s faux Jacques Marcel), is actually Georgia Holt, mother of superstar singer Cher, who was nine years old at the time of the filming. 

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FAST FORWARD

This episode inspired the creation of two doll sets: a Lucy Barbie by Mattel, and pair of miniature Kelly dolls depicting both Lucy and Ethel. Naturally, they are dressed in their fake Jacques Marcel burlap sack dresses.

Georgia Holt plays a model again – this time in furs – on a 1966 episode of “The Lucy Show.”  

Hiding food around the room was done by Lucy Carmichael in a 1962 episode of “The Lucy Show” when she and Viv both have plans to entertain their dates at home on the very same night.  Lucy hides a trout in a loaf of bread and a tossed salad under a lampshade!

The comedy bit was used again in “Lucy and Miss Shelley Winters” (HL S1;E4) when Lucy Carter monitors dieting movie star Shelley Summers.  Shelley hides a mini-fridge in a TV and sausage links in the sofa cushions. 

In a 1973 episode of “Here’s Lucy,” a variation on this hidden-in-plain-sight theme was carried out by alcoholic writer David Benton Miller (Foster Brooks) who conceals booze in such unlikely places as a golf club, a golf ball, binoculars, a mantle clock, a squirting lapel flower, and a portrait of a wine cask, all while Lucy Carter is busily typing his manuscript. 

In the new Broadway musical The Cher Show, one performer plays both Cher’s mother Georgia Holt and Lucille Ball!  

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Fred takes the ice bucket challenge!