(LDCH S1;E2 ~ December 3, 1957) Directed by Jerry Thorpe. Written by Madelyn Martin, Bob Carroll, Jr., Bob Schiller, and Bob Weiskopf. Filmed September 27, 1957 at Ren-Mar Studios.
Synopsis ~ Stage and screen star Tallulah Bankhead has moved in next door to the Ricardos and Mertzes! Once Lucy discovers that a celebrity is in her midst, she tries to win her friendship by inviting her to an elegant dinner party – with Fred and Ethel Mertz posing as hired help. Before long Lucy has gotten Bankhead and the entire gang involved with a local PTA show.
This is the second of 13 episodes of “The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour.” After "I Love Lucy” ended its six season run in May 1957, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz convinced CBS to allow the program (using the same principal cast) to return as occasional one hour specials. In addition to the new hour-long format, the shows would be centered on a celebrity guest star, feature more music, and location shoots. The first season presented five episodes sponsored by the Ford Motor Company, under the title “The Ford Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show.”
This is the last new episode aired in 1957.
Before the action begins, Desi Arnaz steps in front of a curtain to thank the viewers for their support of their first episode, “Lucy Takes a Cruise to Havana,” aired a month earlier. This is something he would do for most of the series, although in re-runs these intros are usually cut to make time for extra commercials. This is one of the few “Comedy Hours” that takes place entirely in Connecticut with no musical interludes. Of the 13, it also feels the most like an episode of “I Love Lucy.”
The celebrity of the title was stage and screen star Tallulah Bankhead, although it was originally intended to be Bette Davis, a drama school classmate of Lucille Ball’s. While the script was being developed, names also considered were William Holden and Gary Cooper. Davis requested $20,000, equal billing to Lucy and Desi, and the cost of her return airfare after filming. Lucy and Desi were considering the offer when Davis had a home accident and then fell off a horse and had to drop out. Bankhead was their second choice.
Tallulah Bankhead was born in 1903 in Huntsville, Alabama, and left home at the age of 15 to appear on the New York stage. Like Lucille Ball, she was considered for the role of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind (1939). She was briefly married to John Emery who had appeared on “I Love Lucy” as Harold the Tramp in “The Quiz Show” (ILL S1;E5) and as angry neighbor Mr. Stewart in “Little Ricky Gets a Dog” (ILL S6;E14). Bankhead died in 1968.
Lucy Ricardo had impersonated Bankhead on “I Love Lucy” in “Lucy’s Fake Illness” (ILL S1;E16) and then quickly imitated her husky voice on the telephone in “Ricky Asks for a Raise” (ILL S1;E35). In this episode Bankhead angrily says to Lucy, “You do a revolting imitation of me!”
Although Lucille and Desi feared the studio audience would not immediately recognize stage star Bankhead, her entrance applause was so enthusiastic that it had to be edited for time!
The episode opens with Ricky and Little Ricky about to rehearse their number for the PTA show. Ricky gets distracted by the fact that Lucy is using binoculars to spy on the star’s moving men, just as she did in “New Neighbors” (ILL S1;E21), so we never know what the number is, but Little Ricky wears a Havana sombrero, so it had to have a Cuban theme.
It is also unclear exactly what house Bankhead is moving into, since it has been established that the Ramseys live next door to the Ricardos. Ralph and Betty Ramsey will not be featured in “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour,” but will be occasionally mentioned in the dialogue.
Lucy asks Fred and Ethel to play their ‘couple’ (maid and butler) when she invites Bankhead to dinner. Lucy had played maid to impress Fred’s old vaudeville partner in “Mertz and Kurtz” (ILL S4;E2). Both Lucy and Vivian pretend to be maids again in a 1964 episode of “The Lucy Show.”
‘Ethel Mae’ gushingly admits that she has seen Bankhead on stage in Dear Charles, The Green Hat, The Skin of Our Teeth, Rain, They Knew What They Wanted, Camille, Private Lives and The Little Foxes, which she saw five times! Ironically, Bette Davis did the 1941 film version of The Little Foxes, so the reference may be left over from an earlier script.
When Ethel Mae tries to leave the dining room at the same time that ‘Mertz’ is coming in with a strawberry pie, the resulting gag is instantly reminiscent of “The Great Train Robbery” (ILL S5;E5, left) two years earlier.
It’s a good thing that Tallulah never got to eat the strawberry pie, because it is revealed later in the episode that she is allergic to strawberries!
Oops! The writers must have cribbed from Bankhead’s resume for a list of her stage credits, but they neglected to notice that several of these plays were London productions only, not Broadway. When the gang visited England in season five of “I Love Lucy,” Ethel makes no mention of previously visiting London. The conversation then turns to the 1944 film Lifeboat, which Ethel says she saw in her hometown of Albuquerque.
During rehearsal for a telephone scene, Bankhead proclaimed that it was the first time a stage phone worked and she could actually hear someone on the other end! This is ironic considering that that a non-working stage phone had been the cause for a rift between Desi and Jerry Hausner (Jerry the Agent) which led to his departing the series.
Oops! After Tallulah Bankhead storms out of the Ricardo kitchen, Lucy slams the kitchen door. As she does this, the drawstring to the blind hanging on the door sways back and forth through the window, indicating that there is no glass in the window. This same blooper occurred in “The Sublease” (ILL S3;E31).
When Lucy passes by the kitchen window after slamming the door, she walks into the backdrop making it move.
For the scene in which Lucy serves Bankhead a Southern dinner, packages of frozen fried chicken (some of the first to be marketed) were used as food props. Bankhead, thinking it was homemade, raved that it was the best fried chicken she’d ever eaten!
Tallulah Bankhead attending a PTA meeting is likened by Ricky to Marilyn Monroe attending a Girl Scout rally. Movie star Bankhead has never even heard of the PTA (“PT-what?”) or a hardware store. When Bankhead shows up at the meeting, they abruptly cancel their planned musical in favor of a dramatic play called “The Queen’s Lament” starring (of course) Miss Tallulah Bankhead. This plot point is probably a hold-over from when Bette Davis was intended to be the ‘celebrity’ as she had recently played Queen Elizabeth I in film in The Virgin Queen in 1955 as well as in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex in 1939.
“THE QUEEN’S LAMENT” produced by the Westport PTA
- The Queen ~ Miss Tallulah Bankhead
- Her Lady in Waiting ~ Mrs. Ricardo
- The Duke of Farthington ~ Mr. Ricardo
- Genevieve, The Royal Cook ~ Mrs. Mertz
- A Knight ~ Mr. Mertz
- Musical Entertainment by the Westport Glee Club
- Directed by Mrs. Ida Thompson
- Written by Mr. Thompson
- Costumes by Mrs. Wilson
When Fred is in his “Buster Brown bob” and knight’s armor, Ricky makes a joke about getting a can opener to let out the pants. This is reminiscent of when Ricky was in full amour at MGM for Don Juan and a joke was made about opening a ‘canned ham’ in “Hollywood at Last!” (ILL S4;E16, right).
A running gag throughout the second half hour is Ricky’s mispronunciation of “Queen” as “Quinn”. Particularly funny is when he addresses Bankhead as “My nubble Quinn”!
Naturally Lucy gets jealous of Bankhead playing the lead and arranges for her to be locked in the bathroom, just as she did to the original Sally Sweet dancer in “The Diet” (ILL S1;E3).
It’s a good thing Lucy learned how to curtsy when meeting the real Queen when she traveled to London so she can do it effortlessly for Miss Bankhead in “The Queen’s Lament”.
When the school glee club marches on prematurely during a rehearsal singing “Camptown Races,” Bankhead quips “Who are these children, left over from ‘The King and I’?” Chalk up yet another Rodgers & Hammerstein reference for Desilu. The Broadway musical had closed three years earlier, but the film version was barely a year old and earned five Oscars that year.
Stories about the clash between Lucille Ball and Bankhead mostly center on work ethic. Kathleen Brady’s biography Lucille: The Life of Lucille Ball says that Bankhead rehearsed in a haze of alcohol and refused to learn her lines. Lucy was a stickler for rehearsals so naturally their styles clashed.
At one point, it is reported that Vivian Vance admired Bankhead’s slacks during a production meeting so Tallulah took off her pants, gave them to Viv, and sat down naked!
LUCY: “As a peace offering, I’ve brought you some of my homemade jam.”
TALLULAH: “I’ve already been in one of your homemade jams.”
When the script called for Bankhead to get covered in paint by a paint sprayer, she surprised everyone by entering the scene wearing sunglasses and a head covering to protect herself from the spray. Physical comedy was not Bankhead’s forte. The verbal fireworks between Lucy and Bankhead in the kitchen scene are, however, palpably realistic! Bankhead later said "She’s divine to work with! And Desi! He’s brilliant! He has a temper, however. But that’s because he’s fat! It worries him.” Adding to the tension was the fact that it was during rehearsals for this episode that the Arnazes decided to purchase RKO, the studio where they first met, for $6.15 million.
In the dressing room scene, Lucy wears the same bathrobe she wore during “Little Ricky Learns to Play the Drums” (ILL S6;E2, right) a year earlier.
The dressing room is decorated with pennants that say Manchester and Dalewood, but none saying Westport!
Elvia Allman (Ida Thompson) is probably best remembered as the barking forewoman of Kramer’s Kandy Kitchen in “Job Switching” (ILL S2;E1). She made two more appearances on “I Love Lucy.” She would make one more appearance on “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” in 1959 and would be seen on "The Lucy Show” as well.
The character is likely named in honor of Maury Thompson, who was the show’s long-time camera coordinator. In “The Benefit” (ILL S1;E13), Ethel thanks an off-stage character named Mrs. Thompson!
Richard Deacon (Winslow, Miss Bankhead’s Butler) was employed again by Desi as a regular on "The Mothers-in-Law” (1968). He also made two appearances on "Here’s Lucy” in the early 1970s.
Phyllis Kennedy (Elsie, Miss Bankhead’s Maid) was a good friend of Lucille Ball’s, the two having appeared together in Stage Door (1937) and Joy of Living (1938).
Mrs. Wilson, who is in charge of the costumes, is mentioned, but never seen.
The Glee Club members are played by a dozen pre-teen boys who are uncredited and unidentified.
FAST FORWARD!
Just as Tallulah is allergic to strawberries that make her break out in hives and have to scratch in public, Lucy Carmichael is allergic to caviar and broke out in hives in public in “My Fair Lucy” (TLS S3;E20). To help soothe her itching, Lucy finds respite in the ‘arms’ of a modern art sculpture!
To mark the 65th Anniversary of “I Love Lucy”, the Hamilton Collection issued a collectible figure based on the outfit Lucille Ball wore in this episode.
Lucy’s Lady-in-Waiting dress was on display at The Hollywood Museum in April 2019.
Papermoon Loves Lucy 
Leave a comment