Lucy in London

October 24, 1966

Synopsis

Lucy
Carmichael wins a trip to London in a jingle contest.  It is a
whirlwind, one day tour, with Anthony Newley as her guide.  They
visit such landmarks as Madame Tussaud’s, Carnaby Street, London
Bridge, the Palladium Theatre, and an English country manor.  On her tour, Lucy gets to sing with the Dave Clark Five, act Shakespeare with Peter
Wyngarde, and model mod fashions to a Phil Spector song!  

Cast

Lucille
Ball (Lucy Carmichael) was halfway through her fifth season
playing Lucy Carmichael on “The Lucy Show” (1962-1968).  

Anthony Newley (Anthony
Armstrong Fitz-Faversham) was a London-born actor and singer who was
perhaps best known for his collaboration with Leslie Bricusse on the
film scores for Doctor Doolittle (1967, in which he also
appeared) and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1970, in
which he also appeared singing the break-out hit “The Candy Man”).
In April of 1966, just a month before “Lucy in London” filmed
but before the special was aired, he released the film version of
Stop the World – I Want To Get Off, a musical which he wrote
(again with Bricusse) and starred in as Littlechap in London and New
York.  In 1965, he starred on Broadway in another musical he co-wrote
with Bricusse The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the
Crowd. 

Anthony
Armstrong Fitz-Faversham is Lucy’s tour guide from Royal Luxury Tours
Ltd.

Frank
Thornton
(Customs Official) will be forever remembered as Captain Peacock, the
imperious floor walker on “Are You Being Served?”  He was also
well known for playing Truly for 13 years on “Last of the Summer
Wine.” Thornton died in 2013 at the age of 92.

Winifred
Hyde White
(Hawkins, Madame Tussaud’s Guide) was a Gloucestershire-born actor
who will probably
be best remembered as Colonel Pickering in the 1964 film My
Fair Lady.
He was twice nominated for Broadway’s Tony Award as Best Actor in
1957 for The
Reluctant Debutante,
and in 1973 for The
Jockey Club Stakes.

James
Robertson Justice
(Madame Tussaud’s Manager) was known for his bushy beard and booming
voice.  He is perhaps best remembered as Lord Scrumptious in Chitty
Chitty Bang Bang
(1963). 

The
Dave Clark Five
(Themselves) was
an English pop
rock
group
made up of Dave
Clark, Lenny Davidson, Denis Payton, Mike Smith, and Rick Huxley.
Their
single “Glad
All Over”
knocked the
Beatles’
“I
Want to Hold Your Hand”
off the top of the UK
Singles Chart
in
January 1964.  In 1966 they were regular performers on TV’s
“Shindig.”  

Peter
Wyngarde (Himself
/ Petruchio) was born in France to an English father and French
mother. Lucille
Ball personally asked Wyngarde to appear in the special having seen
him on Broadway in Duel
of Angels starring
Vivien Leigh in
1960 (while she was appearing in Wildcat).
She was said to have been smitten by him, and was determined to find
a way for the two of them to act together.

“Lucy
may’ve thought I was kidding, but if she wanted to play this
straight she would be a marvelous Kate. Her looks are absolutely
right as is her vitality. And she’s a good enough actress to be
able to do it.”
– Las
Vegas Sun, October 23, 1966

Edna
Morris (Woman
at the Shakespeare Festival) was a Lancashire-born actress whose
screen acting career began in 1946 at the age of 40.  

Dennis
Gilmore
(‘Pops’ the Stage Doorman) was a Middlesex-born actor whose screen
career spanned from 1953 to 2010.

Joby
Blanshard
was a Yorkshire-born actor who was seen on stage and screen from 1954
to 1986.
He is perhaps most
famous for playing Colin Bradley in 32 episodes of the early 1970s
‘science-fact’ series “Doomwatch.”

Jenny
Counsell has just three other screen credits (as per IMDB) the
last of which was an uncredited appearance in Carry On Again
Doctor (1969).

Bonnie
Paul was the step-daughter of Burl Ives.

John
Stone was a Welsh character actor and playwright.

Twiggy
was born Lesley Lawson.  She became the world’s number one model at
the time, so named for her slender figure.  Twiggy eventually turned
to acting on both stage and screen.  

Chrissie
Shrimpton was a model who (at the time) was dating Mick Jagger.
She is the sister of Vogue model Jean Shrimpton.

Jenny
Boyd was a fashion model and the sister of Pattie Boyd, who was
then married to George Harrison of the Beatles. Boyd left modeling
and took up transcendental meditation.

Samantha
Juste
became
known on British television in the mid-1960s as the “disc girl”
on the BBC’s
“Top
of the Pops.”

In 1968 she married Micky
Dolenz of
the Monkees.

Roy
Rowan
(announcer) was
the off-camera announcer for every episode of “I Love Lucy” as
well as “The Lucy Show” and “Here’s Lucy.” He was also the
voice heard when TV or radio programs were featured on the plot of
all three shows. He made a couple of on screen appearances as well. 

This
special was part of Lucille Ball’s 1966-67 contract negotiations with
CBS. She was supposed to star in three such ‘travel’ specials, but
this is the only one that was ever realized. Ball
originally planned to co-star with Mitzi
Gaynor
as
two nuns touring Europe,
followed by a French-based production called “Lucy in Paris,”
and
a Middle Eastern-set comedy called “Lucy in Arabia”
or “Lucy in the Desert.”

This
CBS special (in color!) first aired on October 24, 1966 in “The
Lucy Show” time slot, but because it ran one hour, it pre-empted
“The Andy Griffith Show.” 

This
script was written by Ron Friedman and Pat McCormick.  This is
Friedman’s only time writing for Lucille Ball.  Also in 1966,
Friedman was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for an episode of
“The Danny Kaye Show.”  McCormick went on to write one episode of
“Here’s Lucy” in 1969. The special was co-produced and
choreographed by David Winters, who had played A-Rab in the 1961 film
West Side Story.

The
budget for the special was $500,000.  It came in under budget.  

The
special was produced and directed by Steve Binder, who specialized in
award shows, concerts, and TV spectacles.  It was sponsored by the
Monsanto Company.

Regular
Lucy viewers may remember that Lucy Ricardo went to London during
season 5 of “I Love Lucy” although the cast and crew never left
Hollywood to film, as they do here.  “Lucy in London” was
Desilu’s first international film project, not counting some second
unit footage of Cuba and Mexico gathered for “The Lucy-Desi Comedy
Hour.”  Like Lucy Ricardo, Lucy Carmichael also visits the changing
of the guard at Buckingham Palace and spends some time at an English
country manor home located just outside London.

This
special was a follow up to “The Lucy Show” episode “Lucy Flies
to London” (S5;E6), which was filmed in September 1966, four months
after the May location shooting of “Lucy in London.”  Lucille
Ball later said that May was her favorite month anywhere in the
world.  “Lucy Flies to London” (S5;E6) was shot completely at
Desilu Studios in California, while “Lucy in London” was shot
completely on Location in and around London.  

The
cast was supposed to include actor Laurence Olivier, but he withdrew
from the project before filming began. Lord Olivier was mentioned on
“I Love Lucy” in “Lucy Meets Orson Welles” (ILL S6;E3).  

Lucille
Ball went through 15 different wigs during the production. Cleo
Smith, Ball’s cousin and the executive in charge of this production,
later recalled that problems arose in photographing the star on the
London locations, where the use of heavy stage make-up and filtered
lighting that was employed for her studio-based program could not
repeated.
Ball’s
biographer Geoffrey Mark Fidelman would later remark that the actress
“looked old” throughout the show due to difficulties in
establishing flattering lighting for the outdoor
sequences.

Under
the supervision of Cleo Smith, Desilu sent a second unit crew ahead
to film scenes with doubles of Lucille Ball and Anthony Newley as
they traveled through London and environs on their motorcycle and
sidecar.  

The
special is divided up into acts, like a play, with titles on the
screen – in Old English font, naturally!  

The
opening sequence of Lucy stepping off the Pan Am jet used only still
photos shot by Life Magazine’s Bob Willoughby. His photographs were
used in a montage format until Lucy meets her tour guide when
traditional film storytelling begins.  Director Steve Binder says
that this was a creative decision due to the notoriety and artistry
of Willoughby, not a cost-saving measure. The sequence also reflects
a typical tourist like Lucy’s snapshots of their trip, an idea
reinforced by the fact that Lucy wears a camera around her neck for
much of her time in London.

The
sequence involving Lucy de-planing from the Pan Am clipper jet had to
be accomplished in between flights already on the tarmac at Heathrow.
No planes were available to be grounded for a day of shooting.
Coincidentally (or perhaps not) Pan Am (which is no longer in
existence) was also the carrier when Lucy Ricardo flew home from
Europe and from Miami to Havana on “I Love Lucy.”  

To
ensure that Heathrow and other London locations were accessible to
the film crew, a former Buckingham Palace official with the proper
‘connections’ was engaged by Desilu.  It is unclear whether anyone
was ‘bribed’ to open doors, but some locations did charge a user fee,
which Desilu gladly paid. When Desilu asked about police protection
for Lucille Ball during their shoot near London Bridge, Scotland Yard
replied that they didn’t do that for anyone – not even the Queen!  They
did, however, guarantee that if the crew did not block traffic and
cause any pedestrian problems, they would be sure all went well. 

Newley
sings “On a Wonderful Day Like Today” as he zooms off on his
motorcycle with Lucy in his ‘top drawer’ sidecar.  A chorus of
schoolgirls on bicycles join in singing “The Beautiful Land.”
Newley then sings a bit of “Sweet Beginning” as they drive
through Piccadilly Circus. These songs are all from the musical The
Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd, which
Newley co-wrote with Leslie Bricusse and starred in on Broadway in
1965. This is the show that gave Cleo Smith the idea to cast Newley,
who only had a two week opening in his Doctor Dolittle shooting
schedule to film the special with Lucy.

On
the banks of the Thames, Newley quickly sings a bar of “What
Kind of Fool Am I?” a song he wrote and performed in Stop
the World – I Want To Get Off.  Speaking of banks, Lucy says
she works in a bank back home where “her boss” makes her report
at 8am. Interestingly, not much of Lucy Carmichael’s home life is
discussed other than this.  

The
stunt where Lucy and Anthony Newley sink into the River Thames was
supposed to be shot in another location due to the fact that the
Thames was reported to be polluted. At the last moment, Lucy decided
it was funnier to actually do the stunt on location, despite the
risks involved. As she did in “Lucy at  Marineland” (S4;E1) and
various other times in her career, Lucy did the stunt herself, not
employing a stunt person or effects.  

As
Lucy and Tony’s punctured raft is sinking in the Thames, Newley
salutes the Union Jack and sings a chorus of  of “There’ll
Always Be an England,” an
English patriotic song written in 1939 by Ross Parker and Hughie
Charles, and famously sung by Vera Lynn.  In “Lucy Flies to
London” (S5;E6), the episode of “The Lucy Show” that preceded this
special, Mr. Mooney quotes the same song, dreading his secretary’s
frenetic presence in England’s capital city.

Bronx-born
singer / songwriter Phil Spector was commissioned to write and
perform the title song “Lucy in London,” to which is set a
montage of Lucy in and around London wearing mod fashions.  A demo
single of the song was recorded by Spector, but never released.  The
song comes about 15 minutes into the special and mentions The Dave
Clark Five, who have actually not performed yet on screen. The montage features
Lucy in mod fashions of the time and has cameos by top fashion models
like Twiggy.  The musical montage ends Act I.  

Several
scenes were cut for time. The first was Lucy stepping out of Mary
Quant’s London boutique Bazaar with packages and mod sunglasses.
She gets into Newley’s sidecar and the two drive off.  

The second
involved Newley donning a tall black fur hat and demonstrating to
Lucy how silly the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace is.
Both scenes turn up on the “Lucy Show” season 5 DVD documentary
about the special.  

Another scene was filmed where Newley takes Lucy
for a lunch of fish and chips, riding on a bicycle built for two.
Only still photos remain of the scene which had Lucy trying to talk
like a Cockney to a genuine London-born chip stall owner.

Madame
Tussaud’s Wax Museum
was (and still is) one of London’s busiest and most popular tourist
attractions.  The production was only allowed to film inside once the
museum was closed and the last tourist had exited the building. In
the Museum sequence, a wandering Lucy gets separated from her tour
guide (Winifred Hyde White) and must be led to the Chamber of Horrors
by the manager (James Robertson Justice) to catch up with her group.
The scene called for a frightened Lucy to hit him over the head with
a bottle.  The production supplied candy glass prop bottles for the
stunt, but somehow Lucy managed to pick up an actual glass bottle and
Justice had to be hospitalized for stitches.  Presently, Madame
Tussaud’s Wax Museums in New York City and Las Vegas feature figures
of Lucille Ball as Lucy Ricardo.  

Before
they go inside the waxworks, Newley teases Lucy that inside she’ll
find Cleopatra and her Mark Antony.  Lucy played Cleopatra onstage
back in Danfield with Viv as her Mark Antony.  Before going in Newley
says “TTFN.” When Lucy asks what that means, he replies “Ta ta
for now.”  TTFN was a favorite expression of Winnie the Pooh’s pal
Tigger.  The voice of Tigger, Paul Winchell, guest starred on “The
Lucy Show” just prior to this special.  He once claimed that it was
his idea to have Tigger say TTFN.

Inside
the museum, Lucy tweaks the nose of Prince Philips’ wax ‘figger’.
Prince Philip was mentioned recently in “Lucy with George Burns”
(S5;E1) and several times on “I Love Lucy.”  She also sees
waxworks of Napoleon and Josephine. On an episode of “Here’s
Lucy,” Lucy Carter and Harry (Gale Gordon) play Napoleon and
Josephine during a séance.

Great
Fosters
(not Grace Fosters!) is an English country manor from the Tudor
period located in Egham, Surry, just outside of London.  There is
evidence that the de Imworth (later Fosters) family lived there as
early as 1224. Now under the ownership of the Sutcliffe family, the
historic building became a hotel in 1930, as it remains today,
hosting tourists, wedding parties, and those looking for fine dining.
When Lucy arrives they are hosting a Shakespeare Festival at their
theatre in the gardens. Lucy brags to one of the actors (Peter
Wyngarde) that she did Shakespeare’s Much
Ado About Nothing
in high school.  Lucy and Wyngarde rehearse a scene from The
Taming of the Shrew with
Lucy as Kate (her only line is “Never!”) and Wyngarde as
Petruchio.

After
Lucy flees taming by ‘Petruchio’ and runs from Great Fosters, Anthony
Newley jokingly does an imitation of Stan Laurel saying “Well,
Lucy, that’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.”  

In
front of Lucy, Newley, and The Dave Clark Five (in morning suits and
top hats) perform a medley of “London
Bridge is Falling Down” and “Pop Goes the Weasel.”
It is interesting to note that the London Bridge seen in the
background is the old London Bridge (1831-1967).  A year after
filming, this bridge was dismantled and sold while a new version
(that still stands today) was built to replace it.  The old London
Bridge was reassembled in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, opening in 1971,
where it remains the number one tourist attraction.

In
Act IV, pulling up to the London Palladium, Lucy and Tony see the
marquee for a show called London
Laughs
starring Harry Secombe, Jimmy Tarbuck, Thora Hird, Freddie Frinton,
and Russ Conway.  Instead, however, Newley takes Lucy to The
Scala Theatre on
Charlotte
Street,
off Tottenham
Court Road. The
theatre opened in 1903 seating 1,139 and boasts a large stage. Three
years after “Lucy in London” filmed there, it was destroyed by
fire and demolished.  Today the site is the location of an apartment
block.

On
the Scala stage, the special takes a slightly surreal turn with
Newley suddenly presenting a full scale musical one-man show with
lights, scenery, costume changes, and orchestra.  He first sings
“Fine Day in London” then “I’m Gonna Build a Mountain” (from
Roar
of the Greasepaint).
He follows with “Once in a Lifetime” from Stop
the World and
“Nothing Can Stop Me Now,” also from
Greasepaint.  

During
“Look at That Face” (Greasepaint) he
sings directly to Lucy, the Queen of Comedy, “the
face that the world adores” and
she becomes the Queen of England sitting in the Scala Theatre’s royal box. He ends
the medley with “This Dream” (Greasepaint)
and Lucy becomes the (male) orchestra conductor. After Newley leaves
the stage, Lucy reappears as an Eliza Doolittle-type flower girl
sitting in the front row of the balcony eating a piece of fruit.  

The
special then takes on an even more dreamlike quality with Lucy on stage doing a
pantomime in a spotlight. It looks like Lucille Ball is wearing the
same over-sized suit that she wore as the Professor in the “I Love
Lucy” pilot and “The Audition” (ILL S1;E6).  The
very end of the special, still on the Scala stage, singing about her
“One Day in London” Ball seems to drop the Lucy Carmichael
character and speak directly from the heart as she addresses the
camera.  It is some of the most moving acting Ball has done on
television thus far.

Although
nominated as Best Actress in a Comedy for “The Lucy Show,”
Lucille Ball was not able to attend the Emmy Awards Ceremony on May
22, 1966 as she was filming “Lucy in London.”  In any case, she
lost to Mary Tyler Moore in “The Dick Van Dyke Show.”

Viewership
was high for the special (finishing as the most-watched telecast of
the week) but critical responses were very poor, with Variety
complaining:
“What
had promised to be one of the season’s major specials turned out to
be a major disappointment.”
Perhaps because of this, Ball opted not to pursue the creation of
the remaining two specials in her contract. If the critics did not
approve of her stepping outside of what she was known for, she would
give them more of what they expected.  

“Lucy
in London” was aired just once – on October 24, 1966 – and was
not seen again until  the DVD release of the official fifth season of
“The Lucy Show” as bonus material. As with “The ‘I Love Lucy’
Christmas Special,” “Lucy in London” was not included in “The
Lucy Show” syndication package and is not counted in the official
episode tally.  

Although
this special marked the only time Lucille Ball was seen on a London
stage, after more than 50 years Lucy will once again be in London (sort of) when Lee Tannen’s autobiographical play I
Loved Lucy returns
to London’s Arts Theatre during the summer of 2017. Sandra Dickinson
plays Lucy and New Jersey’s own Matthew Scott is Lee.  

“Lucy in London” rates 4 Paper Hearts out of 5