LUCY AND THE CHINESE CURSE

S4;E18
~ January 10, 1972

Directed
by Coby Ruskin ~ Written by Martin A. Ragaway

Synopsis

When
Lucy saves the life of a Chinese laundry owner (Keye Luke), she is
obliged to take care of him for the rest of his life or face the
curse of 4,000 ancestors. Kim, Lucy, and Harry devise a plan to turn
the tables on the man, who may be using the curse as a scheme to keep
his laundry business afloat.

Regular
Cast

Lucille
Ball (Lucy
Carter), Gale
Gordon (Harrison
Otis Carter), Lucie
Arnaz (Kim
Carter)

Guest
Cast

Keye
Luke
(Quon Fong) was born in China in 1904. He grew up in the United
States and entered the film business as a graphic artist. He made
his acting debut in 1934 and is best remembered for playing Lee Chan (“number
one son”) in the Charlie Chan movies of the 1930s starring Warner
Oland. Shortly after this episode of “Here’s Lucy,” he created
the role of Master Po on TV’s “Kung Fu” (1972-75). He died in
1991. This is his only appearance with Lucille Ball.

Mary
Jane Croft (Mary
Jane) played Betty Ramsey during season six of “I Love Lucy. ”
She also played Cynthia Harcourt in “Lucy
is Envious” (ILL S3;E23) and
Evelyn Bigsby in “Return
Home from Europe” (ILL S5;E26).
She played Audrey Simmons on “The Lucy Show” but when Lucy
Carmichael moved to California, she played Mary Jane Lewis, the
actor’s married name and the same one she uses on all 31 of her
episodes of “Here’s Lucy. Her final acting credit was playing
Midge Bowser on “Lucy Calls the President” (1977). She died in
1999 at the age of 83.

Mary
Jane is sporting a new hairstyle in this episode.

Tommy
Farrell (Reporter)
was
on Broadway in three plays between 1942 and 1947. He was seen on “The
Lucy Show” twice. This is the third of his six episodes of
“Here’s Lucy.”

Walter
Smith
(Policeman) made
14 mostly uncredited appearances on the series. He also did one
episode of “The
Lucy Show.”

Larry
J. Blake (Sam)
first
appeared as a Native American Medicine Man in “Lucy
the Rain Goddess” (TLS S4;E15).
He was an ex-vaudevillian making the fifth of his eight “Here’s
Lucy” appearances.

Sid
Gould (Fred)
made
more than 45 appearances on “The Lucy Show,” and nearly as many
on “Here’s Lucy.” Gould (born Sydney Greenfader) was Lucille
Ball’s cousin by marriage to Gary Morton.
In real life he was married to Vanda Barra (Sally).

Vanda
Barra (Sally)
makes one of over two dozen appearances on “Here’s Lucy” as
well as appearing in Ball’s two 1975 TV movies “Lucy Gets Lucky”
(with Dean Martin) and “Three for Two” (with Jackie Gleason). She
was seen in half a dozen episodes of “The Lucy Show.” Barra was
married to Sid Gould (Fred) so is Lucille Ball’s cousin-in-law.

This
is one of the few times to date that Sid Gould and Vanda Barra appear
in the same scene together. The names Sam, Fred, and Sally are never
used in the episode and only found in the closing credits.

Shirley
Anthony
(Onlooker, uncredited) makes
the fifth of her 13 episodes of “Here’s Lucy.”

Sig
Frohlich
(Onlooker, uncredited) makes
the fourth of his six uncredited background appearances on the
series.

Monty
O’Grady
(Onlooker, uncredited) was
first seen with Lucille Ball in The
Long, Long Trailer (1953)
and played a passenger on the S.S. Constitution in “Second
Honeymoon” (ILL S5;E14).
He was a traveler at the airport when “The
Ricardos Go to Japan”(1959).
He made more than a dozen appearances on “The Lucy Show” and a
half dozen more on “Here’s Lucy.”
This is his last time appearing with Lucille Ball.

The
other onlookers and patrons of the laundry are played by uncredited
background performers.

When
the episode starts, Lucy has just saved Mr. Fong from being crushed
by the falling safe, which presumably happened moments before. This
saves Lucille Ball Productions (LBP) from staging the costly stunt of
dropping the safe!

When
Mary Jane enters Lucy’s office and says hello, Lucy knows who it is
without looking up from her typewriter. When Mary Jane asks how she
knew, Lucy says she didn’t think it was Orson Welles. This is a joke
about Mary Jane’s high pitched, squeaky voice, compared with Welles’
deep, mellow baritone. Orson
Welles
guest starred on “I Love Lucy” as himself in 1956.

When
Harry is forced to wear a clerical collar to work after dealing with
Mr. Fong’s laundry, Harry dubs him a “starch-happy
Charlie Chan.”
Keye Luke (Mr. Fong) played Charlie
Chan’s
son in several movies of the 1930s and later took on the role of
Chan himself. Harry also sometimes mimics Mary Jane’s voice for the
sake of a laugh.

Lucy’s
grocery bag has a roll of Gala
II Paper Towels
sticking out of it. Gala was a popular brand of paper towel
advertised on TV with commercials by Tennessee Ernie Ford, who was a
frequent guest star on the “Lucy” shows.

Sam
(Larry J. Blake), who claims he saved Mr. Fong from drowning, cites
an earthquake during the first week of February as a manifestation of
the curse. In real-life, on February 9, 1971 a 6.7 earthquake
caused extensive damage from the San Fernanado Valley to Los Angeles.

Harry
wants to watch a boxing match on Lucy’s TV between Kid Jacobs and
Freddy the Fox. These are fictional boxers.

The
stunt of swinging on the chandelier was repeated in Lucille Ball’s
ill-fated final sitcom “Life With Lucy.” Lucille Ball was 75
years old at the time.

Lucy
went to work in disguise at a Chinese Laundry to pay off a debt in
“Lucy, the Laundress” (S2;E17).

Mary
Jane’s iron-burned blouse was nothing new to Lucy viewers. Ricky
Ricardo scorched Lucy’s blouse in a similar pattern in “Job
Switching” (ILL S2;E1). When Lucy Carter went to work at the
Chinese Laundry in
“Lucy, the Laundress” (S2;E17), she, too, also branded several
shirts with the same mark.

Oops!
When
Harry quickly moves the chair out of the way of the television to
watch the boxing match, the chair cushion flies off under the
television set.

Say
Again?
The dialogue that takes place over the sound of the TV boxing match
sounds very much like it was dubbed over in post-production.