The Long, Long Trailer

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz live slaphappily ever after as newlyweds honeymooning in The Long, Long Trailer, breezily directed by Vincente Minnelli. They quickly find that the interior of a moving trailer is ideal for tossing a Caesar salad - and everything else. That backing up their 40-foot, three-ton home is only a little more difficult than threading a needle wearing boxing gloves. And that trailer-park folks are neighborly sorts who turn the lovebirds' rig into the wrong, wrong trailer by crashing the wedding night. Co-starring comedy pros Marjorie Main and Keenan Wynn (Ball's frequent co-star in her MGM days), this smash was filmed at the height of the I Love Lucy craze and is packed with the inventive sight gags and physical humor that made the series a TV landmark. If you like the Trailer, you're going to love the movie!

Besides making television history as the producers and stars of television's immensely popular I Love Lucy and The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, Lucille Ball and her husband, Desi Arnaz, starred in three quite agreeable feature films. The second of these, 1954's The Long, Long Trailer, in gorgeous Technicolor and directed by Vincente Minnelli, is a somewhat allegorical tale of a newly married couple who invest in a 40-foot trailer as their first home--and immediately regret it. Well, at least Arnaz's character does; he's the one who has anxiety attacks over operating electric brakes while steering up and down one-lane, mountain roads. Sight gags are plentiful: a scene in which Ball tries to make beef stew, a Caesar salad, and cake in a wobbling, moving trailer is classic Lucy. But there are some genuine dramatic sequences in this handsome movie, too, and the stars rise to the occasion. --Tom Keogh