by Nick Ferro, Contributing Writer
About a month ago I heard there was going to be a new documentary about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, directed by Amy Poehler, and with the recent awards buzz that Being the Ricardos is getting coupled with my lifelong enjoyment of I Love Lucy, I was pretty excited. As much as I liked the show and her acting career, I never really delved into her life behind the scenes. After seeing Being the Ricardos just before Christmas, it prompted me to do a little research into the events portrayed in the movie, and I learned some fun facts about Lucy, my favorite being that she was a major reason that Star Trek: The Original Series wasn’t cancelled after the first pilot, “The Cage,” was rejected. She refinanced a second pilot, and the rest is history. If that’s not enough to love her, I don’t know what is! So, I fired up Amazon Prime and sat back to watch Lucy and Desi with the hope that I might learn even more about their lives and their contribution to Hollywood.
Lucy and Desi is your average documentary that spends time taking the audience through their lives from early on as young people, to their break in showbiz, the creation and sale of their own production studio, until the conclusion of their careers. It makes sure to hit on the key moments, like how they met and the struggles that they faced early on being a female and an immigrant in the ‘30s. While their story progresses through the use of old photos, stock footage, and home movies, we are privy to a combination of interviews from friends, family, and celebrities such as Carol Burnett and Bette Midler. They also used old interview audio from both Lucy and Desi themselves to help fill in some of the gaps of their personal history. Although there were many people included to tell their story, they pretty much just stuck to the basics, never really delving too deep into their lives, or taking us down a road that covered new ground. There was never a moment when I was taken aback by a revelation that was previously unheard. This didn’t necessarily detract from my enjoyment, but I did not feel that in my lack of prior knowledge that I was learning anything I hadn’t learned during my google search from a few months prior.
What I did enjoy was the years in which they were producing I Love Lucy, and the incorporation of clips from the show. This is also where I was able to use my experience with Being the Ricardos and compare how the documentary presented the information to how the movie presented the same details. Overall, the movie took a few different stories that happened over the course of several years and combined them into one well-written, entertaining narrative. However, when the events from the movie were brought up in the documentary, I kept leaning over to the wife to say, “wow that’s pretty much how they said it went down in the movie.” I enjoyed the compare and contrast of a dramatization versus a doc, it added an extra level of enjoyment for me. The creation of Desilu Studios was the other big part of the doc I enjoyed. I always get giddy when it comes to a peak behind the scenes of movies and TV, especially if it was back when the medium was brand new. The I Love Lucy show was loaded with firsts — I learned it was the first television show to be filmed live in front of a studio audience while simultaneously using the three-camera format. It was the first show on television to feature an interracial couple, a pregnant woman, and Lucy, herself, was the first woman to head a major Hollywood studio.
What I learned from the documentary, though, was nothing that couldn’t have been learned in a 20 minute google dive, so I find it hard to say my time was well spent. The presentation was enjoyable, and the use of interviews, stock footage, and home movies put forth a comprehendible and straightforward documentary. This doc was nothing to write home about, but I didn’t feel like it wasted my time either. If you are looking to learn about two of the most influential people in Hollywood’s history, then I think Lucy and Desi will give you something to do just that. What Lucy and Desi did for me, though, was encourage us to pop on old episodes of I Love Lucy and introduce them to our kids, which was an absolutely great way to spend a weekend!
Score: 6/10
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