InsidePulse DVD Review: I Love Lucy, Season Five

Archive

I Love Lucy, the Complete Fifth Season

Lucy Ricardo: Lucille Ball
Ricky Ricardo: Desi Arnaz
Fred Mertz: William Frawley
Ethel Mertz: Vivian Vance

The Show

I Love Lucy was one of the biggest hits on television in the 1950’s, and has continued its popularity today as it continues to air in syndication. The most telling tale of its popularity is the fact that Lucy was subpoenaed to appear before the McCarthy hearings. Lucy had signed a Communist party registration card at the request of her grandfather, even though she had never agreed with their beliefs or gone to any meetings. Everyone was nervous as they began taping the next episode after the news broke. Careers had been destroyed (or would wind up derailed for a decade) over this. Still, the audience was full. Before the broadcast began, Desi went out to address the crowd. He told them that the only thing red about Lucy was her hair – and that wasn’t even real. I Love Lucy continued with no impact from the hearings, something unheard of at the time.

In 2002, CBS began releasing the show on DVD by season. They have now made it to Season Five, best known as the season where Lucy, Ricky, and the Mertzes go on a European trip. However, it begins by concluding their Hollywood trip, and includes a guest appearance by John Wayne. After they returned to New York, there were only a few episodes set there before they were off to Europe (with Lucy being lowered to the deck of their ship by helicopter after missing the boat).

The European tour started in London, where Lucy was anxious to see the Queen. From there she went to Scotland to try to find her relatives, before all four of them arrived in Paris. Once in Paris, she obtained her famous gown (a potato sack) and met actor Charles Boyer. They went on to Switzerland, then Italy (where we saw the famous scene where Lucy made wine), and finally returned home after a stop in Monte Carlo.

The four disc set contains the following episodes:

Disc 1: Lucy Visits Grauman’s, Lucy and John Wayne, Lucy and the Dummy*, Ricky Sells the Car, The Great Train Robbery, Homecoming, and Face to Face.

Disc 2: Lucy Goes to a Rodeo, Nursery School, Ricky’s European Booking, The Passports, Staten Island Ferry, Bon Voyage, and Second Honeymoon.

Disc 3: Lucy Meets the Queen, The Fox Hunt, Lucy Goes to Scotland, Paris At Last, Lucy Meets Charles Boyer, and Lucy Gets a Paris Gown.

Disc 4: Lucy In the Swiss Alps, Lucy Gets Homesick In Italy, Lucy’s Italian Movie, Lucy’s Bicycle Trip, Lucy Goes to Monte Carlo, and Return Home From Europe.

*One thing should be noted. On the packaging, it says that Lucy and the Dummy has been edited from its original version, normally a red flag alerting that an edited syndicated version has been placed in the set. In this case, Gregg Oppenheimer (son of original series producer Jess Oppenheimer, and someone very involved in the DVD releases) released an explanation to tvshowsondvd.com. What had happened was that this episode had run short, so Desilu inserted a clip from the new movie Guys and Dolls with Frank Sinatra singing. They were unable to obtain the rights to include the clip, so it was removed. And that is literally all that was removed. In the scene, the emcee introduces the clip, and the camera pans to a screen. The next thing you see is the camera panning back from the screen to the emcee. Nothing from the actual actors was cut.

I also have to add that the menus for each episode are among the most intricate I’ve seen. It’s not unusual for a thirty-minute show to have 8 or 9 chapters, and every time a song is in the episode, there is a special chapter taking you right to the beginning. This is a big change from most of the shows I’ve seen, where you get the standard lineup: opening, part 1, part 2, closing credits.

The packaging is a slipcase with individual slimcases for each DVD, much like Fox’s release of Family Guy.

Score: 10/10 (even when it would have been simpler to omit the emcee’s introduction to the missing clip, it was still included for completeness. Bravo, CBS!)

The Video

In a word, beautiful. And, in a way, we have Desi and Lucy themselves to thank for that. Normally, television shows were broadcast live for the east coast feeds and filmed off a television screen to broadcast to the west coast. This was a process known as kinescoping, and is obvious in many reruns from the times – The Honeymooners, for example.

Lucy and Desi refused and demanded that the show be filmed. However, this would double the cost and the sponsors refused to pay it. Finally a deal was signed – Lucy and Desi would both take salary cuts, but Desi would get ownership of the negatives. Because of this step, CBS had a much better base to work from in the show’s restoration.

The restoration is excellent. The picture clarity is as clear as something you would see broadcast today. It really isn’t noticeable until you watch the bonus features, where footage which has not been remastered is included. Once you see that, it makes all the difference in the world.

Score: 10/10

The Audio

CBS did a remarkable job of both cleaning the audio track and converting the original mono to Dolby 2.0 stereo. Again, it is extremely noticeable when watching some of the unrestored footage in bonus features. One minor quibble – in a couple of episodes, there were a few seconds of audio which sounds unrestored, but each time it lasts at most five seconds.

Score: 9.9/10 (simply because of those few missed seconds. Other than that, the shows sound wonderful)

Special Features

Now we come to one of the most interesting parts of the series. Since all four of the principal actors are deceased, there are no commentaries on any episodes. However, CBS includes some great features in the place of commentaries.

First, each disc contains the original opening and closing sequences as bonuses (the episodes themselves use the traditional “heart on velvet” sequence which is so familiar). This is a nice touch and I applaud their decision to not utilize these on the actual shows. While it would be more “authentic,” the fact is that the original openings and closings were nothing more than commercials for that week’s sponsors.

Also included are “lost scenes,” which have not been seen since the original broadcasts. These include scenes where Lucy and Ricky were plugging new movies or record releases, as well as bookend sequences that were inserted in episodes to be rerun. Also included are several episodes of Lucy’s radio show.

Also included is detailed information about each episode’s guest stars, including not only an overview of their careers, but also any other episodes of I Love Lucy that they appeared on.

There are also “flubs” included. This is not the traditional blooper reel. These are clips from the actual shows where a mistake occurred, and it is pointed out exactly what happened, whether it be Lucy shoving Ricky out of the way to make it to her mark in Lucy Meets John Wayne, or Ricky accidentally kicking Vivian Vance in the face at the end of Bon Voyage.

The only downside is that the footage in the bonus features that was not taken from the actual episodes is not remastered. I can see how some fans might have preferred for this to be done, but I actually enjoyed seeing the difference between the remasters and the condition of the originals.

Score: 9/10 (only due to the bonus features not being remastered, something I personally didn’t miss but can see how some might)

Jonathan Widro is the owner and founder of Inside Pulse. Over a decade ago he burst onto the scene with a pro-WCW reporting style that earned him the nickname WCWidro. Check him out on Twitter for mostly inane non sequiturs