Not up to the standards of Minnelli's best films, but he does color this inherently colorless comedy pretty well. Ball and Arnaz are newlyweds (how long can they keep this up, anyway? Lucy looks almost 50 already), and it almost kills the marriage. All the expected bits, just like in the show, but splashed with Minnelli's wondrous palette of colors it becomes (at least in retrospect) a kind of commentary on the sick overextravagance of supposedly conservative-minded middle America in the 50s. Or maybe this was just Minnelli's vision of the golden age, or of marital bliss (he had little enough of it), or whatever. Anyway, it emerges with charm, class, and humor as one of the better light comedies of the era.
Review of The Long, Long Trailer
