The Long, Long Trailer (1954)

In 1940, RKO Studios executives rejected Orson Welles’s daring idea—a comic thriller starring Lucille Ball—because they said she couldn’t carry a picture. Fourteen years later, she proved them wrong with this delightful comedy. She had a lot of help, of course, with visually elegant direction by Vincente Minnelli, a witty script by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett and meticulous production by Pandro S. Berman, who had fostered her career back when they both worked at RKO. The story of a couple (Ball and real-life husband Desi Arnaz) honeymooning in a trailer that gives them no end of problems was a perfect fit for the couple who had established their slapstick bonafides with the TV hit I Love Lucy.

d. Vincente Minnelli, 96m, 35mm

70^TH ANNIVERSARY PRESENTATION