THE LONG LONG TRAILER
US, 1953, 104 minutes, Colour.
Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Marjorie Main, Keenan Wynn.
Directed by Vincente Minnelli.
The Long Long Trailer was very successful and amusing in its time. It very much echoes the comedy styles, clean and innocent, of the early 1950s.
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz had proven a great success on television in I Love Lucy. This is a screen showcase for Lucille Ball as was Forever Darling the following year.
There is not much plot – the obvious trailer journey with the newlyweds wanting to own their own home, a scene where Lucille Ball tries to cook a meal while the trailer is on the road, a literal cliff-hanger, Lucy collecting rocks which overburden the trailer. Desi Arnaz is the kindly and put-upon husband. There is some support from Marjorie Main as a trailerite and Keenan Wynn as a policeman.
It is a bit surprising to see that Vincente Minnelli was directing this film, a high-profile director at MGM especially with many musicals like Meet Me In St Louis (with his then wife Judy Garland) as well as the Oscar-winning An American in Paris. He was to win an Oscar himself for Gigi in 1958. However, like directors of the time, he also directed many small-budget features. But, this was the period in which he directed The Bandwagon, Brigadoon, The Cobweb.
The film was written by the writing team of Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, successful writers from the early 30s who wrote screenplays for Father of the Bride and Father’s Little Dividend (also directed by Minnelli) and achieved great success with their screenplay for The Diary of Anne Frank.
1. How successful a comedy was this? The main qualities of comedy: situations, incident, characters?
2. How much gentle irony was there in this comedy: as regards marriage, men and women, money, trailers, homes, fighting etc?
3. How attractive were Stacey and Nicky as the central couple? The comedy and charm of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz? A typical American couple, typical American middle class, how much sympathy for them? How humorous? As mirroring the audience? As learning by their mistakes?
4. How central was the trailer itself? Its cost, extras, the length, difficulties etc? How did this symbolise the theme of the marriage and the relationships and the money?
5. How enjoyable were particular sequences? The policeman and his ushering the traveller through; the visitors and Marjorie Main, Stacey's advice and turning right, knocking down Aunt Anastasia’s house, the mud, cooking in the trailer, the rocks and the mountain?
6. Why was the film so enjoyable? Its values as popular colourful entertainment? The stances on values that it took? The possibility for laughing at ordinary human foibles and audiences sharing in this?
