Ira Levin wrote the stage comedy Critic's Choice as a good-natured retort to a comment made by critic Walter Kerr. In his essay -How Not to Write a Play, Kerr noted that the worst possible scenario would involve a drama critic forced to review a play written by his wife (we should mention that Kerr's own wife was noted playwright Jean Kerr). Levin utilized this very scenario, and the result was a Broadway hit. Less successful artistically was the 1962 film version, though with Bob Hope and Lucille Ball as stars, the film couldn't help but clean up at the box office. Hope portrays theatrical critic Parker Ballantine, while Lucille Ball plays his wife Angela. Feeling "useless," Angela writes a play as a lark, then is amazed when it is optioned by a major producer. Parker does his best to get out of the responsibility of reviewing the play (which very well may be as bad as he thinks it is), but cannot escape the responsibility. Much of the verbal wit of the Levin original is sacrificed in favor of one-line quips; there is also an overabundance of gratuitous slapstick during a little-league game and the climactic "opening night" sequence. Still, Hope and Ball work together well as always. Hal Erickson, Rovi
Lucille Ball delivers the finest dramatic performance of her career in this satisfying adaptation of Damon Runyon's The Big Street. Ball is cast as Gloria, aka "Your Highness," the vain and thoroughly selfish star attraction of gangster Case Ables' (Barton MacLaine) New York nightclub. Henry Fonda costars as busboy Little Pinks, who worships Gloria from afar. When Gloria is crippled by a fall downstairs-caused by a blow across the face by the sadistic Ables-Little Pinks selflessly waits upon the invalided and doggedly ungrateful songstress hand and foot. So devoted to Gloria is Pinks that he's willing to pilot her wheelchair from Manhattan to Florida so that she can renew her romance with callow playboy Decatur Reed (William Orr). Touched by Pinks' loyalty, his Runyonesque friends-Professor B (Ray Collins), Horsethief (Sam Levene), Mr. and Mrs. Nicely-Nicely Johnson (Eugene Pallette, Agnes Moorehead) and all the rest-raise enough money to open a Florida nightclub so that Gloria can put up a brave front. The ending is at once the most lachrymose and most effectively moving scene in the film, one that can only be spoiled if detailed here. Produced by Damon Runyon himself, The Big Street is one of the few completely successful filmed Runyon adaptations-as well as Lucille Ball's finest hour (and a half) on-screen. Hal Erickson, Rovi
Lucille Ball stars in this film version of the hit Jerry Herman Broadway musical, which featured an electrifying performance by Angela Lansbury. As Patrick Dennis' plucky and resilient Auntie Mame, Ball's low-pitched, growling moan of a voice (a spine-chilling reminder of the sound of Linda Blair's demon-possession in The Exorcist) and her gaudy and lumbering fashion-horse gait turns Mame into an elderly cross-dresser. In this guise, Mame rehashes the plot from Dennis's novel and the previous non-musical Rosalind Russell film. During the Depression era 1930s, she enrolls her nephew into a liberal private school, tries a turn in show business (with the help of her friend Vera [Beatrice Arthur]), and marries a well-to-do Southern planter (Robert Preston). After her husband's death, Mame concerns herself with her now grown-up nephew, his girlfriend, and the girlfriend's intolerant parents. Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Genre: Comedy
- Category Musical Comedy, Showbiz Comedy, Backstage Musical, Romantic Drama
- Theme: Cinderella Stories, Wedding Bells, Writer's Life, Love Triangles, Unrequited Love, Foibles of Marriage, Mafia Life, Eccentric Families
- Studio: Warner Home Video
- Run Time: 08 hr 29 min
- Language: English
- Subtitle Language: English, French
- Picture Format: letterbox
- Release Date: June 19, 2007
- Lead Actor: George Chiang, Maureen O'Hara, Lucille Ball, Bob Hope, Henry Fonda
- Supporting Actor: Lana Turner, Lee Shumway, Leonard Stone, Marie Blake, Maurice Costello, Mimi Doyle, Paul Fung, Pierre Watkin, Ralph Peters, Ralph Sanford, Richard Martin, Russell Wade, Sig Arno, Tommy Dorsey, Ann Summers, Tony Merlo, Walter Abel, Sam Levene, Joyce Van Patten, Don Porter, John Dehner, William Forrest, Audrey Christie, Bert Hanlon, Bob McKenzie, Charles Cane, Clyde Cook, Donald Kirke, Eddie Dunn, Emory Parnell, Eric Gordon, Frank Moran, Hazel Brooks, Jo Stafford, John Miller, Lee "Lasses" White, Marjorie Woodworth, Mary Halsey, Paul Newlan, Pedro de Cordoba, Roger Price, Ruth McDevitt, Paul Phillips, Ned Wertimer, Leo Cleary, Lee Phelps, John Indrisano, Jane Connell, James Brodhead, Hugh Beaumont, Harry Tyler, Eve Whitney, Elliott Sullivan, Dick Haymes, Dewey Robinson, Clara Blandick, Christian J. Frank, Burt Mustin, Bobbi Jordan, Andrew Tombes, Addison Richards, Barbara Bosson, Sammy Stein, Richard Alexander, Philip Morris, Patrick Laborteaux, Ozzie Nelson, Mitchell Lewis, Mary Stuart, Lucille Benson, John Wheeler, John McGiver, Charles Coleman, Alice Nunn, Ava Gardner, Bob Perry, Cecil Cunningham, Charles Judels, Don Wilson, Doria Cook, Ernie Alexander, George Magrill, Gino Corrado, Harry Hayden, Kernan Cripps, Erno Verebes, Julius Tannen, Ludwig Stossel, Don Barclay, John Miljan, Vivien Fay, Stanley Adams, Emestine Wade, Lurene Tuttle, Emma Dunn, Hans Conried, Lola Jensen, Donald Losby, Jerome Cowan, Juan Varro, Lorraine Krueger, Millard Mitchell, Joan Shawlee, Chester Clute, Richard Deacon, Ernest Truex, Louise Beavers, Vera Gordon, Harold Huber, Evan McCord, Marie Windsor, George Cleveland, William Orr, George Givot, Edward S. Brophy, Dorothy Green, Marion Martin, Katherine Alexander, Douglas Dumbrille, Ricky Kelman, Donald Meek, Mary Carlisle, Jim Backus, Ray Collins, Maria Ouspenskaya, Rags Ragland, Jesse Royce Landis, Virginia Field, Zero Mostel, Eugene Pallette, Bruce Davison, Virginia O'Brien, Ralph Bellamy, Rip Torn, Kirby Furlong, Barton MacLane, Gene Kelly, Lucille Ball, Marilyn Maxwell, Agnes Moorehead, Bea Arthur, Louis Hayward, Robert Preston, Red Skelton, Warren Jackson, Sidney Blackmer Sr.
- Director: Dorothy Arzner, Roy Del Ruth, Irving G. Reis, Don Weis, Gene Saks
