Cheap Here's Lucy - Best Loved Episodes from the Hit TV Series (DVD) (Lucille Ball) Price

Celebrity guest stars such as William Holden, Orson Welles, and John Wayne had always been a successful trademark on Lucille Ball's four television series, beginning in 1951 with I Love Lucy through her fourth and final program, Here's Lucy, lasting 1968 through 1972. Here's Lucy: Best Loved Episodes from the Hit TV Series is a best-of package with an emphasis on celebrity-driven stories starring the likes of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, Jack Benny, Ginger Rogers, and Milton Berle. The anthology has been compiled by Ball's two children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr., who co-starred on the show as Kim and Craig Carter, adolescent daughter and son of Ball's character, widow Lucille Carter. The Arnaz offspring are all over this set in a very charming way, offering brief comments once you select a title to watch as well as optional, extended commentary on every episode. They're also personally involved in a couple of many, delightful extra features, including a 1974 sketch from a live charity event in which Lucie and Desi Jr. played their parents in a scene from I Love Lucy.

Most of the programs in Best Loved Episodes feature one or another show-business legend, sometimes playing themselves, at other times portraying a fictional character. Among the latter, Milton Berle is a fount of wicked burlesque as a used-car salesman foisting a psychedelicized hunk of junk on Kim and Craig, and Helen Hayes is particularly memorable as a seemingly desperate and kooky Irish tourist who may be pulling a scam on Lucille's brother-in-law and boss, Harry (Ball's longtime comic foil, the great Gale Gordon). Burton and Taylor, playing themselves, prove wonderful sports in an episode where Lucille mistakes the Welsh master thespian for a plumber and gets Liz's enormous diamond ring stuck on her own finger. (The show features one of Ball's best bits, substituting her own, out-of-control left arm for Taylor's during a press junket.) Shelley Winters is equally playful as a movie star with a compulsive eating disorder; the slender Lucille is pressed into service as a watchdog over Winters's appetite. I Love Lucy co-star Vivian Vance has two welcome appearances as old friend Viv (both episodes make excellent use of Gordon's trademark powers of exasperation), and Jack Benny plays himself twice, once in a touching, funny episode in which he and Ball play people from different chapters of Benny's life. These old pros from radio, stage, and the Golden Age of Hollywood never lost a step. --Tom Keogh

ACTORS:	Lucille Ball
CATEGORY:	DVD
THEATRICAL RELEASE DATE:	1968
MANUFACTURER:	Sony Music (Video)
MPAA RATING:	NR (Not Rated)
FEATURES:	Color
TYPE:	Television
MEDIA:	DVD
# OF MEDIA:	4
UPC:	826663404890