I received a copy of “The Mothers-in-Law: The Complete Series” this week and fans will be pleased to know that it was well worth the delays. All 56 episodes from the two-season run are here, along with hours of extra material culled from the Desilu Too vaults and various other archives.
The transfers are bright and colorful, but not on a par with “Here’s Lucy.” I’m told that given how the original source materials had been spread to the winds, it’s a miracle they look as good as they do here, and they look fine. I’ve only caught two episodes so far, as I dove immediately into the exhaustive supplemental disc, but I could see that the premiere episode includes the original NBC peacock along with the “brought to you by” commercial tag. The one other episode I watched from season two contains just the episode itself without the network garnishments.
Desi Arnaz, Jr. introduces the first episode, explaining its place in the career of Desi Arnaz and providing a general background for the show’s setting and production. The remaining episodes are spread over seven single-sided discs.
The last disc in the eight-disc set is completely devoted to extra material and there’s a phenomenal amount for a show that had such limited success. First up is an approximately twenty minute featurette “Remembering The Mothers-in-Law” with Kaye Ballard. She has nothing but complete respect for the talents of Arnaz and Eve Arden and recalls meeting Eve Arden back in the mid-forties and being star-struck at the time. She briefly touches on why Roger C. Carmel was replaced by Richard Deacon and laments the change. She also laments the typecasting that this show and her stint on the “Doris Day Show” engendered but says elsewhere on the disc says that the two years spent on this show were among the happiest in her long career.
Also included is the original unaired pilot featuring a different actress, Kay Cole, in the role of the daughter, Suzie. She’s fine and Kaye Ballard does not know why she was replaced but I suspect that Deborah Walley, after her middling success in a few film roles, was more of a name. Regardless, when Ms. Walley became available, Ms Cole was dropped and her scenes in the pilot were reshot and inserted into episode one.
We are also given several minutes worth of cast commercials for various Proctor and Gamble products such as Scope, Crest and Camay. The Scope commercial features Roger C. Carmel and is obviously from season one. Also included are non-cast commercials for Bold Detergent (with a hilarious Joanne Worley touting the virtues of the color red) and a public service announcement by Carol Burnett.
The network promotional spots include a finished promotional done for KNBC Channel Four along with raw footage of other promotionals where the voice of Desi Arnaz can be heard getting the two leads into the appropriate mood.
The Behind the Scenes footage is a real find. Desi Arnaz filmed one entire week’s worth of work on 16mm silent film, showing the formulation of one episode from the initial table reading through the filming before an audience. Kaye offers a commentary with help from writer Madelyn Davis and legendary Desilu editor Dann Cahn as we watch the cast read through the script at a table on the set, the initial rehearsal, the camera blocking (the most tedious day, recalls Kaye), the dress rehearsal, the audience warmup, the cast introduction and finally the filming. It’s fascinating to watch as a glimpse of not only the genesis of an episode of The Mothers-in-Law, but of many Desilu series from this era. Kaye especially points out at how few people are at the table reading, as opposed to now, when countless people are gathered, each focused on protecting his or her own job.
Rare Kaye Ballard footage includes a clip from an appearance on the Hollywood Palace with Don Adams and a heartwarming bit when she co-hosted Mike Douglas’s show and her grandmother was in the studio audience.
There’s a rare Eve Arden clip that I can report on later after I’ve watched it (it’s on color videotape and appears to be from about 1960), and a two-part entry in the “Let’s Talk to Lucy” radio series (other entries of which can be found on the “Here’s Lucy” DVDs) in which Lucille Ball interviews Eve while some of Eve’s home movies are shown onscreen.
Take a look at that home movie footage. At one point, Eve is shown performing on stage sometime in the forties. Isn’t that a young Vivian Vance with her on stage?
There’s an unproduced script offered as a still-step feature, along with a photo gallery and the supplemental disc is rounded out by the complete versions of two Desilu pilots which were never sold: The Carol Channing Show and a drama called “Land’s End.” I haven’t viewed these two yet but hope to get to them in the next few days.
In conclusion, I’d say this set is a fine example of really going the extra mile to produce a product that does a series proud.
Say what you want about the series itself – and most of the time it’s a case of hugely talented professionals putting over admittedly silly material – this is well worth owning as a historical artifact of a bygone era when old-fashioned innocence ruled the airwaves. And for fans of Eve Arden, Kaye Ballard and the production talents of Desi Arnaz, this is a must-have.
Edited by Rob_Ray - 7/9/10 at 10:38pm
