A Few Words About A few words about...™ Your, Mine and Ours -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Robert Harris]

Melville Shavelson's Yours, Mine and Ours is another of those huge extended family films (think Cheaper by the Dozen, Belles on Their Toes et al), and in this case, is an interesting revisitation of the late 1960s. Don't like the '60s, there's the 2002 re-make.

Take Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda and add 18 kids, and you've got a nicely mannered family comedy.

Does it stand the test of time?

I'll let you decide, but for those who love their Lucy, you'll find some wonderful physical comedy, as only she could pull it off.

As a Blu-ray it's a decent affair. Color seems fine. A few minor flaws. It could use a bit of stabilization. The lower right side of the image is a bit soft -- element, transfer -- who knows?

But generally, it's good enough for what it is.

From MGM via Olive.


Image - 3.5

Audio - 4

4k Up-rez - 3.25

Pass / Fail - Pass

RAH

 

[warnerbro]

It looks very good and a surprisingly funny and racy film (in its day). Nice to see that red hair in color!

 

[Dick]

The sequence in which the kids conspire to add liquor to her drink at dinner is at once hilarious and poignant, and Lucy's performance is nearly Oscar-caliber for those few moments. Almost worth the price of the disc.

 

[Will Krupp]

I've always loved this one, especially because it gave Lucy the chance to portray an actual human being for the first time in a long while. By 1968 her TV series had deteriorated into mindless dreck and her Lucy Carmichael character (after starting out so strongly in the early seasons) had become a moronic robot that no longer resembled anything of this earth.

 

[Mark-P]

I've always loved this one, especially because it gave Lucy the chance to portray an actual human being for the first time in a long while. By 1968 her TV series had deteriorated into mindless dreck and her Lucy Carmichael character (after starting out so strongly in the early seasons) had become a moronic robot that no longer resembled anything of this earth.

Will, you are becoming my go-critic on making decisions. I've never seen this one despite being a fan of both Ball and Fonda. I totally agree with you on the decline of her TV career. Watching The Lucy Show now, I find it unbelievable that it used the same team of writers as I Love Lucy. They had clearly run out of gas. On your recommendation I'll go ahead and order Your, (sic RAH) Mine and Ours.

 

[B-ROLL]

Your, (sic RAH) Mine and Ours.

Just be glad it was't a review of this:

As a kid the scene where the kids get her drunk was weird ... I knew it was wrong what the kids had done ...but the results due to Lucy's interpretation were hilarious ...

 

[Will Krupp]

Will, you are becoming my go-critic on making decisions. I've never seen this one despite being a fan of both Ball and Fonda. I totally agree with you on the decline of her TV career. Watching The Lucy Show now, I find it unbelievable that it used the same team of writers as I Love Lucy. They had clearly run out of gas. On your recommendation I'll go ahead and order Your, (sic RAH) Mine and Ours.

Awww, thank you Mark!! It makes a nice companion piece with Doris Day and brian Keith in WITH SIX YOU GET EGGROLL!

As regards THE LUCY SHOW, they only used the I LOVE LUCY writers for the first two seasons, which is why they are so far superior to anything that followed. Those two seasons have the same "feel" as I LOVE LUCY and they're a hell of a lot of fun. That Lucy Carmichael, like Lucy Ricardo, is NOT stupid, she is shrewd, determined, and manipulative. We "get" her. Beginning with Season 3, they used a rotating set of writers that didn't care much about continuity of characters. Season 3 is still fun because Vivian was still there but even then the writing started getting clunky. By the time seasons 4-6, when the character moves solo to CA and the show became "guest star" of the week, rolled around, you never knew from one episode to the next whether the plot would require the Lucy to be smart or an idiot. She eventually becomes a shouting moron and its painful. The ratings were still there (out of habit more than anything else, I suspect) so no one thought to change what was working.

 

[Mark-P]

Having purchased this on Will's recommendation, I've now watched it for the first time and enjoyed it immensely. We have I Love Lucy's original writing team of Madelyn Davis and Bob Carroll Jr. which, as Will pointed out, had already left The Lucy Show. The bar scene (false eyelashes and wardrobe antics) was of course a throwback to Lucy's slapstick TV career and it would have been better left on the cutting room floor, however the tone of the rest of the movie was more endearing and the humor not so over-the-top. I loved how the two families eventually warmed to each other and became united as a whole. It must have been one of the inspirations for The Brady Bunch. It's also interesting that the subject of Viet Nam was taboo in 1968. Dreamy Tim Mathison's character is drafted and is gleefully sent off to Camp Pendleton at the end of the movie, and I couldn't help but notice that they pretended that the war didn't exist. You know that practically every audience member in 1968 must have wondered if the family was seeing the boy for the last time. Anyway, my favorite line: "Go get a crowbar and pry it loose!"