Miss Grant Takes Richmond (1949)

The Worst Film Ever

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Unemployed Lucille Ball, the worst student at secretarial school, is hired by a phony reality company precisely due to her innocent ignorance--and her nice legs! William Holden is her boss who doesn't mind if she can't type, as long as she provides a good cover for his private bookie joint in the back room. It took four writers to concoct this slapstick un-merriment, which has very few jokes (never mind good ones). It's a treat to see Ball and Holden together in a film, but the movie has been conceived on the most basic comedic level (and even there it fails, what with Lucy suddenly becoming an office firebrand and whipping Holden's non-business into shape). It gives several fine character actors (like Gloria Henry and Charles Lane) fairly decent supporting roles, but nobody gave much thought to the heroine, and Ball can't carry the movie on charm and legs alone. ** from ****

Some funny antics are shown in this 1949 comedy with Lucille Ball and William Holden.Ball immediately showed her comedic gifts as a dimwitted secretary hired by a bookie (Holden) to watch over the office.Trouble is that she is the niece of a judge. Thinking that Holden is in real estate, she begins to bring prospective customers and builders to him. Frank McHugh and James Gleason co-star and do well as comic foils.Some of the scenes are hilarious where Ball shows her "stupidity" and other happenings. Holden is young, adept at comedy but was chain smoking throughout the film.This movie was a definite pre-test for Lucy Ricardo. Too bad Vivian Vance and Bill Frawley weren't in it as well.

This is a not so funny comedy that does at least provide a few laughs, mostly because it's a set-up for some shenanigans that are reminders of what would happen when LUCILLE BALL left films for television to become America's number one comedienne with I LOVE LUCY.There are more than a few hints of her deft handling of physical comedy and there's a nice chemistry between Lucy and her handsome boss, WILLIAM HOLDEN. Then too, there's the additional advantage of having JAMES GLEASON and FRANK McHUGH as supporting actors for a thin story about a daffy secretary who is slow in catching on to the fact that the real estate office she works for is really a front for bookies.MISS GRANT TAKES RICHMOND has all the appearance of a low-budget programmer and it's surprising to find WILLIAM HOLDEN still drifting around in this sort of weak material when he had so many golden opportunities just ahead of him. Still, he's not bad and shows a definite flair for handling light romantic comedy. But there's no doubt about it, this is a vehicle designed to promote the comic flair of his co-star, soon to become famous as a scatterbrained housewife.The thin script plays more like a half-hour TV comedy padded to the running time of a feature film. The funniest bits are the slapstick elements, particularly Lucy avoiding a building crane that seems intent on burying her in a pile of dirt and mud. But the stronger laughs are few and far between when the script is as painfully weak as this one.Strictly for Lucy's most ardent fans.

Miss Grant Takes Richmond is an OK comedy starring Lucille Ball as a somewhat dizzy secretary who is hired by Mr. Richmond, a bookie using a phony real estate business as a front. Lucy, of course, doesn't know this, and she believes that he will build low-cost homes for her friends. This film is, unfortunately, not very funny. There are a couple of humorous sequences, but overall it should have been funnier. There's also very little slapstick, which is strange considering that Lucy was so adept at it. She and Holden do have some chemistry, though, and the supporting cast is good. A 5 out of 10.