Michael Starr

Michael Starr

TV

Colorized ‘I Love Lucy’ classics a mixed bag

It’s always a risky proposition to colorize a black-and-white classic — be it a movie or TV show — but, let’s face it, the curiosity factor is strong.

That’s especially so in the case of “I Love Lucy,” which aired on CBS from 1951-57, and whose black-and-white imagery is burned into our collective consciousness — even though we know that star Lucille Ball’s hair was famously bright red.

I’m sure many have wondered what “I Love Lucy” would have looked like if it aired 10 years later in the age of color television. In the show — considered by some the greatest sitcom in TV’s 65-year history — Ball played ditzy New York housewife Lucy Ricardo, married to patient Cuban band leader Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz) and dreaming of a career in show biz. Vivian Vance and William Frawley played the Ricardos’ best friends, the mismatched Ethel and Fred Mertz, who were often caught up in Lucy’s wacky escapades.

CBS has taken the bold step of airing two newly colorized episodes from the “I Love Lucy” canon — the show’s rarely seen December 1956 “Christmas Episode” and “Lucy’s Italian Movie,” which aired earlier that year. (That’s the episode better known to fans as “The one where Lucy stomps grapes.”)

Of the two, the “Christmas Episode” features much better colorization — with brighter, crisper, more authentic-looking hues as the Ricardos and Mertzes reminisce about their long friendship, and about the arrival, several years before, of Little Ricky. The cleaner colors could be due to the fact that, unlike “Lucy’s Italian Movie,” the “Christmas Episode” was never included in the show’s half-century syndicated run, and was only screened several times since its original airing (a sharper negative, perhaps?).

The contrast within the episode itself is stark, since CBS has left its black-andwhite flashback vignettes intact. (Lucy telling Ricky she’s pregnant; the famous “Barbershop Quartet” scene with a terribly off-key Lucy; and the madcap scramble to get Lucy to the hospital for Little Ricky’s arrival.)

By comparison, the colors in “Lucy’s Italian Movie” seem muted and washed out, save for the too-bright hues of Lucy’s red hair and the lipstick worn by Ball and Vance. In this episode, the Ricardos and Mertzes are traveling by train through Italy when Lucy is approached by a famous Italian director, who wants her to play a role in his next picture. Lucy, of course, takes this way too seriously and attempts to soak up some “local color” by visiting a vineyard — where she and a surly vineyard worker stomp grapes with their bare feet — amping up their battle until it ends in a messy frenzy.

While some TV historians might have a problem with this attempt to colorize a classic, I’ll give CBS kudos for shaking things up a bit and giving us a fresh look at a show that continues to give the gift of laughter all these years later.