LUCKY ME (Warner Bros. 1954) Warner Home Video

A grotesque and clumsy eclecticism of conflicting stylistic elements emerges in Jack Donohue’s Lucky Me (1954) a rather abysmal blend of perfunctory coyness made all the more glaring and mawkish by the expansive proportions of Cinemascope. This, indeed, was a very rocky start to Doris Day’s ‘widescreen debut’ and Day, unable to translate her plucky resolve beyond the fluff she had been given, did her utmost to at least feign sincerity. Worse for the movie, Day had begun to suffer from panic attacks – an anxiety that would intermittently plague Day throughout the rest of her career. Delaying the project just long enough to have the studio quash its original plans to shoot the picture in 3D, it was instead decided by the powers that be, Lucky Me would debut the studio’s own patented ‘WarnerColor’ along with licensing Cinemascope from 2oth Century-Fox. Alas, the muddy/ruddy hues of that problematic color process gave cinematographer, Wilfred M. Cline a real run for his money. And, in retrospect, there is decidedly something remiss about the color throughout Lucky Me – apart from its built-in instability, flesh tones shifting from pink to orange, not only from scene to scene, but also shot to shot, compounded by film grain, intermittently amplified to egregious levels before coming back into line with then modern expectations.

For her part, Day was immensely unhappy with the script, insidiously charm-free and cobbled together by Irving Elinson, Robert O'Brien, James O'Hanlon and an uncredited Frank Davis. In her 1976 biography, Day lamented the picture, adding “Robert Cummings, Phil Silvers, Nancy Walker, and Eddie Foy, Jr., were all talented, funny people, but I knew by now that no amount of talent can overcome an inferior script, especially if it is a comedy.” Briefly considering suspension rather than acquiescing to the studio’s demands Day, on the counsel of a close friend, elected to trudge on, if for no other reason, then to round out her contractual obligations at Warner Bros. before effectively moving on as a freelance artist. And the studio did, at least, try and accommodate Day’s anxiety, pushing back the picture’s release date to allow her several weeks’ convalescence for her ‘nervous exhaustion’. Initially, the picture had been planned to reunite Gordon MacRae with his frequent co-star.  Alas, MacRae, already free of his Warner contract, was in talks with Michael Todd to appear in Oklahoma! (1955) and otherwise, quite unwilling to return to such inferior material. Thus, Robert Cummings, once thought of as an amiable leading man, who appeared to very good effect in several Hitchcock thrillers in the mid-40’s, was cast: Cummings’ star, already on the wane by the time he joined this cast.  

The film stars Doris Day as Candy Williams, a struggling musical performer in a traveling show headlined by gregarious Hap Schneider (Phil Silver, at his most inept and grating). Forced to become hotel servants, Candy and company are in for a delightful change of pace when she catches the eye of successful celebrity song writer, Dick Carson (Robert Cummings). Although Candy has no concept of how fortuitous her burgeoning romance with Dick will be, Hap is determined to manipulate the variables of their relationship to suit his own end. One problem; Dick is already practically engaged to the haughty Loraine Thayer (Martha Hyer), heiress to an oil baron’s monopoly. The solution: Dick casts Candy as the lead in his latest Broadway venture – a show he hopes Lorraine’s father, Otis (Bill Goodwin) will finance.

The first Warner musical to be shot in Cinemascope, director, Jack Donohue’s relative inexperience with its expansive widescreen aspect ratio results in some fairly abysmal, overly long sequences – and overly ‘close’ close-ups of all the principles – the effect quite stifling on the big screen as it plays into the ‘Cinemascope mumps’ – a horizontal elongation of facial features, exacerbated by the early one-focal Bausch & Lomb lenses used to squeeze the image during photography, then ‘un-squeeze’ it again in projection. At one point, Day’s cheeks swell to chipmunk proportions as she opens her mouth to sing – an unintentionally laughable moment. The screenplay plays like a comedic mishmash of snippets ripped from other movies all flung together.  Worse, the musical program is scant and largely in support of the comedy – though here to, the songs are just passable, and in some cases, as with the ‘Superstition Song’, well below par, making Lucky Me a very unlucky – and unworthy - experience indeed!

Warner Home Video’s anamorphic DVD exhibits an adequate transfer. It has already been duly noted that WarnerColor was a disastrous process, prone to muddy hues and some curious haloing effects that mimic, but are not, vintage Technicolor mis-registration errors, as WarnerColor was a monopack dye-transfer process. A lot of Lucky Me looks as though the original sparkle of vintage Technicolor has merely elapsed into a mid-range faded print, when, in reality, the image probably did not look all that much better when theatrically released.  Flesh tones are pasty orange. Film grain is also an issue, particularly during transitions – an inherent flaw in all early Cinemascope productions. Contrast is adequately realized, but black levels are sometimes more gray than black. Whites, generally clean, occasionally adopt a slight bluish tint. The audio is 5.1 Dolby Digital – recapturing the essence of early ‘scope’ 6-track stereo for the musical numbers, but much too overpowering when directly followed by non-directionalized dialogue that sounds horrendously thin and flat. Short subjects are the only extra feature.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

2

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

1