Dir: Amy Poehler. Starring: Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Lucie Arnaz, Bette Midler, Carol Burnett, Norman Lear. 12A, 103 minutes.
“I Love Lucy was never just a title,” wrote Desi Arnaz in his posthumous letter to ex-wife Lucille Ball. It was read out five days after his death, when Ball was fêted at the Kennedy Centre Honours. Cameras recorded Ball’s quiet, tear-stained reaction as she sat on a balcony, a medal draped around her shoulders, and watched the proceedings from above. The pioneering sitcom they made together was born out of love – an uncomplicated desire for husband and wife to work side by side and keep their family together. “You can’t have children on the telephone,” Ball would later joke.
