Lucy was meant for the small screen. She had dramatic skills--The Big Street--and comic timing. But she couldn't sing or even dance very well, and MGM didn't know what to do with her. The broader slapstick she later exploited to become a television legend is explored in this film. It's very broad, as a Frank Tashlin script usually is, although her spinning around the rails of the ship as a bar between two tires is over the top. What is exceptional is a very strong supporting cast--Eddie Albert as he love interest; John Litel, who played Nancy Drew's father in the movies, cast against type and surprisingly willing to become involved in the horseplay; Jerome Cowan and Gail Patrick, who appeared in The Maltese Falcon and a host of other Warner Brother mysteries and costume dramas, reunite for this mystery send-up; and Gale Robbins, also cast against type, although beginning to be the unlikeable diva she became in Calamity Jane, and actually singing "Put the Blame on Mame," which Rita Hayworth didn't do in Gilda four years before. Funny a lot of the time.
Review of The Fuller Brush Girl
