The Long, Long Trailer (1953)

The Long, Long Trailer
Directed by Vicente Minnelli
Written by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich from a novel by Clinton Twiss
1953/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Netflix rental

Mechanic: Think of it as a train behind you. Forty feet of train.

There are a couple of things that seem naturally funny so long as it is not you who are doing them.  One is restoring an old house.  The other is driving or living in a huge RV.

Nicky Collini (Desi Arnaz) and Tacy Bolton (Lucille Ball) are engaged to be married.  Nicky’s job will require them to move to Colorado and he will travel a lot from there.  The domestic Tacy decides that buying a trailer would be ideal because then she can make Nicky a home wherever he goes.  She has a trailer all picked out that will cost only a hundred dollars more than their annual budget.  Nicky is skeptical and wants to save for the down payment on a house.  Tacy is persistent and talks him into going to a motor home show.

Of course, the trailer she had picked out is impossibly small. She promptly falls in love with a 40-foot behemoth.  The couple start acquiring a mountain of debt, including a new, heavier car and modifications for the trailer hitch.  In the funniest scene in the movie, the man from the shop teaches Nicky how to haul the trailer.

The rest of the movie follows the Collinis on their honeymoon drive from the East Coast to Colorado.  It is one mishap after another.  Their adventures are both amusing and believable.  With Marjorie Main as the couple’s first neighbor and Keenan Wynne as a policeman.

I have thought of Desi Arnaz as basically a straight man but here he gets a lot of the gags and physical humor.  He does pretty well at it but the movie could possibly have used more from Lucy.  The film is an entertaining romp which I enjoyed.

Trailer