Miss Grant Takes Richmond (1949)

A bookie uses a phony real estate business as a front for his betting parlor. To further keep up the sham, he hires dim-witted Ellen Grant as his secretary figuring she won't suspect any ... See full summary »

Director:

Lloyd Bacon

Writers:

Nat Perrin (screenplay), Devery Freeman (screenplay),

Stars:

Lucille Ball, William Holden, Janis Carter

Cast

Cast overview:
Lucille Ball	...	Ellen Grant
William Holden	...	Dick Richmond
Janis Carter	...	Peggy Donato
James Gleason	...	Timothy P. Gleason
Gloria Henry	...	Helen White
Frank McHugh	...	Mr. Kilcoyne
George Cleveland	...	Judge Ben Grant
Stephen Dunne	...	Ralph Winton

Storyline

A bookie uses a phony real estate business as a front for his betting parlor. To further keep up the sham, he hires dim-witted Ellen Grant as his secretary figuring she won't suspect any criminal goings-on. When Ellen learns of some friends who are about to lose their homes, she unwittingly drafts her boss into developing a new low-cost housing development.

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Plot Keywords:

character name in title

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Taglines:

She was never so insulted in all her life...and it was wonderful!

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Genres:

Comedy

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

20 September 1949 (USA)

Also Known As:

El empleo de la Srta. Grant

Company Credits

Production Co:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

87 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

"The Screen Guild Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on February 22, 1951 with William Holden reprising his film role.

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Quotes

Ellen Grant: I didn't think they'd pour the cement so fast.
Construction Foreman Roberts: Fast and hard, Miss Grant.

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Connections

Featured in The Lady with the Torch (1999)

User Reviews

Who's Taking Who?

When Lucille Ball did I Love Lucy few at the time suspected she had the comic talents she possessed. Her history up to then in films was usually as a wisecracking second banana in major films and some leading roles in B films.

And Miss Grant Takes Richmond is definitely a B film. Next year William Holden with Sunset Boulevard would step into the A list of players, but it wasn't his time yet. Holden proved to be a worthy foil for Lucy's comic antics.

The film is definitely Lucy's however. CBS executives must have seen Miss Grant Takes Richmond and seen what Lucy could do before passing on I Love Lucy as a television series.

There were some incidents that definitely could have come out of I Love Lucy. Her struggles with mastering the typewriter in secretarial school with Holden deftly catching a flying typewriter carriage, her dodging a steam shovel at a construction sight, her trying to use a jackhammer and the aftermath of that, all these could easily have been in any of her television series. Harbinger of things to come. Remember also that Bill Holden made a memorable appearance on I Love Lucy and got a pie in his face at the Brown Derby.

Lucy is a klutzy scatterbrained student at a secretarial school run by Charles Lane and Holden comes in looking to hire. To everyone's amazement he hires Lucy. He runs a scam real estate operation that is a front for a bookie joint. Her job is to basically babysit and commiserate with those who actually come in and are looking to buy property and shine them on. She doesn't know she's working for bookies, Bill Holden, Frank McHugh, and James Gleason.

Through her own wide-eyed Marie Wilson type view of the world before long she's got this trio actually building homes and trying to be bookies at the same time.

To see the Lucy Ricardo of the future by all means catch Miss Grant Takes Richmond.

If you don't, you'll have a lot of 'splaining to do.