DVD Here's Lucy - Best Loved Episodes from the Hit TV Series

Most of the programs in Best Loved Episodes feature one or another show-business legend, sometimes playing themselves, at other times portraying a fictional character. Among the latter, Milton Berle is a fount of wicked burlesque as a used-car salesman foisting a psychedelicized hunk of junk on Kim and Craig, and Helen Hayes is particularly memorable as a seemingly desperate and kooky Irish tourist who may be pulling a scam on Lucille's brother-in-law and boss, Harry (Ball's longtime comic foil, the great Gale Gordon). Burton and Taylor, playing themselves, prove wonderful sports in an episode where Lucille mistakes the Welsh master thespian for a plumber and gets Liz's enormous diamond ring stuck on her own finger. (The show features one of Ball's best bits, substituting her own, out-of-control left arm for Taylor's during a press junket.) Shelley Winters is equally playful as a movie star with a compulsive eating disorder; the slender Lucille is pressed into service as a watchdog over Winters's appetite. I Love Lucy co-star Vivian Vance has two welcome appearances as old friend Viv (both episodes make excellent use of Gordon's trademark powers of exasperation), and Jack Benny plays himself twice, once in a touching, funny episode in which he and Ball play people from different chapters of Benny's life. These old pros from radio, stage, and the Golden Age of Hollywood never lost a step. --Tom Keogh