Sally Elliot (Lucille Ball) and boyfriend Humphrey Briggs (Eddie Albert) struggle to make the down payment for their dream home. Humphrey gets a surprise promotion but he's actually being setup as the fall guy by his boss. Sally's friend Jane is a Fuller brush girl selling cosmetics door-to-door. When Sally gets fired for blowing up the switchboard, she tries to join Jane as a Fuller brush girl but it leads to door-to-door misadventures.

Lucy is being the Full Lucy. She's hanging on a line, steamed like a roll, rolled like a wheel, drinking like a fish, and gets real blown up. I like babysitting and bad perms. The whole smuggling premise is convoluted and messy. It does allow her to do all crazy physical comedy. It would be funnier if it all flows directly out of her door-to-door sales. Humphrey is a side character and is almost unnecessary. This is all Lucy. She could have done this solo.

The one and only big screen teaming of Lucille Ball and Eddie Albert finds them as a pair of newlyweds wondering how they're going to make the payments on their dream house. Then Lucy gets the bright idea of getting a job as a Fuller Brush Girl. Just to show how good she is, she even takes her friend Jeff Donnell's sales route.

What I'm describing is typical Lucy Ricardo behavior and it brings typical Luc Ricardo results, all kinds of complications for everyone around her and much laughs for an audience.

The Fuller Brush Girl is like a dress rehearsal for I Love Lucy, she gets to try out some material that would become familiar on the small screen very shortly. From the beginning where she blows up a telephone switchboard to a drunk act straight from the classic Vitametavegimen routine, the film pulls out all the stops.

One thing that was different is that Eddie Albert being a different type than Desi Arnaz is far more passive and far more a victim in this film than Desi ever was.

Would you believe that poor Lucy who's just trying to make a little extra money winds up being accused of the murders of Albert's boss Jerome Cowan and his wife Lee Patrick? Frank Tashlin's script glides right into that with no effort. The twenty minute or so final chase scene on a freighter is a scream from start to finish.

Special mention should go to Mel Blanc who provided the voices for a pair of South American parrots who help as well as hinder Albert and Ball and provide a wonderful commentary on the proceedings. The Fuller Brush Girl is a must for fans of Lucy.

This was a nice surprise. I didn't know what to expect, but what I got was a lot of laughs. Sure, many of the gags were simple slapstick stuff but it worked. This was truly a funny movie and Lucille Ball and Eddie Albert made a great pair.

This film also was a good preview of what audiences were going to see down the road when Ball became super-famous on television. She plays a similar type of character: a well-meaning ditz who gets into one jam after another. Here, she winds up an innocent victim and has gangsters chasing her and Albert all over town.

I only wish this was out on DVD or even on a good VHS tape in the United States. With only a couple of reviews, apparently most people have never heard of it. It's worth seeing and owning, believe me.