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Forever, Darling
Year - 1956
Studio - MGM
Stars - Lucille Ball, Desi Arnez, James Mason, Louis Calhern
Director - Alexander Hall
Writing Credits - Helen Deutsch
Music - Bronislau Kaper
Synopsis
Susan (Lucille Ball) and Lorenzo Vega's (Desi Arnez) marriage begins happily and with much love, as most marriages do. Five years later, however, their relationship is strained, and Lorenzo's career as an insecticide chemist requires long hours away from home. The stress causes him to insult Susan's sister and brother-in-law at a dinner, and Lorenzo ends up sleeping in the den.
Alone in the bedroom, Susan sees a strange light pattern in the sky outside her window. It changes to the figure of a man who comes through the walls into her room. She tries to hide, but the smiling visitor follows wherever she goes.
Although the figure hasn't spoken to her, she believes that he is actually her guardian angel, and she tries to tell Lorenzo, her father (Louis Calhern) and a psychiatrist (John Emery), who all humor her. The visitor (James Mason) eventually talks to her, explaining that he had to wait until she had calmed down. He confirms that he is indeed her guardian angel, and has come to help her understand the precariousness of her marital situation. Susan challenges him, "If you're my angel, why do you look like James Mason?", and he tells her that he appears how she wants him to look. He adds that Lorenzo's guardian angel would look to him as Ava Gardner.
Lorenzo announces that he must leave on a field trip to test his insecticides in the outdoors, and Susan begs to go with him, hoping their being alone together will help heal their marriage.
Generally, everything that can go wrong, does go wrong on their camping trip. Lucy, I mean Susan, ties one tent rope to the car bumper, is frightened by an owl in their tent, accidentally inflates their raft inside the tent, punctures the raft when they're on the water, etc. Lorenzo angrily berates his wife for spoiling the outing.
Lorenzo's supervisors arrive at the camp to see see how his insecticide experiments are going. Susan's angel secretly replaces the insecticide powder with talc, so that his demonstration fails. Lorenzo realizes that he, too, is apparently fallible, and asks Susan's forgiveness for his temper. As they kiss and make up, the supervisors discover the error, and congratulate the happy Lorenzo on his success.
Trailer
Forever, Darling capitalized on the huge popularity of the I Love Lucy television show, presenting Lucy and Desi in widescreen and Technicolor. The film features a catchy Sammy Cahn/Bronislau Kaper theme song, "Forever Darling", sung over the credits by the Ames Brothers and by Desi in the story itself.