With a curious mix of comedy and melodrama, The Big Street features Lucille Ball in one of the best roles of her big-screen career. Playing up her image as a brassy gal who knows what she wants, Lucy's got a hard shell and a soft heart as Gloria Lyons, a self-centered nightclub singer who looks down upon the "little people" who enthusiastically support her career--none more than Augustus "Little Pinks" Pinkerton (Henry Fonda), a doting busboy so smitten with Gloria that he's willing to put up with her dismissive and blustery behavior. (If the movie has a major weakness, it's Pinkerton's puppy-like devotion; this is an unusually wimpy role for Fonda, whose character seems a little too tolerant of Gloria's abuse.) When Gloria is paralyzed after her mobster boss (Barton MacLane) knocks her down a flight of stairs, "Little Pinks" does all he can to speed her recovery, aided by friends and colleagues played by a fine supporting cast of RKO regulars including Agnes Moorehead, Ray Collins, and Eugene Pallette. Lucy's character may be unlikable but her performance is not; it's refreshing to see the future TV sitcom queen as a sassy and selfish diva, and Lucy gives the role a subtle dimension of sympathetic appeal. And while the movie's pitiful depiction of disability is typically maudlin from a more enlightened present-day perspective, The Big Street is noteworthy as a Damon Runyon production, based on Runyon's short story "Little Pinks" (originally published in Collier's magazine) and featuring several of the characters (like Pallette's Nicely-Nicely Johnson) who were later immortalized in Guys and Dolls and other tales of Runyonesque folly. With a strangely downbeat ending, The Big Street may not be a crowd-pleaser, but it's certainly worth watching as an unconventional showcase for its popular costars. Also available in The Lucille Ball Film Collection, this DVD includes two Warner Bros. short subjects from 1942: "Calling All Girls" is a 19-minute Vitaphone showcase for the lavish choreography of Busby Berkeley, featuring highlights from several major Broadway and Hollywood musicals; and "The Hep Cat" is a typically wacky "Merrie Melodies" cartoon, in which the title character will do just about anything to impress the kittenish object of his feline desires. --Jeff Shannon
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