The Fuller Brush Girl was Lucille Ball’s last major film before television, a comedy about a door-to-door saleswoman who witnessed a murder.
The Fuller Brush Girl was released in 1950, directed by Lloyd Bacon. Lucille Ball played Sally Elliott, a switchboard operator who took a job selling Fuller brushes door to door, with the help of her boyfriend, Humphrey, played by Eddie Albert. On her first day, Sally witnessed a murder, and the killers tried to silence her.
The film’s comedy came from Sally’s attempts to sell brushes in every kind of household, and from the slapstick that followed when she tried to escape the murderers. Ball’s physical comedy, which would become famous on television, was already at its peak: she fell, she struggled with props, and she kept the story moving with energy.
The Fuller Brush Girl was a success, and it was Ball’s last starring film role before I Love Lucy began in 1951. It remains a fitting bridge between her film career and her television career, showing the comic skills that television would soon make famous.