Zeus

The Affairs Of Annabel (1938)

• Directors
  • Benjamin Stoloff
  • Lew Landers(uncredited)
• Writers
  • Bert Granet(screen play)
  • Paul Yawitz(screen play)
  • Charles Hoffman(story)
• Stars
  • Jack Oakie
  • Lucille Ball
  • Ruth Donnelly

  Lucille Ball landed her first starring comedy role in the mile-a-minute farce The Affairs of Annabel. Lucy of course plays the title character, a screwball movie actress who indulges in one wacky publicity stunt after another at the behest of her press agent Morgan (Jack Oakie). To promote an upcoming prison picture, Annabel gets herself arrested-and has quite a time extricating herself from behind bars. The limit comes when she gathers research for her next film by hiring on as a housemaid, culminating in a fake kidnapping that turns out to be the real thing. Matching Ball and Oakie laugh for laugh is Fritz Feld as a bombastic foreign director. Cowritten by future Desilu Studios executive Bert Grant, The Affairs of Annabel was popular enough to inspire an equally hilarious sequel, Annabel Takes a Tour.