{ "id": "ep8wwbzbp5", "slug": "the-fuller-brush-girl", "title": "The Fuller Brush Girl", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance", "label": "Comedy and romantic films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1950s", "label": "Comedies of the 1950s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1950s" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1950s", "label": "United States · 1946 to 2000: Comedies of the 1950s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1950s", "path": [ { "id": "geo.us", "label": "United States", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946", "label": "United States · 1946 to 2000", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance", "label": "Comedy and romantic films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1950s", "label": "Comedies of the 1950s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1950s" } ] } ], "excerpt": "The Fuller Brush Girl is a 1950 Columbia Pictures slapstick comedy directed by Lloyd Bacon, starring Lucille Ball as door-to-door cosmetics saleswoman Sally Elliott opposite Eddie Albert, a follow-up to The Fuller Brush Man with a Red Skelton cameo.", "snippet": "The Fuller Brush Girl is a 1950 Columbia Pictures slapstick comedy directed by Lloyd Bacon, starring Lucille Ball as door-to-door cosmetics saleswoman Sally Elliott opposite Eddie Albert, a follow-up to The Fuller Brush Man with a Red Skelton cameo.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1950s", "markdown": "# The Fuller Brush Girl\n\n**The Fuller Brush Girl** is a 1950 American slapstick comedy from [Columbia Pictures](https://www.edgepedia.org/columbia-pictures) in which [Lucille Ball](https://www.edgepedia.org/lucille-ball) plays a scatterbrained door-to-door cosmetics saleswoman who stumbles onto a murder and becomes the prime suspect. Directed by [Lloyd Bacon](https://www.edgepedia.org/lloyd-bacon) and written by Frank Tashlin, it is a follow-up to Columbia's 1948 hit *The Fuller Brush Man*, which starred Red Skelton; Skelton appears briefly in the later film.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26327-THE-FULLER-BRUSH-GIRL?cxt=filmography)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Release | September 1950 (United States), Columbia Pictures Corp.; copyright registered 1 October 1950, LP441[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26327-THE-FULLER-BRUSH-GIRL?cxt=filmography) |\n| Director / writer | Lloyd Bacon; screenplay by Frank Tashlin[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26327-THE-FULLER-BRUSH-GIRL?cxt=filmography) |\n| Producer | S. Sylvan Simon, who had directed *The Fuller Brush Man*[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26327-THE-FULLER-BRUSH-GIRL?cxt=filmography) |\n| Stars | Lucille Ball (Sally Elliott), Eddie Albert (Humphrey Briggs), Carl Benton Reid, Gale Robbins, Jeff Donnell, Jerome Cowan, Lee Patrick[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26327-THE-FULLER-BRUSH-GIRL?cxt=filmography) |\n| Cameo | Red Skelton as Red Jones, the character he played in *The Fuller Brush Man* (1948)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26327-THE-FULLER-BRUSH-GIRL?cxt=filmography) |\n| Runtime / format | 85 to 87 minutes, black and white, Western Electric sound[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26327-THE-FULLER-BRUSH-GIRL?cxt=filmography) |\n| Audience rating | 6.6/10 on IMDb from about 1,300 votes[2](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042488/ratings/) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Plot\n\nSally Elliott and Humphrey Briggs want to marry and buy a house, but cannot afford it on their combined salaries at the Maritime Steamship Company, where Sally is a switchboard operator and Humphrey a file clerk. After the cargo supervisor is fired, Sally encourages the timid Humphrey to apply for the job. What neither of them knows is that Harvey Simpson, who runs the company, deals in smuggled diamonds and intends to fill the ex-supervisor's post with a foolish man, much like the meek Humphrey. On the strength of his new position, Humphrey puts a down payment on a house.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26327-THE-FULLER-BRUSH-GIRL?cxt=filmography)\n\nSally's friend Jane Bixby, a Fuller Brush saleswoman, demonstrates the cosmetics she sells at the office, and while trying them Sally blows up the switchboard and is fired.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26327-THE-FULLER-BRUSH-GIRL?cxt=filmography) Desperate for money, she borrows her friend's kit without permission and sells cosmetics door to door, with disastrous results. She and her fiancé become entangled in the smuggling scheme, Sally is suspected first of one murder and then a second, and the two dodge the police while trying to catch the real killers.[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042488/) The suspects include a stripper, Ruby Rawlings (Gale Robbins), and a hired killer, Rocky Mitchell (Fred Graham); Simpson's rich and jealous wife Claire (Lee Patrick) is drawn in when an accident leads her to assume her husband is cheating on her.[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fuller_brush_girl)\n\n## Production\n\nProducer S. Sylvan Simon had originally planned to buy [Red Skelton](https://www.edgepedia.org/red-skelton)'s contract from MGM to star him in a series of slapstick films at Columbia, but MGM refused. Skelton instead made a cameo appearance as a show of support for his friend Simon and for Ball, a fellow redhead he had worked with on screen.[5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/147397/the-fuller-brush-girl) Simon then turned to Ball, whom he had directed in *Abbott and Costello in Hollywood* (1945) and *Her Husband's Affairs* (1947), and after the latter failed at the box office he had promised her a better vehicle, delivering her *Miss Grant Takes Richmond* (1949) and then this film.[5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/147397/the-fuller-brush-girl)\n\n**Ball's contract and radio work.** At the time Ball had just signed to star in the CBS Radio comedy series *My Favorite Husband*, which let her perfect the comic scatterbrain she would become famous for on television. Her radio commitment left her free for film work, and a non-exclusive Columbia contract paid her a then-impressive $85,000 per picture.[5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/147397/the-fuller-brush-girl)\n\n**Crew and casting.** Simon brought back much of the production team from *Miss Grant Takes Richmond*: director Lloyd Bacon, cinematographer Charles Lawton Jr., and writer Frank Tashlin, this time taking sole screen credit. With [William Holden](https://www.edgepedia.org/william-holden), the earlier film's leading man, now a rising star at Paramount, the studio hired [Eddie Albert](https://www.edgepedia.org/eddie-albert), who was rebuilding his film career after serving in World War II.[5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/147397/the-fuller-brush-girl) The American Film Institute records production dates of 6 September to 15 October 1949,[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26327-THE-FULLER-BRUSH-GIRL?cxt=filmography) while the Fuller Brush Company's own archive at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History holds a shooting schedule dated 2 February 1950 and a revised final script dated 4 February 1950, alongside a January 1949 agreement with Columbia; the two records do not agree on when shooting occurred.[6](https://sirismm.si.edu/EADpdfs/NMAH.AC.1459.pdf)\n\n**Comic set pieces.** The film built routines around Ball's established persona, including a slapstick turn as a switchboard operator and a comic striptease in which she is chased into a burlesque house and must pretend to be one of the performers, echoing her role as a competitive stripper in *Dance, Girl, Dance* (1940).[5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/147397/the-fuller-brush-girl) Costumes were designed by Jean Louis; a pleated plaid skirt made for Ball in the film, labeled \"L. Ball\" and stamped by Western Costume Co., later surfaced at auction, described as worn through the last half of the film.[7](https://images1.bonhams.com/original?src=Images%2Flive%2F2019-11%2F15%2FS-25492-0-1.pdf) In a small uncredited role, voice actor [Mel Blanc](https://www.edgepedia.org/mel-blanc) supplied the parrot's voice.[8](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-fuller-brush-girl)\n\n## Reception and Ball's career afterward\n\nThe Fuller Brush Company itself promoted the picture: its corporate archive holds press clippings from September 1949 through December 1950, publicity events from October 1950, releases and endorsements signed by Ball, and promotional campaign materials handled by the agency Elser & Cothran.[6](https://sirismm.si.edu/EADpdfs/NMAH.AC.1459.pdf) The film was a big hit for Ball, but it proved to be her last slapstick film outing until after the success of *I Love Lucy*. When Simon died shortly after the film's release, Ball lost her champion at Columbia, and studio head Harry Cohn turned down every follow-up idea she proposed, including a slapstick script about a female baseball star and a proposed teaming with her husband [Desi Arnaz](https://www.edgepedia.org/desi-arnaz).[5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/147397/the-fuller-brush-girl)\n\nCohn briefly considered Ball for *Born Yesterday* (1950) after [Rita Hayworth](https://www.edgepedia.org/rita-hayworth) walked out on her contract, before giving the role to its stage originator, [Judy Holliday](https://www.edgepedia.org/judy-holliday). Ball was also among the stars who turned down the lead in *The Star* (1952), which brought [Bette Davis](https://www.edgepedia.org/bette-davis) an Oscar nomination; by then Ball was established on television, where *I Love Lucy* (1951 to 1957) made her television's most famous comedienne.[5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/147397/the-fuller-brush-girl) Later assessments have treated the film as an early showcase for the slapstick skills she had developed working with Buster Keaton during his days as a gag man at MGM,[5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/147397/the-fuller-brush-girl) and it holds a 6.6/10 rating on IMDb from about 1,300 users.[2](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042488/ratings/) Sony Pictures released a newly remastered edition on digital services, where it can be rented or purchased.[9](https://www.sonypictures.com/movies/thefullerbrushgirl)\n\n## References\n\n1. [The Fuller Brush Girl (1950), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26327-THE-FULLER-BRUSH-GIRL?cxt=filmography)\n2. [The Fuller Brush Girl (1950) – Ratings, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042488/ratings/)\n3. [The Fuller Brush Girl (1950), IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042488/)\n4. [The Fuller Brush Girl, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fuller_brush_girl)\n5. [Frank Miller, \"The Fuller Brush Girl,\" Turner Classic Movies article (2006)](https://www.tcm.com/articles/147397/the-fuller-brush-girl)\n6. [Guide to the Fuller Brush Company Records, NMAH.AC.1459, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution](https://sirismm.si.edu/EADpdfs/NMAH.AC.1459.pdf)\n7. [Bonhams auction catalog: A Lucille Ball skirt from The Fuller Brush Girl](https://images1.bonhams.com/original?src=Images%2Flive%2F2019-11%2F15%2FS-25492-0-1.pdf)\n8. [The Fuller Brush Girl streaming page, JustWatch](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-fuller-brush-girl)\n9. [The Fuller Brush Girl, Sony Pictures Entertainment](https://www.sonypictures.com/movies/thefullerbrushgirl)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1950s*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-fuller-brush-girl", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-fuller-brush-girl.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"The Fuller Brush Girl\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-fuller-brush-girl. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[The Fuller Brush Girl](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-fuller-brush-girl)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/the-fuller-brush-girl](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-fuller-brush-girl). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"The Fuller Brush Girl\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-fuller-brush-girl. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "The Fuller Brush Girl is a 1950 Columbia Pictures slapstick comedy directed by Lloyd Bacon, starring Lucille Ball as door-to-door cosmetics saleswoman Sally Elliott opposite Eddie Albert, a follow-up to The Fuller Brush Man with a Red Skelton cameo." }