It's on TCM now. Not even Robert Preston could save this from that frog-voiced, mugging, miscast Lucille Ball. It's terrible. As Little Glory would say, "It's ghastly! Simply ghastly!"
Mame, The worst musical film . Ever.
by Anonymous | reply 486 | May 13, 2025 4:12 AM |
Really, OP? I think you'll find your opinion is a distinct minority around here... At least among those here who've even heard of this film.
by Anonymous | reply 1 | April 27, 2025 8:00 PM |
The material was creaky by 1974 and that was emphasized by the casting of a creaky leading lady.
by Anonymous | reply 2 | April 27, 2025 8:02 PM |
Jane Connell was robbed of an Oscar!
by Anonymous | reply 3 | April 27, 2025 8:04 PM |
OP, I know you feel alone in this moment, but many of us have lived through what you're experiencing now.
by Anonymous | reply 4 | April 27, 2025 8:06 PM |
At the start of filming, Lucille invited Jane over for dinner. Gary was sitting there eating lobster and Lucille told her that the two of them would just be having leftovers.
by Anonymous | reply 5 | April 27, 2025 8:07 PM |
R5 Because Gary talked her out of serving the lobster.
by Anonymous | reply 6 | April 27, 2025 8:08 PM |
I like it. Bea and Jane are great and I don't think Lucy is the Trainwreck everyone says she is. It's not a great movie musical but it's not the worst.
by Anonymous | reply 7 | April 27, 2025 8:11 PM |
Now just wait a goddamn minute! This Lucy dame and I are going to have it out!
by Anonymous | reply 8 | April 27, 2025 8:12 PM |
Thank you, r8.
by Anonymous | reply 10 | April 27, 2025 8:14 PM |
[quote] I like it. Bea and Jane are great and I don't think Lucy is the Trainwreck everyone says she is. It's not a great movie musical but it's not the worst.
R7 Exactly how i feel. I adore it. A ridiculous, campy romp.
by Anonymous | reply 11 | April 27, 2025 8:17 PM |
Did she sing it as written? I hope so.
by Anonymous | reply 12 | April 27, 2025 8:18 PM |
Oh god. I just saw an episode of “Good Times” last night on TVOne that featured Jane Connell. It was the episode when Thelma writes a play that’s going to be produced (despite that talent never being mentioned before or after) and Connell spends the whole episode saying, “Mr. Nicholson suggests this change” and “Mr. Nicholson wants you to change this” and she must say it 50 times. Terribly written role and this was AFTER “Mame”.
And of course she is playing Sybil Gooley in the “All in the Family” episode when Edith is nearly raped.
by Anonymous | reply 13 | April 27, 2025 8:19 PM |
I wonder how Madeline Kahn would have fared as Gooch in this disaster. I guess she would have stolen scenes from Lucy which is why she was fired.
by Anonymous | reply 14 | April 27, 2025 8:22 PM |
it would have been better with Barbara Cason as the rich bitch
by Anonymous | reply 15 | April 27, 2025 8:26 PM |
I don't think Lucy's voice suits the score.
by Anonymous | reply 16 | April 27, 2025 8:30 PM |
There's only two reasons to watch this abomination, Bea Arthur, who steals every scene she's in, & to watch Lucille Ball make a complete fool of herself.
by Anonymous | reply 18 | April 27, 2025 8:33 PM |
I was NEVER in the chorus!
by Anonymous | reply 19 | April 27, 2025 8:35 PM |
MY song!
by Anonymous | reply 20 | April 27, 2025 8:36 PM |
Thanks r17!
by Anonymous | reply 21 | April 27, 2025 8:43 PM |
godDAMN but I want those pink lounging pajamas she’s frolicking in at r4!
i want to be BURIED in them! OPEN CASKET!
by Anonymous | reply 22 | April 27, 2025 8:47 PM |
I didnt realize that Andy Garvey was Mame's nephew.
by Anonymous | reply 23 | April 27, 2025 8:49 PM |
It would've been better with Helen Lawson.
by Anonymous | reply 24 | April 27, 2025 8:50 PM |
This topic is pretty well exhausted.
by Anonymous | reply 25 | April 27, 2025 8:52 PM |
"This topic is pretty well exhausted."
So was Lucy. That was the problem.
by Anonymous | reply 27 | April 27, 2025 8:55 PM |
Dreadful.
by Anonymous | reply 28 | April 27, 2025 9:12 PM |
R25. As is your attitude.
by Anonymous | reply 29 | April 27, 2025 9:23 PM |
“Cut!”
“Get me a cigarette. Get me two!”
by Anonymous | reply 30 | April 27, 2025 9:27 PM |
I was molested by a cool rider.
by Anonymous | reply 31 | April 27, 2025 9:33 PM |
The ONLY movie version of Mame to watch, is the version with Rosalind Russel. Superior in every way.
by Anonymous | reply 32 | April 27, 2025 10:01 PM |
R32. Except that wasn't a movie version of "Mame." That was "Auntie Mame"; two separate things.
by Anonymous | reply 33 | April 27, 2025 10:05 PM |
The old, tired Lucy.
by Anonymous | reply 34 | April 27, 2025 10:22 PM |
I rather liked the picture, actually.
by Anonymous | reply 35 | April 27, 2025 10:50 PM |
It needed someone younger and more glamorous...like little Suzanne Cupito.
by Anonymous | reply 36 | April 27, 2025 10:58 PM |
Lucy was the worst part of the film, but she wasn't the only bad thing. Neither Patrick was well-cast. The sets were lousy. The new orchestrations and musical direction were lacking (could "It's Today" be taken any slower???). And ultimately the direct is at fault for the total lack of energy throughout the film. It's hard to be screaming, "Live! Live! Live!" when you're in a wheelchair, attached to an IV line.
by Anonymous | reply 37 | April 27, 2025 11:04 PM |
YOU BLOW THE SHIT RIGHT OUTTA MY ASS... MAME
by Anonymous | reply 38 | April 27, 2025 11:05 PM |
A few challengers for worst movie musical of the Mame era:
the aforementioned Lost Horizon
Doctor Doolittle
A Little Night Music
Goodbye Mr. Chips
Star!
by Anonymous | reply 39 | April 27, 2025 11:07 PM |
Also John Huston's Annie and Sydney Lumet's Wiz
by Anonymous | reply 40 | April 27, 2025 11:10 PM |
The editing is a big part of the problem. Gene Saks was thinking too much like a stage director, leaving huge gaps for laughter and applause. It slows the pacing down.
by Anonymous | reply 41 | April 27, 2025 11:13 PM |
[quote]Doctor Doolittle
DOLITTLE, as in "do little" -- get it?
by Anonymous | reply 42 | April 27, 2025 11:36 PM |
R39 you forgot At Long Last Love
by Anonymous | reply 43 | April 27, 2025 11:38 PM |
I was a boy when a lot of those musicals came out. I love musicals and I thought they were God awful even as a child. Though I would like to give Goodbye Mr Chips another look simply because I remember Peter O'Toole being very wonderful. Star didn't even make it to the suburbs where I lived that's how bad it was. I love the lp I thought it was pretty terrific. Then I got to see the movie much later and I couldn't believe it was as bad as everyone said it was. Anyway it produced a great soundtrack album and souvenir book.
I saw Mame at Radio City and it's as though it was so horrible that they did it on purpose. You can't try to make a good movie and come up with that. The same with Lost Horizon. It's as if literally everybody in pre-production meetings was saying let's make a truly horrible movie musical. I mean was anybody looking at the dailies? Of course there are the people who think both of them are good movies and they really enjoy them and God bless them.
by Anonymous | reply 44 | April 27, 2025 11:55 PM |
The movie version of Mame has permanent place in my heart and I can watch it on an endless loop. My mom took me to see it in 1974 in Brooklyn. I was just a little kid and still remember that day like it was yesterday. It also lead to my interest in musical movies and musical theater. No I'm not a crazy theater queen but I do work in the entertainment industry on the finance side of the business. I've had a great career and met many amazing and famous people yes even Angela Lansbury many times but I never mentioned this movie to her. So thank you Lucy, Bea and Robert. I'm surprised it hasn't been remade. It's a great vehicle for some female star.
by Anonymous | reply 45 | April 28, 2025 12:15 AM |
Did Lucy get all of Jerry Herman’s pauses in the right places?
by Anonymous | reply 46 | April 28, 2025 12:32 AM |
Goodbye, Mr. Chips doesn’t really deserve to be mentioned with the other disasters. O’Toole gave a touching performance (different from Donat’s equally fine non-musical) and, while the score never really lifts, the school anthem is sweet and genuine (though I doubt a boys school would have “fill the world with love” back then), and Petula Clark is charming and moving by turns, and making her a music hall performer who can appreciate Chips’ qualities and life works for me. Sian Phillips (Mrs. O’Toole at the time) was droll playing an invented figure out of Beardsley and Firbank. It is a fair criticism to suggest the film didn’t need the songs, though it seems like a natural property for such adaptation. Am I right that John Mills did a stage version of the musical in England?
by Anonymous | reply 47 | April 28, 2025 12:45 AM |
My guess is that Mr. Chips still has some charms, r44. I think its main problem was that it was such a small story to musicalize.
by Anonymous | reply 48 | April 28, 2025 12:46 AM |
In Goodbye Mr Chips I hated the way Petula Clark was killed .
by Anonymous | reply 49 | April 28, 2025 12:49 AM |
Man of La Mancha
And it was so compelling on stage.
by Anonymous | reply 50 | April 28, 2025 12:49 AM |
OP, you'll find that while your view on Mame was fairly common 50 years ago. In the years following its release, saner heads have prevailed! Mame has been reassessed by a new generations who have appreciate it for the flawed masterpiece that it is. The biggest problem with Mama was a public who refused to allow Lucille Ball to play a New York sophisticate. They didn't want her singing Bosom Buddies with Bea Arthur, they wanted her working on a chocolate assembly line with Viv Vance. But with time and distance, critics throughout the world have reclaimed Mame for the warm and wonderful piece of family entertainment that it is. This does not mean that I am looking at the film through rose-colored glasses, and they primarily begin and end with Kirby Furlong! Where was Robbie Rist or Johnny Whitaker or even Brandon Cruz! Any of them would have been eons better than Kirby. Also, Jane Connell was way too old to be playing Gooch! Though, I think Madeline Kahn wasn't right for the part, certainly a younger musical theater trained actress such as Michele Lee or Beth Howland would have been terrific.
Was Lucy a little long in the tooth for the lead role? Maybe, but you have to admit the makeup, camera and lighting people did their work and made her look decades younger than her age. In It's Today Lucy doesn't look a day over 27 at least! Also, Lucy's excellent physicality and countenance gave the feeling of a much younger woman.
by Anonymous | reply 51 | April 28, 2025 1:13 AM |
Michele Lee? God only one of them, Ball or Lee, would have made it out of production alive.
by Anonymous | reply 52 | April 28, 2025 1:16 AM |
R41, exactly. When Bea Arthur makes her first appearance and speaks her guest line, it’s just dead air onscreen for several moments after.
by Anonymous | reply 53 | April 28, 2025 1:20 AM |
R50, it sure doesn’t help that Sophia Loren was not a singer and talks her way through the songs.
by Anonymous | reply 54 | April 28, 2025 1:21 AM |
R51 no—it was shit then, and remains shit to this day. So shitty that no one has bothered with any reassessment you claim to write of. From shit to shinola.
by Anonymous | reply 55 | April 28, 2025 1:23 AM |
Lucy was a good ten years too late to do Mame. Angela never would have gotten the part either at that point. Streisand would have gotten first dibs, then it would have been passed on to Shirley Maclaine, Liza, maybe even Liz Taylor.
Bea only did it because her husband was involved as director and guilted her into doing it as payback because they moved out West so she could do Maude. He was pissed because he was a HUGE deal in the NYC theater scene and didn't want to leave.
The movie musical Bea should have done was reprise her role in Fiddler on the Roof.
by Anonymous | reply 56 | April 28, 2025 1:27 AM |
R49. SPOILER ALERT!
by Anonymous | reply 57 | April 28, 2025 1:27 AM |
Petula Clark received good reviews for both Mr. Chips and Finian's Rainbow.
She probably would have been better than Julie Andrews or Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady.
by Anonymous | reply 58 | April 28, 2025 1:37 AM |
I am old and I will always love Lucy.....so I can take it.
Her scenes with the Upsons are fun.....and her scenes with the older Patrick when she lets him know how she really feels about what he has become have some bit and truth.....
And except for a few of the costumes - Lucy looks great.
Tell that broad to get her ass on that moon!!!
by Anonymous | reply 59 | April 28, 2025 1:43 AM |
bitE and truth......
by Anonymous | reply 60 | April 28, 2025 1:44 AM |
Mame is pretty bad but hardly the worst. CATS, MAN OF LA MANCHA, SONG OF NORWAY and many others are far worse.
by Anonymous | reply 61 | April 28, 2025 2:59 AM |
R58. Pet Clark was a serious contender to play Neely O'Hara. No. Really. She was.
by Anonymous | reply 62 | April 28, 2025 3:15 AM |
R63. Mrs. Brady was a shit singer. I'm glad I put Drano in her coffee before her big Christmas Morning solo...
by Anonymous | reply 64 | April 28, 2025 4:29 AM |
Mame was a shitty musical to begin with, but it did give us one of the all-time great torch songs.
by Anonymous | reply 65 | April 28, 2025 4:41 AM |
Pia Zadora would've made a better Mame!
by Anonymous | reply 66 | April 28, 2025 7:15 AM |
[quote]R56 Lucy was a good ten years too late to do Mame.
Far worse is the fact that she can’t sing, and croaks her way through the songs (?)
by Anonymous | reply 67 | April 28, 2025 7:34 AM |
In his scathing review of the movie, Rex Reed wrote of Lucille Ball, "Cut her in half and count the rings!"
by Anonymous | reply 68 | April 28, 2025 8:20 AM |
R44 here.
I've written here before that when I saw Mame at Radio City it was a Sunday afternoon. We waited on line for hours and got in and the place was packed. Imagine watching this thing with almost 6,000 people. Like being at an eagerly awaited public execution. I might as well have been a victim at the Spanish Inquisition. But and this is a very big but the audience enjoyed it immensely. They were singing and clapping along with the title number laughing throughout and even giving individual numbers applause. Then the movie went into general release and took a header off a cliff. Lucy never recovered.
You want an open casket wake? Watch Lucy singing It's Today on youtube.
by Anonymous | reply 69 | April 28, 2025 8:54 AM |
The film version of A Chorus Line is pretty dreadful. The only saving grace is Vicki Frederick and her amazing head of hair.
by Anonymous | reply 70 | April 28, 2025 12:37 PM |
R51 is either being ironic or delusional. This was an absolute turkey and I didn't first see it until a decade or so after it was released.
I'm guessing that during its Radio City run, it got the old Lucy fans who would watch her trying to deliver Chekov or Becket and therefore cheered on her attempt at singing---basically the old queens here who behave as though she was a great actress rather than a coarse B-movie filler.
by Anonymous | reply 71 | April 28, 2025 12:44 PM |
R41 And there was so much of it!
by Anonymous | reply 72 | April 28, 2025 1:34 PM |
[quote] Her scenes with the Upsons are fun....
In what way?
by Anonymous | reply 73 | April 28, 2025 1:38 PM |
I saw it the summer of the year it came out, at a big, old movie theater at the beach in Maine. There was a fairly decnt crowd there (it was the only movie in town and people went to whatever was playing), but I don't remember their reaction to the movie. It ws pretty strange for 15 year old me to see an approximately 50 year old pregnant woman singing "What do I Do Now?"
by Anonymous | reply 74 | April 28, 2025 1:54 PM |
[quote]Petula Clark received good reviews for both Mr. Chips and Finian's Rainbow.
"Finian's Rainbow" (directed by Francis Ford Coppola) is an underrated musical, and one of my favorites. Incredible score, and I loved three of the four main performances. The weak link is Tommy Steele, who hams it up as (and is MUCH too tall for ) Ogg.
by Anonymous | reply 75 | April 28, 2025 1:56 PM |
Unlike a lot of people I don't think the movie would have been improved a lot with Angela Lansbury. I didn't see her in the stage version but I did her on stage. Only one time, in Gypsy. She was great in it. But the movie of Mame was not well made, anyway. They got all kinds of things messed up. Angela would have been a much better Mame, of course, even if she was ten years older by that time--she was still young. But I don't know if they could have gotten people to go to it. She wasn't a box office draw, in movies. Anyway, I don't actually think even she could have saved this turkey. Not even Rosalind Russell could have. Angela always regretted publicly that she wasn't cast but she didn't realize how lucky she was.
by Anonymous | reply 76 | April 28, 2025 2:05 PM |
R75 The score and cast are good (and you're right about Tommy Steele) but they should have found a director who understood how to film a musical. From what I remember it wasn't a big budget, but I still think it could have been a lot better.
One thing I didn't get (but I saw this years ago, so I might be forgetting something). In the opening credits, why did Fred and Petula come from Ireland by way of the west coast, and travel across the US to get to a state in the south?
by Anonymous | reply 77 | April 28, 2025 2:12 PM |
[quote] I didn't see her in the stage version but I did her on stage.
Oops. Haha.
by Anonymous | reply 78 | April 28, 2025 2:14 PM |
[quote]why did Fred and Petula come from Ireland by way of the west coast, and travel across the US to get to a state in the south?
They got directions from the Von Trapps.
by Anonymous | reply 79 | April 28, 2025 3:02 PM |
Yeah, it sucks, but John Huston's Annie and Sidney Lumet's The Wiz are incredibly bad.
I don't mean just misguided, they are inept and poorly done.
by Anonymous | reply 80 | April 28, 2025 4:07 PM |
I blame Bernadette! She didn’t play the part, or sing, as written.
by Anonymous | reply 81 | April 28, 2025 4:13 PM |
Oh Jesus, I forgot about Man of La Mancha.
I will say that one of the reasons we Generation Joneses went nuts over Rocky Horror in the late 70s was that for many of ud it was the first GOOD new(ish) movie musical we'd seen, and we could see it in the theater instead of on TV chopped up with commercials.
by Anonymous | reply 82 | April 28, 2025 4:36 PM |
Xanadu wasn't too good, either, except about 5 or 10 minutes with Gene Kelly dancing with ONJ. And then there's Grease 2.
Grease (#1) was really horrible, too, in my opinion, though it seems to have become a "classic," now.
by Anonymous | reply 83 | April 28, 2025 4:44 PM |
And there's At Long Last Love, and one From the Heart.
by Anonymous | reply 84 | April 28, 2025 4:46 PM |
R82 Man of La Mancha is pretty much for James Coco’s Chubby Chaser Fan Club.
by Anonymous | reply 85 | April 28, 2025 4:46 PM |
The remake of State Fair (1962) directed by Jose Ferrer...it was not good, but it's like a masterpiece compared to Mame.
by Anonymous | reply 86 | April 28, 2025 4:49 PM |
Meh…
by Anonymous | reply 87 | April 28, 2025 4:51 PM |
Another bad musical is Paint Your Wagon.
A couple of people above mentioned At Long Last Love, but I'm in a tiny minority that likes that movie.
by Anonymous | reply 88 | April 28, 2025 4:53 PM |
Paint Your Wagon stunk. Clint made Lucy sound like Judy Garland
by Anonymous | reply 89 | April 28, 2025 5:20 PM |
[quote]and one From the Heart.
I like One From the Heart, r84.
by Anonymous | reply 90 | April 28, 2025 5:25 PM |
Lucy would have been great in HELLO, DOLLY!
by Anonymous | reply 91 | April 28, 2025 5:46 PM |
r91 But Walter Matthau was fine in the role.
by Anonymous | reply 92 | April 28, 2025 5:54 PM |
Call me a Big Ol' Mary, but I really like Mame and especially the big number at the grand house with all the men in riding costumes. It still gives me a thrill.
by Anonymous | reply 93 | April 28, 2025 6:15 PM |
Smarty r92! 😀
Dolly Levi would have been perfect for Lucy in 1968. The character is a schemer like Lucy Ricardo etc. and doesn't need to be a great singer.
Lucy was in fact included in Ernest Lehman's initial list of casting options. For Dolly, Lehman considered Lucy, Julie Andrews (probably trying to replicate his hit with her on Sound of Music ); Elizabeth Taylor, Maureen O'Hara and Carol Burnett. Crossed out on his list was Doris Day, who must have turned him down. Written in as an afterthought were Angela Lansbury and Deborah Kerr.
Lehman's list of Vandergelders is just as interesting: Jimmy Stewart, Rex Harrison, Richard Burton, Jackie Gleason, and Alec Guinness.
For Irene Molloy, Lehman considered Yvette Mimieux, Liza Minnelli, Mary Tyler Moore, Maggie Smith, Sally Ann Howes, Lee Remick, and Jane Fonda (!).
by Anonymous | reply 95 | April 28, 2025 6:34 PM |
It would have been better with Shelley Hack R66!
by Anonymous | reply 96 | April 28, 2025 6:41 PM |
[quote]Lucy would have been great in HELLO, DOLLY!
by Anonymous | reply 97 | April 28, 2025 6:41 PM |
Lucy as Dolly and Gale Gordon as Vandergelder. Just imagine!
by Anonymous | reply 98 | April 28, 2025 6:43 PM |
Talking about movie musicals, are Footloose and Flashdance considered to be musicals? They have singing and dancing, but none of the leads sing any songs.
by Anonymous | reply 99 | April 28, 2025 6:46 PM |
They're movies featuring people on screen dancing not singing, r99. Musicals have people on screen singing.
by Anonymous | reply 100 | April 28, 2025 6:55 PM |
R99 really?!
by Anonymous | reply 101 | April 28, 2025 6:56 PM |
I liked Goodbye, Mr Chips......especially Petula Clark and Sian Phillips [then Mrs. Peter O'Toole]: "Oh, darling, I adore early English perpendicular."
The scenes when O'Toole & Clark are falling in love in Greece are beautiful...as is the song.
And of course London IS London!
by Anonymous | reply 102 | April 28, 2025 7:18 PM |
Lucy croaking out the songs in her elderly, cigarette-ravaged voice was painful to hear.
by Anonymous | reply 103 | April 28, 2025 7:20 PM |
[quote]“Cut!”
[quote]“Get me a cigarette. Get me two!”
Right away, Miss Ball.
by Anonymous | reply 104 | April 28, 2025 7:26 PM |
Ann Margaret tested for Irene Molloy. Her screen test was up on YouTube for a bit.
by Anonymous | reply 105 | April 28, 2025 7:35 PM |
R83- Grease (1978) was a fun B movie 🎥 musical but Can’t Stop The Music (1979) and St Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band ( 1978) really were HORRIBLE.
by Anonymous | reply 106 | April 28, 2025 7:35 PM |
Tommy
by Anonymous | reply 107 | April 28, 2025 7:39 PM |
[quote] I've had a great career and met many amazing and famous people yes even Angela Lansbury many times
MARY!-est sentence of the month!
by Anonymous | reply 108 | April 28, 2025 7:41 PM |
One of the weirdest things about the movie for me is the actual house they used for the Beekman Place apartment set. It was designed to look like a fucking mausoleum, so the scenes of people wildly having fun there look like they're in a horror movie.
by Anonymous | reply 109 | April 28, 2025 7:43 PM |
Song of Norway
by Anonymous | reply 110 | April 28, 2025 7:44 PM |
[quote]R95 For Irene Molloy, Lehman considered Yvette Mimieux, Liza Minnelli, Mary Tyler Moore, Maggie Smith, Sally Ann Howes, Lee Remick, and Jane Fonda (!).
I read that Ann-Margret really wanted that part. I don’t know why Gene Kelly went for an unknown instead. I’m not an AM fanatic, but she can sing and dance.
by Anonymous | reply 111 | April 28, 2025 7:46 PM |
[quote] Paint Your Wagon stunk. Clint made Lucy sound like Judy Garland.
And Lee Marvin made Clint sound like Risë Stevens.
by Anonymous | reply 112 | April 28, 2025 7:47 PM |
[quote]r107 - Tommy
Tommy was nominated for best picture. You may not like it, but it's not a bad movie.
by Anonymous | reply 113 | April 28, 2025 7:50 PM |
She would have been perfect with an age-appropriate Dolly, r111.
by Anonymous | reply 114 | April 28, 2025 7:53 PM |
R108 I was the asst. to the second barista who made cappuccino on the MSW.
Be careful!
by Anonymous | reply 115 | April 28, 2025 7:55 PM |
I liked it r113. I threw it out there to see what others thought
by Anonymous | reply 116 | April 28, 2025 7:59 PM |
[quote]Ann Margaret
Oh, dear.
by Anonymous | reply 117 | April 28, 2025 8:00 PM |
No you didn’t R116
by Anonymous | reply 118 | April 28, 2025 8:01 PM |
It's such a shame that Judy Garland wasn't in good enough shape to do the original Auntie Mame on Broadway and then the film. She would've been absolutely perfect if she'd been able to stay off the pills and keep her shit together.
by Anonymous | reply 119 | April 28, 2025 8:09 PM |
Don’t you think the concentration of people who know Ann-Margret auditioned for a supporting role in HELLO, DOLLY! is probably higher here than anywhere else in the universe?
by Anonymous | reply 120 | April 28, 2025 8:16 PM |
If the moon shit electricity, civilization would survive another 20,000 years. But it doesn’t, so we won’t.
by Anonymous | reply 121 | April 28, 2025 8:16 PM |
Far be it from me to hold up Clint Eastwood as a singer, but pitted against Lucille Ball he wins hands-down. His voice is untrained, but musical.
by Anonymous | reply 122 | April 28, 2025 8:17 PM |
He's no Lee Marvin, r122.
by Anonymous | reply 123 | April 28, 2025 8:19 PM |
He's not even a Pierce Brosnan!
by Anonymous | reply 124 | April 28, 2025 8:21 PM |
[quote]R119 It's such a shame that Judy Garland wasn't in good enough shape to do the original Auntie Mame on Broadway and then the film. She would've been absolutely perfect if she'd been able to stay off the pills and keep her shit together.
Conversely, she should have leaned into her addiction and done Mary Tyrone, Blanche Dubois, Martha in VIRGINIA WOOLF, etc. Why not? At least it would have been truthful.
Perhaps she could even stretch herself to sing alcoholic Birdie in Blitzstein’s opera REGINA.
by Anonymous | reply 125 | April 28, 2025 8:31 PM |
Don't forget "At Long Last Love," another now lamented misunderstood "masterpiece." Another badly sung, acted, directed, and costumed cinematic turd.
by Anonymous | reply 126 | April 28, 2025 8:47 PM |
Judy Garland as Martha in Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf. Can you even imagine how insane that would've been?
by Anonymous | reply 127 | April 28, 2025 9:01 PM |
I read that Judy was approached with a major revival of THE SHANGHAI GESTURE, with Liza to play heroin addict daughter Poppy.
The new songs wouldn’t come together, though.
by Anonymous | reply 128 | April 28, 2025 9:03 PM |
The Little Prince (1974)
by Anonymous | reply 129 | April 28, 2025 9:10 PM |
MARTHA …….. Judy Garland
GEORGE …….. Henry Fonda
NICK …….. Clint Eastwood and/or Burt Reynolds
HONEY …….. Connie Stevens*
——————————-
* Please Note: Miss Stevens must wrap production by May 15, as she is to go into “My Fair Lady” immediately after.
by Anonymous | reply 130 | April 28, 2025 9:17 PM |
Connie got the part, but for Eliza, George Cukor also considered newcomer Donna Douglas.
by Anonymous | reply 131 | April 28, 2025 9:36 PM |
Typical Cukor and his blonde casting couch...
by Anonymous | reply 132 | April 28, 2025 9:42 PM |
I saw “Mame” at the historic Ohio Theatuh as a 9-year old in 1974. The mood was joyless and funereal as we exited, but I recall, and gave credit to our packed house that stuck it out. I never realized that Patrick Labyorteaux was the swearing grand nephew in the closing scene prior to watching on TCM. Why did they cast that blank slate tubby boy as young Patrick?!
by Anonymous | reply 133 | April 28, 2025 9:58 PM |
Frankly, other than Robert Preston the entire movie was miscast!
by Anonymous | reply 134 | April 28, 2025 10:36 PM |
Do you like gin, Mamie?
Love I it!
Great - after dinner we'll get out the cards and have a game!
Some of the best lines from the play were left out!
by Anonymous | reply 135 | April 29, 2025 1:29 AM |
Barbra probably didn't want that cheap whore Annie Margaret to steal her thunder.
by Anonymous | reply 136 | April 29, 2025 1:40 AM |
OP, the movie and Lucy's performance have many tremendous flaws, but it's simply not true that Lucy "mugs" through it. If anything, one of the big problems is the opposite: She plays much of the role with a somewhat tired "grande dame" affect, not enough life and youth and personality.
by Anonymous | reply 137 | April 29, 2025 1:42 AM |
R8 I never miss a Liv Ullmann musical!
by Anonymous | reply 138 | April 29, 2025 1:43 AM |
R126 It's been mentioned a couple of times.
by Anonymous | reply 139 | April 29, 2025 2:16 AM |
R130 Henry Fonda was first choice and was offered the part of George in the original Broadway show but his agent turned it down. When he heard about it, he fired his agent.
I can't see Juidy Garland in the role of Martha at all. Maybe that's supposed to be a joke.
by Anonymous | reply 140 | April 29, 2025 2:20 AM |
Edward Albee wanted Bette Davis as Martha. That would've been perfect since Bette pretty much WAS Martha IRL.
by Anonymous | reply 141 | April 29, 2025 2:28 AM |
I tried to watch it. But I couldn’t take her hoarse voice and had to stop watching. She just sounded so bad.
by Anonymous | reply 142 | April 29, 2025 2:35 AM |
OP Actually Scorsese's New York NY is worse. I couldn't make it to the end. In the first 5 minutes you want Minnelli to run away from De Niro. He's not the least bit charming or sexy. And over the next 90 minutes they're yelling, screaming and whacking away at one another. It's exhausting and not the least bit entertaining.
Also, unwatchable and therefore worse than Mame is Peter Bogdanovich's At Long Last Love; it's embarrassingly bad and for the most part the acting is like something out of a mediocre high school production.
Ditto Xanadu which is headache inducing.
In comparison to all of the above, Mame seems professionally made
by Anonymous | reply 143 | April 29, 2025 2:45 AM |
[quote]R140 I can't see Judy Garland in the role of Martha at all. Maybe that's supposed to be a joke.
It’s easier to picture after you’ve heard her drunken memoir recordings.
by Anonymous | reply 144 | April 29, 2025 3:02 AM |
r143 I saw New York New York in its original release version. Supposedly it was 2 hours and 35 minutes, but I swear whatever I saw was much longer.
by Anonymous | reply 145 | April 29, 2025 3:02 AM |
R144 there's a recording of Ura Hagen doing Martha and her drunk scenes sound very much like those Judy recordings
by Anonymous | reply 146 | April 29, 2025 3:34 AM |
I think the problem with Xanadu is that it's so damn dull.
by Anonymous | reply 147 | April 29, 2025 3:37 AM |
It’s dull and ONJ couldn’t act worth a damn.
by Anonymous | reply 148 | April 29, 2025 3:50 AM |
[quote]Mame has been reassessed by a new generations who have appreciate it for the flawed masterpiece that it is
Only in your I Love Lucy fever dream. No one has reassessed except for those who say it's possibly worse than when it came out.
I like Goodbye, Mr. Chips. I didn't see a reason to update the timeline to the Second World War. But I love late Victorian, Edwardian, and WWI stuff.
I don't like Man Of La Mancha, but I didn't like the show either. But Peter O'Toole elevated every movie he was in.
[quote]Angela would have been a much better Mame, of course, even if she was ten years older by that time--she was still young.
Angela Lansbury looked old from the time she hit 25. And it showed up on screen. Rosalind Russell was too old. Mame was 35, tops. As with Rose in Gypsy, they keep casting women too old for the movie versions. What works on stage from a distance, never works in movies. Maggie Smith would have made an outstanding Mame. The movie still would have sucked because the musical mostly sucks, but she would have been great.
As for Judy Garland as Martha, it may have been thrown out there as a joke, but there's a real good chance she would have killed the part. You don't have to consider her problems with addiction to see her in the role. I never heard any of those tapes, but she proved her acting chops many times. If you can't see her as a love-starved, raging harridan with a very fragile core, you have a serious lack of imagination. Don't get me wrong, WAOVW is a phenomenal movie, and the cast is outstanding. But if were entertaining some alternative casting, Garland would have been a interesting choice.
As for Dolly? How old is she supposed to be. Streisand doing a Mae West imitation was cringeworthy. Shirley MacLaine and Debbie Reynolds were probably also too young. If you don't have a be a great singer, did anyone consider Ava Gardner?
by Anonymous | reply 149 | April 29, 2025 3:55 AM |
Angela Lansbury looked old from the time she hit 18.
FIFY
by Anonymous | reply 150 | April 29, 2025 4:04 AM |
R145 - NY, NY was later extended yet another 10 minutes a few years after its release.
There was an elaborate "Happy Endings" number near the end that was reduced to about a minute or two during the original release, but years later Scorsese got the number restored to the intended length.
Now the movie runs (some would say limps along) 163 minutes.
by Anonymous | reply 151 | April 29, 2025 4:18 AM |
[quote]r149 As for Dolly? How old is she supposed to be. ... If you don't have a be a great singer, did anyone consider Ava Gardner?
I've always thought Dolly was living by her wits because she didn't have the luxury of relying on her looks. I think the role was originated by Ruth Gordon, who's no knock out.
I'd think Ava Gardner at any age is probably too beautiful for the role.
by Anonymous | reply 152 | April 29, 2025 4:18 AM |
You're correct, r152. She opened on Broadway. Shirley Booth did the role on film.
by Anonymous | reply 153 | April 29, 2025 7:29 PM |
[quote]As for Judy Garland as Martha, it may have been thrown out there as a joke, but there's a real good chance she would have killed the part.
If she had held on a little longer, how about Marylin Monroe as Martha? And it would have great if she could have teamed up with Jack Lemmon again, in "Days of Wine and Roses".
by Anonymous | reply 154 | April 29, 2025 7:30 PM |
^ Marilyn
by Anonymous | reply 155 | April 29, 2025 7:31 PM |
R154, I hope you're joking, because the idea of Marilyn Monroe (of all people!) as Martha in Virginia Woolf is beyond ridiculous.
by Anonymous | reply 156 | April 29, 2025 8:35 PM |
R149 Judy Garland didn't have the right toughness for either Martha or Helen Lawson she was too tremulous and vulnerable.
by Anonymous | reply 157 | April 29, 2025 8:59 PM |
Marilyn Monroe was too attractive for Martha, who was a slovenly frump.
by Anonymous | reply 158 | April 29, 2025 9:02 PM |
R158 In 1966 Liz Taylor was too attractive for Martha. It was a shock when she was cast.
Albee wanted Bette Davis. And Uta Hagan played the role on B'Way and she was no beauty either.
But Taylor gained 30 pounds for the role and wore makeup designed to age her and gave a performance that was unlike anything she had done before.
by Anonymous | reply 159 | April 29, 2025 9:47 PM |
The salt'n'pepper hair helped.
by Anonymous | reply 160 | April 29, 2025 9:50 PM |
Yeah, Ava Gardner probably isn't a good choice. I was thinking of her in Night Of The Iguana. She was a "broad" in that movie, but yeah, still too pretty.
No one jumped on Maggie Smith for Mame? I still think that would have been a great choice.
by Anonymous | reply 161 | April 29, 2025 10:30 PM |
She'd recently done Travels With My Aunt, r161.
by Anonymous | reply 162 | April 29, 2025 10:32 PM |
Which was just on TCM, R162. She was great in that movie.
by Anonymous | reply 163 | April 29, 2025 10:35 PM |
I read a press release in 1985, r163. They were going to renovate the Wiltern Theatre in LA and turn it back into a theatrical venue. The plan was to open with Maggie in Auntie Mame. They renovated the theatre but it's not used for theatrical productions. It's too bad that fell through.
by Anonymous | reply 164 | April 29, 2025 10:44 PM |
[quote]In 1966 Liz Taylor was too attractive for Martha. It was a shock when she was cast.
Liz Taylor could do slovenly and unattractive, Marilyn couldn't.
by Anonymous | reply 165 | April 29, 2025 10:46 PM |
I never like anything LB did except for ILL. She's not a good actress, and that movie especially was not a good fit. She was simply too old, and they did the whole thing in soft focus which was horrible. Ironically the Auntie Mame version with Roslin Russell is one of my all time favorite movies, and I thought she was amazing in it. She's one of those tired old popular actors that was given roles well beyond her range - like the number of songs Frank Sinatra sang that he completely ruined. Stay in your lane and thank the Universe you were given the chance.
by Anonymous | reply 166 | April 29, 2025 10:54 PM |
I think Monroe was very shrewd about her image. When she finally produced her own movies, she chose to play gentle, winsome characters.
I don’t see her wanting to play a bloodthirsty barracuda like Martha.
Was NIAGARA the only time she played a villain?
by Anonymous | reply 167 | April 29, 2025 10:57 PM |
R167, she also played the bad gal in Don't Bother to Knock
by Anonymous | reply 168 | April 29, 2025 11:08 PM |
She wasn't bad, r168, she was disturbed.
by Anonymous | reply 169 | April 29, 2025 11:20 PM |
"I'm sorry I was ever part of this movie."
"IT WAS A TOTAL HORROR!!!!"
-Bea being interviewed about Mame
by Anonymous | reply 170 | April 29, 2025 11:20 PM |
R164 made that up.
by Anonymous | reply 171 | April 29, 2025 11:27 PM |
R164. Nice to see Randy Rainbow sold out...
by Anonymous | reply 172 | April 30, 2025 12:16 AM |
R169 ...she was just drawn that way.
by Anonymous | reply 173 | April 30, 2025 12:31 AM |
[quote]Liz Taylor could do slovenly and unattractive,
Preaching to the choir.
by Anonymous | reply 174 | April 30, 2025 12:35 AM |
[quote]Liz Taylor could do slovenly and unattractive, Marilyn couldn't.
Before Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, when did Liz Taylor ever play slovenly and unattractive in a film?
by Anonymous | reply 175 | April 30, 2025 12:45 AM |
“Mame” cries for a more creditable remake, even if it’s with stunt casting and presented on Thanksgiving.
by Anonymous | reply 176 | April 30, 2025 12:51 AM |
It would be good with age apropos casting with Beyoncé or Adele. Maybe even the “Wicked” girls.
by Anonymous | reply 177 | April 30, 2025 12:59 AM |
1985, r171... it was in Drama-Logue.
by Anonymous | reply 178 | April 30, 2025 1:03 AM |
Lucille Ball definitely could act when she was younger. She just didn’t seem to think she had to act in Mame. She basically just played Lucy with a brown wig.
Only a gravel voiced Lucy in that wig with her facial skin clipped back and seen thru a greasy lens was just pathetic. I actually feel kind of sorry for her because of the humiliation she went through… but she brought it on herself.
by Anonymous | reply 179 | April 30, 2025 1:41 AM |
[quote] I can't see Juidy Garland in the role of Martha at all. Maybe that's supposed to be a joke.
Judy Garland could have been amazing in it. But you’re right, Judy’s distant cousin, Juidy, would have been lousy.
by Anonymous | reply 180 | April 30, 2025 2:27 AM |
r180, I saw Juidy in Antigone and she was marvelous.
by Anonymous | reply 181 | April 30, 2025 2:30 AM |
[quote] Before Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, when did Liz Taylor ever play slovenly and unattractive in a film?
Yes. It came later with the likes of X, Y, and Z.
And even later John Belushi characterized what everyone was thinking.
by Anonymous | reply 182 | April 30, 2025 4:32 AM |
If there had been one titled-
Joanie Love Chaci- The Musical
That would be the worst musical film ever.
by Anonymous | reply 183 | April 30, 2025 4:41 AM |
I saw At Long Last Love twice at Radio City. Why? Because it had a gorgeous production design and beautiful photography which movies no longer had and it was wonderful looking at Radio City. Unlike Mame which looked like dog poop on a NY street. Lucy's Santa mask made her look like she was in a slasher film. The second time I saw ALLL there it had been cut. I have no idea why. Word was already out that it was a turkey and they cut a song I actually liked a duet for Cybil and Madeline "I Loved Him."
by Anonymous | reply 184 | April 30, 2025 8:55 AM |
Chachi!
by Anonymous | reply 185 | April 30, 2025 11:24 AM |
I don't know why Lucy never remade the movie 'Hello Dolly' in the early 80s after her success with 'Mame'.
by Anonymous | reply 186 | April 30, 2025 12:09 PM |
R152, R153 Tornton Wilder's original version was called The Merchant of Yonkers. It starred Jane Cowl as Dolly. That was in the 1930s. Tom Ewell played Cornelius. TW revised it as The Matchmaker in the 1950s. It played the Edinburgh Festival and in Europe for a while before coming to Broadway. (Sam Levene played Vandergelder in the European production). Arthur Hill played Cornelius. the screen version (since she wasn't a movie star, at the time).
Garson Kanin said Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn offered to co-star with Gordon in a film, since they felt she was so good in the part (and she was not a film star at the time).
by Anonymous | reply 187 | April 30, 2025 3:49 PM |
[quote]Garson Kanin said Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn offered to co-star with Gordon in a film, since they felt she was so good in the part (and she was not a film star at the time).
It worked for Judy Holliday.
by Anonymous | reply 188 | April 30, 2025 3:58 PM |
Yeah I mean they offered to play Vandergelder and Irene Malloy, so the film could be made with Gordon as Dolly.
by Anonymous | reply 189 | April 30, 2025 4:16 PM |
Katharine Hepburn was way too old to play Irene Molloy by the time the film of THE MATCHMAKER was made, and would arguably have been wrong for the part even if she were much younger.
by Anonymous | reply 190 | April 30, 2025 4:24 PM |
R190 Hepburn was too old for a lot of her parts. She was too old to play the part she played in The Rainmaker. Too old to play the athlete she played in Pat and Mike (she was in her mid-40s).
by Anonymous | reply 191 | April 30, 2025 4:31 PM |
R190 Anyway the point is, these two people were the ones offering their friend a chance to have a movie version of her performance (no one else was).
by Anonymous | reply 192 | April 30, 2025 4:35 PM |
Whenever anyone says Oh, So-and-so would have been a great Martha! I ask if so-and-so could do these scenes.
by Anonymous | reply 193 | April 30, 2025 7:59 PM |
r190, I'm going to guess that that poster is confusing Judy Holliday for Gordon. Ruth wasn't a film star per se, but she'd done films. She played Mary Todd Lincoln in Abe Lincoln in Illinois in 1940. She played Dolly on TV in 1954.
by Anonymous | reply 196 | April 30, 2025 9:35 PM |
Myrtle Fargate, again?
Always picking on poor Mary Todd Lincoln…
by Anonymous | reply 197 | April 30, 2025 9:52 PM |
R193 So are you saying only Elizabeth Taylor could do those scenes?
by Anonymous | reply 198 | April 30, 2025 10:02 PM |
Thanks, R196, I had no idea there was a TV version of THE MATCHMAKER with Ruth Gordon.
by Anonymous | reply 199 | April 30, 2025 10:03 PM |
No, R198, the poster in question did NOT say that only Elizabeth Taylor could do those scenes. My interpretation of what he wrote was that many of the actresses suggested for the role of Martha could probably not play those scenes as well.
by Anonymous | reply 200 | April 30, 2025 10:04 PM |
Watching this now. Thanks to you bitches.
by Anonymous | reply 201 | April 30, 2025 10:14 PM |
R196 No one could confuse Ruth Gordon and Judy Holliday.
In the book, Tracy and Hepburn, Garson Kanain (who was married to Ruth Gordon), said that, after seeing their friend Ruth in The Matchmaker, Spencer and Kate offered to play in a film version, if only that would get it made. It had zero to do with Judy Holliday appearing in Adam's Rib (in 1949).
Before the 1960s, Ruth Gordon was an occasional supporting actress in films. She was a stage star. I don't see what's hard to understand about this. That's why Shirley Booth did it on film. She was an Academy Award winner and well known after winning an Osacr.
by Anonymous | reply 202 | April 30, 2025 10:14 PM |
I read that Lucy and Bette Davis, among others, did that temporary facelift thing where the skin was pulled back with elastic straps and then the straps were covered with a wig. It sounded quite painful.
by Anonymous | reply 203 | April 30, 2025 10:18 PM |
Patrick certainly is a plump little boy.
by Anonymous | reply 204 | April 30, 2025 10:22 PM |
"Why don't you do it as a movie?" Spencer said casually.
"I certainly would love to, but who's do it with me? It's bound to be an expensive picture and I'm not a movie star."
"I am," said Spencer, "And so is Zasu Pitts, here. And we've got an idea. We'd like to do it with you. How about that?"
Ruth's lips parted. Her eyes widened. She could not speak. Spencer went on.
"I could play that guy, couldn't I? Vandergelder? And she'd be marvellous as the milliner. And you play your part. Who'd turn it down?"
What made the proposal so astonishing was that two great stars were offering to play supporting roles for someone they admired.
Ruth was in tears.
--Garson Kanin, Tracy and Hepburn
by Anonymous | reply 205 | April 30, 2025 10:29 PM |
Aaron Sorkin needs to do a sequel to Being the Ricardos about the making of Mame. I’m sure Nicole would be up for it.
by Anonymous | reply 206 | April 30, 2025 10:37 PM |
R113, Ken Russell’s Tommy was not a Best Picture nominee. Though Ann-Margret was nominated for Best Actress.
by Anonymous | reply 207 | April 30, 2025 11:17 PM |
I don’t think Judy Garland would ever have played someone as vulgar as Martha. I agree she had the potential to be brilliant in the role but I don’t think she would’ve had the courage to do it.
by Anonymous | reply 208 | April 30, 2025 11:21 PM |
I was molested by Virginia Woolf.
by Anonymous | reply 209 | April 30, 2025 11:24 PM |
You have to remember that we're seeing Elizabeth Taylor's performance after the fact. There was a lot of surprise when she was cast.
The role of Martha originated with Uta Hagen, one of the great stage actresses. Casting Liz Taylor in the role seemed to be a joke to many.
None of her previous films indicated that she could tackle the role of Martha.
by Anonymous | reply 210 | April 30, 2025 11:31 PM |
At Long Last Love was recut by Bogdanovich before his passing. It's on Blu-Ray and it got good reviews when released.
by Anonymous | reply 211 | April 30, 2025 11:48 PM |
Yes I have not seen ALLL since I saw it at Radio City. I heard it had been recut. Unfortunately by the time I got a bluray player it was sold out and used copies are going for a lot of money. To be honest the audience at Radio city seemed to enjoy it. At least it was not restless as it was at 1776 which seemed to drag on forever. I mean we are talking about an audience of thousands of bored people. I mean(I know I am going to be flamed for this)but who wants to be trapped in the chamber of the continental congress for more than two hours with a bunch of Broadway hams? And I say this as a boy who played the obc constantly before the film came out.
by Anonymous | reply 212 | May 1, 2025 12:07 AM |
I thought people liked 1776. Every 4th of July, people online post about how it’s time to watch it.
by Anonymous | reply 213 | May 1, 2025 12:21 AM |
I think 1776 is one of those shows that really works better onstage—being in “the room where it happened,” so to speak. Plus, while some of the actors with film experience (Daniels, da Silva) know how to adapt their performances from the distance of the stage. Others, like Ron Holgate (who won a Tony onstage), alas, do not.
by Anonymous | reply 214 | May 1, 2025 12:31 AM |
R35 is Desi Jr., always trying to placate The Monster at home.
by Anonymous | reply 215 | May 1, 2025 12:49 AM |
Ok Queens stop with the acronyms "I never like anything LB did except for ILL" half the time I have no idea what you are talking about. The theater Queens on other boards do the same thing and most of us are like "huh" wtf?
by Anonymous | reply 216 | May 1, 2025 1:01 AM |
I remember Lucy had "Funny Girl" lined up as her next major movie musical after 'Mame'. Desi talked her out of it.
by Anonymous | reply 217 | May 1, 2025 1:36 AM |
R216 Thanks. It drives me crazy.
by Anonymous | reply 218 | May 1, 2025 1:45 AM |
I love Ralph Burns' orchestrations/arrangements of the music and background score in the movie. The opening titles by legendary Wayne Fitzgerald are an art deco feast, and Burns' adaption of Jerry Herman's original score underscores them. I think I'll go listen to it now. Bye, loves!
by Anonymous | reply 219 | May 1, 2025 1:50 AM |
Who doesn't love an art deco feast starring Lucille Ball in her 60s?
by Anonymous | reply 220 | May 1, 2025 1:52 AM |
The opening titles really are fab. And ditto the orchestrations. I love them, especially for “Loving You,” the song Herman wrote for the film.
by Anonymous | reply 221 | May 1, 2025 2:03 AM |
Lucy wanted to replace that moon number with "I am the Queen of the Gypsies!" But thankfully Gary talked her out of it.
by Anonymous | reply 222 | May 1, 2025 2:07 AM |
And by the way, whose idea was it to have Paul Zindel write the screenplay?
by Anonymous | reply 223 | May 1, 2025 2:10 AM |
Another by the way...why didn't Robert Preston (from Newton, Massachusetts) have a southern accent?
by Anonymous | reply 224 | May 1, 2025 2:11 AM |
I remember the audience at Radio City Music Hall bursting into laughter at the ridiculous shot of Mame and Young Patrick perched on the Statue of Liberty crown spires during “Open a New Window.”
by Anonymous | reply 225 | May 1, 2025 3:27 AM |
I’ve never seen the film version of SSS. But if it’s anything like M - hard pass. I gave up at the Christmas number. The whole thing, it wasn’t very interesting. It seemed to activity repel my interest. Plus that horrible, talentless, fat little boy…I just couldn’t.
I was alive in 1974, I was 8 years old. I saw Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno. But I didn’t know anything about this Mame movie, I think, until my gay cousin mentioned it a few years later lamenting how awful it was and that they put Vaseline on the lens when shooting LB. Wasn’t BA already on Maude when this came out?
by Anonymous | reply 226 | May 1, 2025 3:55 AM |
R297. That Myrtle Lum person is nothing but a low class carnival sideshow. She and Kitty Shea and Kelly Cole must leave my son Lincoln alone!
by Anonymous | reply 227 | May 1, 2025 5:05 AM |
>>I’ve never seen the film version of SSS
What is SSS?
by Anonymous | reply 228 | May 1, 2025 5:45 AM |
It may be "1776."
by Anonymous | reply 229 | May 1, 2025 6:05 AM |
That is a new level of stupid DL code.
by Anonymous | reply 230 | May 1, 2025 8:50 AM |
[quote] Wasn’t BA already on Maude when this came out?
Maude debuted in 1972. Wasn't Gene Saks once married to Beatrice Arthur?
by Anonymous | reply 231 | May 1, 2025 9:07 AM |
I thought M was better than HD but not as good as S satrring JA. My favorite m is possibly AAIP with GK and LC, directed by VM.But I'm also a sucker for any FA mjusical, such as TBW or SS, both co-starring CC.
by Anonymous | reply 232 | May 1, 2025 11:20 AM |
If you start doing “teams” like in the tennis threads—I’m outta here.
by Anonymous | reply 233 | May 1, 2025 11:26 AM |
In 1977, Lucy had an idea to re-do the musical 'Sound of Music', with Lucy playing Maria and Gale Gordon as 'The Captain'. She asked Vivian Vance to play the Barronness. Both Lucie and Desi Jr were going to play 'all the kids'. One her way to the studio to present her proposal, EVERYONE talked her out of it.
Thank You, everyone.
by Anonymous | reply 234 | May 1, 2025 11:47 AM |
I mean, physically she’s very impressive. She has the moves, she can still dance and is totally committed to the musical aspect, bless her.
by Anonymous | reply 235 | May 1, 2025 11:50 AM |
a Fatty Arbuckle musical fan?
by Anonymous | reply 236 | May 1, 2025 11:56 AM |
[quote] She has the moves, she can still dance
She can still dance, yet she was never a dancer.
by Anonymous | reply 237 | May 1, 2025 12:01 PM |
People have justifiably forgotten THE PRODUCERS. A mediocre musical turned into a worse musical film.
by Anonymous | reply 238 | May 1, 2025 12:14 PM |
I thought she was a dancer. She did Wildcat on B’way. Wasn’t she originally a chorus girl?
by Anonymous | reply 239 | May 1, 2025 12:24 PM |
No, she wasn't a dancer. She got by as a chorus girl, but that could mean various things, in those days. Movement. Yes, she danced in Wildcat but Vivien Leigh danced in Tovarich, too, and she wasn't a dancer. Lucy certainly was not known for it.
by Anonymous | reply 240 | May 1, 2025 12:32 PM |
(She also sang in Wildcat, but that didn't mean she was a singer.)
by Anonymous | reply 241 | May 1, 2025 12:33 PM |
But I guess "she could still dance" is true, since she danced, in her life. It just sounded like something she was known for, like Ginger Rogers or someone like that.
by Anonymous | reply 242 | May 1, 2025 12:35 PM |
Has anyone mentioned 60s model sensation Twiggy in "The Boyfriend", yet?
by Anonymous | reply 243 | May 1, 2025 4:24 PM |
Our high school did a better version of The Boyfriend.
by Anonymous | reply 244 | May 1, 2025 4:28 PM |
Lucille was graceful and could handle basic ballroom but she wasn't a dancer-dancer.
by Anonymous | reply 245 | May 1, 2025 4:50 PM |
[quote]r239 = I thought she was a dancer. She did Wildcat on B’way.
The *real* dancing in Wildcat was done by the pros.
by Anonymous | reply 246 | May 1, 2025 4:56 PM |
the one I can't get through despite the star power is Thoroughly Modern Millie.
by Anonymous | reply 247 | May 1, 2025 4:57 PM |
But you could always depend on Julie for a good soundtrack, r247.
by Anonymous | reply 248 | May 1, 2025 5:00 PM |
It's good on weed r247
by Anonymous | reply 249 | May 1, 2025 5:01 PM |
Lucy might have carried it off if they'd made it even 6 years earlier. She managed to somehow carry off Yours, Mine and Ours in 1968.
by Anonymous | reply 250 | May 1, 2025 5:01 PM |
[quote]It's good on weed
What isn't?
by Anonymous | reply 251 | May 1, 2025 5:05 PM |
I don't think so, r250. The casting of Angela in the Broadway show turned Mame into a true triple threat role. Every Mame since then seems to lack a threat...or two. Look how much dancing she did...
by Anonymous | reply 252 | May 1, 2025 5:07 PM |
R250: Completely different kind of film. No singing.
by Anonymous | reply 253 | May 1, 2025 5:15 PM |
[quote]I’ve never seen the film version of SSS.
SSS? Will you please just stop it?
by Anonymous | reply 254 | May 1, 2025 5:51 PM |
I don't think much of Angela Lansbury's singing either.
by Anonymous | reply 255 | May 1, 2025 5:51 PM |
[quote]I don't think much of Angela Lansbury's singing either.
Front page news!!!!!
by Anonymous | reply 257 | May 1, 2025 6:10 PM |
[quote]Look how much dancing she did..
Where, R353? I just see a lot of fancy pageant walking. TBF I didn't watch the whole thing.
by Anonymous | reply 258 | May 1, 2025 9:42 PM |
Her big three are It's Today, Mame and That's How Young I Feel, r258. Don't expect a Music and the Mirror from her. But it *is* at an impressive level considering the added vocal and acting demands of the role.
Juliet dances up a storm, but her voice and persona don't match the level of her dancing.
by Anonymous | reply 259 | May 1, 2025 10:16 PM |
Angela Lansbury was good in roles like Mame and Gypsy through sheer hard work and stage presence. She really wasn't the type for Mame or Rose. But she made you believe she was. She was a good character actress, she sang pretty well, in a charming way, and she danced well. She had comedy timing, but wasn't herself a comic actress, like Rosalind Russell or even Ginger Rogers (the London Mame). Just my opinion.
Lucy did not have the class ot the style or something, to pull off Mame, which is sort of in the high comedy style. There really isn't a single role in Mame or Auntie Mame she was right for. (Besides being too old, and her voice was shot, and she'd recently broken her leg in a skiing accident.) Lucy liked to challenge herself, and she seemed shocked that just pushing herself to do this role didn't work, in the end.
by Anonymous | reply 260 | May 2, 2025 12:22 AM |
No one seems to have mentioned that original director of Mame, the movie, was George Cukor. He would have directed it if Lucy had not broken her leg, causing a delay which made him unavailable. Or so I've read. I don't know what that would have changed. Cukor usually did a great job, but once in a while he messed up. He wasn't like William Wyler who hardly ever made a bomb.
by Anonymous | reply 261 | May 2, 2025 12:27 AM |
^^^^ Tell us about it!
by Anonymous | reply 262 | May 2, 2025 12:40 AM |
^^How old was George when he made that one, though?
by Anonymous | reply 263 | May 2, 2025 12:42 AM |
With George directing and Madeline Kahn in supporting it could have been a funny movie. (Although you might not have had Bea, since her husband wouldn't have been directing).
Who could have played Vera otherwise?
by Anonymous | reply 264 | May 2, 2025 12:42 AM |
[quote]Lucy liked to challenge herself,
Not really, r260. Her doing Mame was pure ego. If she liked to challenge herself there wouldn't have been a Life With Lucy.
by Anonymous | reply 265 | May 2, 2025 12:49 AM |
Lucy wanted to remake 'A Star Is Born' in 1976, with Desi. Somehow, Jon Peters talked her out of it. I'm glad he did.
by Anonymous | reply 267 | May 2, 2025 12:54 AM |
R265 Whatever. I guess you and I think differently. Wildcat...a Broadway musical, at age 50, she was sick most of the time she was doing it, lost 40 pounds.
I think a lot of the physical comedy she did on her shows was about challenging herself. It probably looked easy, to you, I don't know. But if it wasn't a challenge, what was it?
by Anonymous | reply 268 | May 2, 2025 12:55 AM |
R266 I don't know what you're talking about. It ran 14 months in the West End. There was a command performance for the queen. Big hit for Ginger.
by Anonymous | reply 269 | May 2, 2025 12:58 AM |
Of course she loved to be challenged at the comedy style she excelled in, r268, that was her comfort zone.
She did Wildcat less as a challenge than a fresh start. And I'm not saying it wasn't a challenge. However, as a non-singer, non-dancer and a heavy smoker she was unable to meet the challenge. Plus, it wasn't a good show.
by Anonymous | reply 270 | May 2, 2025 1:16 AM |
Madeline Kahn as Gooch would have been wonderful.
Connell didn’t really have much of a screen presence.
by Anonymous | reply 271 | May 2, 2025 1:17 AM |
R269 they like any musical in the West End 😵💫
by Anonymous | reply 272 | May 2, 2025 2:38 AM |
Also, r272, the cast recording was never released.
by Anonymous | reply 273 | May 2, 2025 2:42 AM |
R270 It became her comfort zone, it didn't start out as her comfort zone.
by Anonymous | reply 274 | May 2, 2025 2:44 AM |
R270 And she also did some specials later that were outside her usual comfort zone, plus let us not forget Stone Pillow. Not to mention Mame. How was Mame in her comfort zone?
by Anonymous | reply 275 | May 2, 2025 2:49 AM |
Lucy rarely challenged herself. She portrayed basically the same character in all her series, with the same schtick. She hired the same writers forever. Her sound guy had been with her so long that he was nearly deaf. Her specials paired her with Bob Hope, etc. The one exception was the awful "Lucy in London" that attempted to make her "mod".
by Anonymous | reply 276 | May 2, 2025 2:57 AM |
They told her at John Murray Anderson's drama school that she would never make it in show business and she had no talent. She didn't let that stop her, and was determined to show them they were wrong about her. I don't know if that's considered challenging oneself. Or being the first female head of a studio. That might be considered a personal challenge to some people.
by Anonymous | reply 277 | May 2, 2025 3:07 AM |
[quote]How was Mame in her comfort zone?
I didn't say it was, r275. I said her doing Mame wasn't about challenging herself it was about her ego. Lucille was perfectly at home in light or bittersweet dramas going back to her RKO days. She just wasn't extraordinary in them.
by Anonymous | reply 278 | May 2, 2025 3:08 AM |
[quote]The one exception was the awful "Lucy in London" that attempted to make her "mod".
Quite a few of the classic Hollywood generation of stars totally embarrassed themselves in the late 60s trying to appeal to the young generation. Frank Sinatra covered the Fifth Dimension and went on tv wearing a glittery jacket that looked like it came from Sly Stone's closet, for example. It was just cringe-inducing to see the older generation trying to be hip and cool with the young sixties generation who were all about the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
by Anonymous | reply 279 | May 2, 2025 3:08 AM |
I didn't say it was, [R275]. I said her doing Mame wasn't about challenging herself it was about her ego.
R278 I can't imagine how you would know what her motivation was for doing Mame. Did she tell you?
by Anonymous | reply 280 | May 2, 2025 3:11 AM |
R278: She was a rather passive studio head---Desilu was basically a rental lot and she hired Herb Solow to develop pilots. She was not a great actress---she relied on schtick throughout her career and had a grating voice that just got worse with time. Even Ann Sothern, a better actress and someone who could sing, was not someone who could carry an A picture on her own.
by Anonymous | reply 281 | May 2, 2025 3:13 AM |
[quote]That might be considered a personal challenge to some people.
Of course it is, r277. But that wasn't something Lucille chose to pursue as a challenge. It was thrust upon her, she met the moment...and she hated it.
by Anonymous | reply 282 | May 2, 2025 3:14 AM |
R282 You're right. Somehow Lucille Ball started out with very little in life, went to New York several times and lived on her own as a teenager, eventually went to Hollywood, started out as a chorus girl, graduated to supporting parts, then leads, became a star, decided to try TV at around 39, became one of the biggest TV stars of all time, made more movies, did a Broadway show, had two more successful sitcoms, won Emmys, etc.,--- all without ever challenging herself.
by Anonymous | reply 283 | May 2, 2025 3:20 AM |
And running a studio--she didn't have to do it, she accepted the challenge. Nobody held a gun to her head. BUt again, I guess she was just so good at everything that nothing was a challenge to her. Amazing.
by Anonymous | reply 284 | May 2, 2025 3:23 AM |
Well I think you’re ALL wrong! After all, Lucy DID get a Golden Globe nomination!
by Anonymous | reply 285 | May 2, 2025 9:36 AM |
From Judith Crist’s 1974 New York Magazine review:
[quote]And the whole bit [Gooch’s pregnancy], ultra-magnified on screen becomes a bit tasteless, particularly since Patrick, played as a small boy by a small boy named Kirby Furlong, is a midget version of Archie Bunker. The resemblance is uncanny and unsettling.
by Anonymous | reply 286 | May 2, 2025 9:49 AM |
The movie sucked and Ball is a second rate actress who is canonized by pathetic people who think bits lifted from old movies (the conveyer belt at the chocolate factory) or vaudeville (getting drunk from patent medicine) are comic genius.
I remember watching the film for the first time (and the only time I got through most of it) many years after its release. I obviously must have been doing something better in 1974 when it came out. It was obviously bad---Lucy being permitted to sing, a rather old fashioned tale turned into a musical full of forgettable music, Lucy doing her "young lady" schtick, Robert Preston doing a hammy Southern accent. The whole thing would have been truly camp if it had not been so dull. I later found out that Jerome Lawrence was a childhood friend of one of my aunts. Perhaps when it premiered as a play it didn't seem like one of his lesser efforts.
by Anonymous | reply 287 | May 2, 2025 10:22 AM |
R287 I know it’s fun to be a contrarian, but you’re wrong. She was a great comic actress and is recognized as so by other comedians.
by Anonymous | reply 288 | May 2, 2025 10:52 AM |
I'm surprised we didn't end up with Gale Gordon as Beauregard.
by Anonymous | reply 289 | May 2, 2025 2:22 PM |
[quote]I can't imagine how you would know what her motivation was for doing Mame. Did she tell you?
Someone is allowed to have the opinion that Lucy was delusional and definitely let her ego get in the way when she took on the movie of MAME, especially given her age at the time and the fact that, throughout her career, she had gotten a lot of comic fodder over the fact that she couldn't sing. (Though her inability to sing may have been somewhat exaggerated on I LOVE LUCY, for example, it still was a basic fact.) Throw into the mix the fact that Lucy's singing was sometimes dubbed in films and TV appearances when they wanted her to sound good, plus the fact that she experienced great vocal difficulties during her run in WILDCAT, which further damaged her voice, and I think the opinion that her decision to play Mame in the movie was much more about ego than it was about "challenging herself" is a reasonable opinion that is likely shared by many people.
I would view STONE PILLOW as a good example of challenging herself, but not MAME.
by Anonymous | reply 290 | May 2, 2025 2:46 PM |
Look. She was wonderful, funny, great in I Love Lucy. Some of the episodes still stand up and are still funny. But I can't name a picture where she was memorable or good.
by Anonymous | reply 291 | May 2, 2025 6:27 PM |
Lucy was good in The Big Street and Easy to Wed
by Anonymous | reply 292 | May 2, 2025 6:43 PM |
[quote]Someone is allowed to have the opinion that Lucy was delusional
No, no one should be allowed that opinion since 'delusional' is one of the most over-used words on this forum, probably tied with 'amazing'. Both words have lost all their meanings due to over-use, and can't be taken seriously in 2025.
by Anonymous | reply 293 | May 2, 2025 8:47 PM |
Lucy was also excellent in STAGE DOOR. It's a small role, of course, but she was perfect in it.
by Anonymous | reply 294 | May 2, 2025 9:53 PM |
R293, I'm sorry if the word "delusional" triggers you, but my point is that Lucy thought she could carry off the role of MAME despite the facts that (1) she was way too old for it, and (2) whatever little singing voice she ever possessed had become even worse over the decades due to smoking, age, and probably a few other causes. So you can substitute for "delusional" whatever other word you think describes that state of mind.
by Anonymous | reply 295 | May 2, 2025 9:56 PM |
R293 Yeah, what R295 said, Miss Bossypants!
by Anonymous | reply 296 | May 2, 2025 10:02 PM |
Jerry Herman was appalled by the idea that Lucy would be Mame on screen but he claimed that the Warner producers thought they had a presold hit on her name alone. I have no idea how she got the part. Did she own the rights? Did Warner really think she was the best choice? None of it makes any sense.
And by the way Roz was asked who of the young female musical stars of the era should get the lead in the movie musical and she said Cher. Not a perfect choice by any means but who else could have done it who had name value?
by Anonymous | reply 297 | May 2, 2025 10:24 PM |
Cher wasn't yet a movie star in 1974, she was a TV star and a recording artist, but anyway that sounds way out there.
by Anonymous | reply 298 | May 3, 2025 12:33 AM |
The '70s were definitely not an Auntie Mame sort of era. Espeicially in the musical world. Cher?
[quote] Not a perfect choice by any means but who else could have done it who had name value?
Not perfect choices either, but Shirley MacLaine, Liza Minnelli or Debbie Reynolds would have been no crazier choices than Cher
by Anonymous | reply 299 | May 3, 2025 1:08 AM |
Maggie Smith would have been a great Vera Charles.
by Anonymous | reply 300 | May 3, 2025 1:09 AM |
And Ruth Buzzi would have been a good Gooch.
by Anonymous | reply 301 | May 3, 2025 1:15 AM |
[quote]And by the way Roz was asked who of the young female musical stars of the era should get the lead in the movie musical and she said Cher. Not a perfect choice by any means but who else could have done it who had name value?
An all black version with Diana Ross. It probably would have been a million times more entertaining than the Babs version.
Diana Ross was no Pearl Bailey. She would have been fundamentally wrong for the role, but her sheer tenacity could have made it work..
by Anonymous | reply 302 | May 3, 2025 1:19 AM |
The Babs version of what?
by Anonymous | reply 303 | May 3, 2025 1:35 AM |
R303 My bad. Confusing Herman's Mame with Dolly.
by Anonymous | reply 304 | May 3, 2025 1:41 AM |
Diana would have sang the shit out of "If He Walked Into My Life"
by Anonymous | reply 305 | May 3, 2025 1:43 AM |
The plot of Mame makes no sense if the characters are black.
by Anonymous | reply 306 | May 3, 2025 1:47 AM |
How old is Mame supposed to be, anyway? In her 30s?
by Anonymous | reply 307 | May 3, 2025 1:52 AM |
R299, the idea of Debbie Reynolds as Mame in the movie never occurred to me, but she actually might have been very good in the role if she had been well directed.
by Anonymous | reply 308 | May 3, 2025 1:54 AM |
Not in 1974
by Anonymous | reply 309 | May 3, 2025 1:56 AM |
[quote]The plot of Mame makes no sense if the characters are black.
Especially the scenes set in the South, at the Peckerwood plantation. Can you imagine?
by Anonymous | reply 310 | May 3, 2025 1:58 AM |
R310 Never thought of that! But, yeah,
I was thinking more about Patrick going to exclusive schools and becoming a "one of the most Babbity little snobs on the Estern Seaboard."
by Anonymous | reply 311 | May 3, 2025 2:04 AM |
R306 If Audra wins the Tony for 'Gypsy', I have a hunch she will be in a revival of 'Mame' next.
As for 1974, Ann Margret or Shirley Jones (fresh off of her run on 'The Partridge Family') could have been better than Ball.
by Anonymous | reply 312 | May 3, 2025 3:24 AM |
If Debbie could do Irene on Broadway then I'm sure she could handle Mame on screen .
by Anonymous | reply 313 | May 3, 2025 4:07 AM |
Well, except that she’s dead.
by Anonymous | reply 314 | May 3, 2025 9:59 AM |
I'm laughing picturing Ann Margret bumping and grinding as Mame.
by Anonymous | reply 315 | May 3, 2025 10:18 AM |
Debbie Reynolds (who I suggested, originally), Shirley Jones (can't picture that. Might as well have cast Doris Day)...it's more and more obvious why Lucille Ball was cast. She was one of the biggest stars in the world, or at least the US. I mean Angela Lansbury was not cast because she was not going to bring the customers in. Too bad most of the youngish big stars who could sing were wrong for the role (Julie Andrews IS Mame!).
by Anonymous | reply 316 | May 3, 2025 10:23 AM |
[quote]I mean Angela Lansbury was not cast because she was not going to bring the customers in.
But if the producers were smart, they might have looked back to Yul Brynner in THE KING AND I and Robert Preston in THE MUSIC MAN. Neither of those actor could have remotely been considered big box office stars, but the producers knew that they would be so great in their roles on the big screen that they would BECOME stars, which is exactly what happened. And both of those films were huge hits.
by Anonymous | reply 317 | May 3, 2025 1:49 PM |
[quote]I'm laughing picturing Ann Margret bumping and grinding as Mame.
Exactly ! And that is what's missing from Ball's 'Mame'. She's not entertaining enough on screen, and for a comedienne, she doesn't bring any sense of fun and excitement to the role. She's way too dry and dull. She really missed the spirit of Mame Dennis.
by Anonymous | reply 318 | May 3, 2025 2:12 PM |
Lauren Bacall as Mame? She croaked her way through musicals as well as Lucy.
by Anonymous | reply 319 | May 3, 2025 2:27 PM |
Barbra Streisand considered Mame, but Jon Peters told her she couldn’t play anyone over 30 because she’s so young and sexy.
by Anonymous | reply 320 | May 3, 2025 2:27 PM |
R320 The rumor always was that Herman wanted Streisand in his movie, but she came across as too young. (She was only 32). And she had already received criticism for being 'too young' in 'Hello Dolly'. It's too bad she didn't do it in the early 2000s when she was in her late 50 s/ early 60s.
by Anonymous | reply 321 | May 3, 2025 2:33 PM |
R321, maybe you dreamed that, but I can't believe Jerry Herman ever wanted Streisand for the MAME movie. He co-wrote the damn thing, so he of all people would understand that the story absolutely does not work if the character of Mame doesn't come across as a rich, sophisticated WASP. If the role were played by someone who's obviously Jewish, the whole thing would fall apart.
by Anonymous | reply 322 | May 3, 2025 2:57 PM |
[quote]Debbie Reynolds (who I suggested, originally), Shirley Jones (can't picture that. Might as well have cast Doris Day)...it's more and more obvious why Lucille Ball was cast. She was one of the biggest stars in the world, or at least the US. I mean Angela Lansbury was not cast because she was not going to bring the customers in.
You have to remember too that "Yours, Mine and Ours" was a huge surprise hit and that probably was a factor in casting her in Mame. Yes it was 6 years prior, but they probably thought she'd still bring in an audience.
by Anonymous | reply 323 | May 3, 2025 3:09 PM |
R322 You need to brush up on your Jerry Herman history.
He offered the movie to Streisand once again in the late 90s, but this time for an ABC TV movie he struck a deal with. He wanted her to star in the film, and she was able to negotiate directing and co-producing with him, as well. He was fine with it, agreeing she was more suitable for the role in her mid/late 50s than 30 years earlier. At some point, she no longer wanted to star (just direct and co-produce with him) - but she thought Cher should star (Cher was interested and ABC was interested). He was indifferent to Cher as 'Mame', but trusted Streisand's opinions and gave it a green light.
However, as time dragged to get the project in front of the cameras (ABC postponed it from the 2001-02 season to 2002 -03 season), Herman decided he was going to revive it on Broadway instead, along with 'La Cage' and 'Hello Dolly' - starting in 2004. He canceled the TV movie project, and set his sights on the Broadway revival for late 2005 . After he had his troubles and box office disappointment with the 'La Cage' revival in 2004, he canceled both 'Mame' and 'Hello Dolly'. That was the end of 'Mame'.
Years later, when asked about the 'Mame' TV movie starring Cher, he claimed he was 'dead set against' the idea of Cher playing 'Mame', and wanted Streisand only. He claimed that's why he pulled the project from ABC (had nothing to do with his planned revival). Cher denied this, and said Herman was excited about her starring when she initially met with him and Streisand.
by Anonymous | reply 324 | May 3, 2025 4:15 PM |
Lucy had extreme Tv exposure for many years, she won Emmys, etc. Here's Lucy ran from the late 60s to '74. She was arguably the most famous woman in the world at the time.
Yul Brynner...he was not cast opposite nobody, his costar was Deborah Kerr, a very big name at the time (top-billed).
Robert Preston was a name everyoine knew even if he hadn't become a big star in the movies...he'd been around since the 1930s. The Music Man on stage was an extreme hit, well-publicized. On the strength of it he was even cast in a movie lead 2 years before The Music Man film--The Dark at the Top of the Stairs.
I don't know how Lansbury stacked up to them, but it was not a given that she was going to be cast in the show--didn't she have to audition several times?
by Anonymous | reply 325 | May 3, 2025 4:17 PM |
Nunsense.
by Anonymous | reply 326 | May 3, 2025 4:43 PM |
I would say Lansbury was at least as well known as Robert Preston before she did MAME and before he did THE MUSIC MAN. And yes, I know Deborah Kerr was a big star. I think the hesitancy in casting someone who wasn't already a big movie star in the film of MAME was that the title character is really the whole show, so you couldn't balance the casting of a non star by putting bigger stars in other roles such as Vera, Beau, or Gooch.
by Anonymous | reply 327 | May 3, 2025 4:45 PM |
[quote]The Music Man on stage was an extreme hit, well-publicized.
The cast album was one of the biggest selling cast albums in history.
by Anonymous | reply 328 | May 3, 2025 4:50 PM |
The 70s were kind of different. Big musicals based on Broadway shows were no longer a big thing. As I said, Robert Preston in The Music Man was very highly publicized, was the hottest ticket in New York and ran for several years, it was the second My Fair Lady. Preston was on the cover of Life Magazine. The Music Man film was only five years after the show debuted and only a little time after it closed. Preston had been a sensation in the show and people anted to see why.
This was not the case with Mame, which was something like a decade after the show opened, and it was no longer a hot property and not a title that was on everyone's lips at the time.
by Anonymous | reply 329 | May 3, 2025 4:51 PM |
*wanted to
by Anonymous | reply 330 | May 3, 2025 4:52 PM |
Robert Preston is practically Lucy’s boy toy in this.
by Anonymous | reply 331 | May 7, 2025 9:57 PM |
There are so many shots of that ghastly child. He looks like Beau’s mother in miniature.
by Anonymous | reply 332 | May 7, 2025 9:58 PM |
Did Frankie Michaels deserve the Tony as Young Patrick?
by Anonymous | reply 333 | May 7, 2025 10:02 PM |
Did they ever do this show in summer stock, like under a big tent? Did Dottie West or Edie Adams ever play Mame?
by Anonymous | reply 334 | May 7, 2025 10:14 PM |
How come Patrick is the only person who ages in this film?
by Anonymous | reply 335 | May 7, 2025 10:23 PM |
Susan Hayward appeared in the Las Vegas production, while such stars as Ann Sothern, Janet Blair, Jane Russell, Elaine Stritch, Edie Adams, Patrice Munsel, Kitty Carlisle, Carol Lawrence, Shani Wallis, Jo Anne Worley, and Sheila Smith appeared in stock, regional or touring productions.
by Anonymous | reply 336 | May 7, 2025 10:51 PM |
Charles Busch was in Auntie Mame (the non-musical) at the Ogunquit Playhouse in summer theater back around 20 years ago, with Penny Fuller as Vera and Victor Slezak as Mr. Babcock.
by Anonymous | reply 337 | May 7, 2025 11:44 PM |
Did Vicki Lord comment?
by Anonymous | reply 338 | May 7, 2025 11:48 PM |
[quote]How come Patrick is the only person who ages in this film?
He's not the only one who ages, but he's the one who ages most obviously, from approximately age 10 -12 to adulthood.
by Anonymous | reply 339 | May 8, 2025 2:28 AM |
[quote]How come Patrick is the only person who ages in this film?
If they aged Lucy, she'd have been a corpse.
by Anonymous | reply 340 | May 8, 2025 2:40 AM |
Apparently Jane Morgan was a wonderful MAME.
The original choices for MAME were Angela, Nanette Fabray & Dolores Gray. I would have loved to hear Gray even though she's much too cold for the role. The right choice was made.
by Anonymous | reply 341 | May 8, 2025 4:12 AM |
Henry Fonda was an old man in the1960s. He gave me the creeps from then on.
by Anonymous | reply 342 | May 8, 2025 4:13 AM |
Tom Joad! Abe Lincoln! Barbara Stanwyck’s prey! Juror #8! A knight in shining armor!
A pox on you
by Anonymous | reply 343 | May 8, 2025 4:45 AM |
As noted above, Lansbury had to audition multiple times for Mame. When MSW was being put together, the series was first offered to Jean Stapleton. For the 1962 version of The Manchurian Candidate, the producers first asked Lucille Ball to play the monster mother.
by Anonymous | reply 344 | May 8, 2025 8:30 AM |
TRUTH: Mame is not a good show aside from one song.
by Anonymous | reply 345 | May 8, 2025 12:49 PM |
[quote]Lucy would have been great in HELLO, DOLLY!
Only if they got Everett Dirksen to dub her songs.
by Anonymous | reply 346 | May 8, 2025 1:08 PM |
Vivian Vance would have been a much better Dolly than Lucy.
I'm not kidding, in this case. Not in the movie, but I can picture her in that role, and she could sing.
by Anonymous | reply 347 | May 8, 2025 2:18 PM |
R347. She was great singing "My Hero"
by Anonymous | reply 348 | May 9, 2025 2:22 AM |
I preferred her "Lily of the Valley."
by Anonymous | reply 349 | May 9, 2025 3:15 AM |
Lucy wouldn't have been any better a Dolly than she was as Mame. For one thing (though people here persist in not realizing it) she had no talent as a musical-comedy star. She was not cut out for that. (Including Wildcat.)
by Anonymous | reply 350 | May 9, 2025 4:22 AM |
[quote]Lucy wouldn't have been any better a Dolly than she was as Mame.
Warmth really wasn't in Lucy's wheelhouse, especially as she aged and her voice deepened.
by Anonymous | reply 351 | May 9, 2025 8:18 AM |
Well, I'm going to disagree on that, R351. I think Lucy does exhibit warmth in several key scenes in MAME. Lack of warmth is certainly not one of the huge problems with her performance.
And yes, Lucy would have been a better Dolly than Mame if only because the singing of the former role is SO much easier. Also, HELLO, DOLLY! was actually filmed about six years earlier than MAME, so Lucy would have been younger enough for that to make a difference in the energy of her performance and maybe even a bit in her singing ability.
by Anonymous | reply 352 | May 9, 2025 3:46 PM |
Did none of you see Stone Pillow? Lucy had incredible range, it's more a wonder she didn't do more prestige projects. I can't believe her performance in SP didn't get her cast in the Streep role in Ironweed or Dunaway's performance in Barfly!
by Anonymous | reply 353 | May 9, 2025 4:19 PM |
R352: Her version of warmth is sentimental slush. Even someone as frequently hammy as Roz Russell was capable of greater subtlety.
by Anonymous | reply 354 | May 9, 2025 4:21 PM |
Seeing those fascinating clips in R252 made me realize why they cut “That’s How Young I Feel” from the movie. There is no way Lucy could have done even a watered down version of that choreography, and her obvious age onscreen would have made the lyrics laughable. I’m also surprised at how loud and coarse Bea Arthur‘s line readings are in the clips, although I’m sure they worked on stage. She wisely toned them down for the movie.
by Anonymous | reply 355 | May 9, 2025 7:33 PM |
Bea won the Tony for her Vera Charles in Mame.
by Anonymous | reply 356 | May 9, 2025 7:35 PM |
Sassafrassa should have been cast as Vera Charles...
by Anonymous | reply 357 | May 9, 2025 7:36 PM |
What role would Lucy have played if they'd cast her in "The Women"?
by Anonymous | reply 358 | May 9, 2025 7:42 PM |
I don't see how anyone couldn't like Rosalind Russell, or call her hammy. Or Lucille Ball, for that matter. Too bad you can't enjoy these great ladies. Not that they were cast well in everything (Mame is a case in point). But it makes my head hurt to constantly listen to this shit. Too bad they can't all be Phyllis Thaxter or Donna Reed, I guess.
by Anonymous | reply 359 | May 9, 2025 7:44 PM |
[quote]I don't see how anyone couldn't like Rosalind Russell, or call her hammy.
Russell is WAY over the top in The Women. It's Cukor's fault. Either he had her act like a nut job, or he didn't restrain her. In any event, she's pretty awful in it. That said, she's great in Picnic, and very good in Auntie Mame and Gypsy.
by Anonymous | reply 360 | May 9, 2025 8:04 PM |
Yet her performance in The Women was her breakthrough into stardom. I think the only way to play Sylvia is as a cartoon—otherwise she’s just a villain.
by Anonymous | reply 361 | May 9, 2025 8:21 PM |
What’s WRONG with Phyllis Thacker?
by Anonymous | reply 362 | May 9, 2025 8:22 PM |
There has been much criticism of her performance in Picnic as well. I disagree but I can see how some find it irritatingly over the top.
by Anonymous | reply 363 | May 9, 2025 8:27 PM |
Russell is great in the Women. Yes she is over the top. And her choices with Cukor's direction make her sensational. Cukor got everything in that film exactly right.
by Anonymous | reply 364 | May 9, 2025 9:33 PM |
R358
[quote]What role would Lucy have played if they'd cast her in "The Women"?
Olga the manucurist
by Anonymous | reply 365 | May 9, 2025 9:36 PM |
R360 Really? I loved her in The Women. In my opinion if anyone is hammy or over the top in The Women it's Norma Shearer.
by Anonymous | reply 366 | May 9, 2025 9:36 PM |
Mame has one good song? Which one is that? Mame, We Need a Little Christmas, If He Came Into My Life, Bosom Buddies, It's Today, Open a New Window...? Now tell us the TRUTH.
by Anonymous | reply 367 | May 9, 2025 9:39 PM |
Russell said Cukor already had Ilka Chase in mind for the role (his friend, who had played Sylvia on stage). Roz auditioned for Sylvia three different ways. I don't remember too well (this was from her book) but I'm pretty sure the first was was basically "Ilka Chase", the second was some highfalutin' way, and the third was how she did it in the movie.
To her surprise, she got the part. When she got to the sound stage, she started playing it the second way, I believe. Cukor said, no, do what you did in the test. "What way?" "The third one." It was what had convinced him to give her the part. He loved it. (So do I.)
by Anonymous | reply 368 | May 9, 2025 9:43 PM |
R63: She's over the top in Picnic.
by Anonymous | reply 369 | May 9, 2025 11:27 PM |
To each their own, but it's amazing to me that anyone likes Rosalind Russell's performance in PICNIC. In my opinion, it's unbearably overacted.
by Anonymous | reply 370 | May 10, 2025 1:49 AM |
[quotee]And yes, Lucy would have been a better Dolly than Mame if only because the singing of the former role is SO much easier.
Please, No one wanted to hear Lucille Ball croak out "Before the Parade Passes By" or "Put on Your Sunday Clothes." "Easier" doesn't mean "easy." And by the time "Dolly" was made, she already sounded like she'd been smoking a carton of Chesterfields a day.
by Anonymous | reply 371 | May 10, 2025 9:09 AM |
I mostly agree with you, R371, but I stand by my opinion that Lucy would have sounded better (though still not good) in Dolly's songs than in Mame's. Not that it really matters, because of course, it didn't happen.
So interesting that both of the leading roles in the movie versions of Jerry Herman's two biggest hits were severely miscast, but in almost opposite ways. In Lucy's case, she was way too old for the part and couldn't remotely sing it properly; in Streisand's case, she was too young for the part and had far more voice than was necessary for a role that was never primarily a vocal showcase. But I think most people would agree that Streisand's performance is far more enjoyable despite her miscasting, because you can still enjoy her phenomenal voice and her comic acting even though she was about 20 years too young for the role.
by Anonymous | reply 372 | May 10, 2025 12:25 PM |
Of course, with the Hello, Dolly! movie, you also have to ignore Michael Crawford‘s spastic performance and wooden/bland performance of the woman playing Irene Malloy. At least you can admire the ass of the actor playing Barnaby.
by Anonymous | reply 373 | May 10, 2025 6:10 PM |
Lucy would have sucked as Dolly. It requires a range of emotion, which she lacks.
by Anonymous | reply 374 | May 10, 2025 6:25 PM |
I see Rosemary in Picnic as a colorful character and she's supposed to be drunk through about half the movie. But yeah, to each his own. I love Roz in the part.
by Anonymous | reply 375 | May 10, 2025 6:32 PM |
Yes, to each their own, R375, but the fact that Rosemary is a "colorful character" doesn't mean the role should be overacted at a level far, far above that of anyone else in the movie, so much so that she seems to come from another planet.
by Anonymous | reply 376 | May 10, 2025 7:41 PM |
R376 I guess that's why they say opinions are like assholes.
by Anonymous | reply 377 | May 10, 2025 7:50 PM |
R375. Eileen Heckart (Hortense Daigle) originated the role of Rosemary. She would have had the tough, world-weary desperation the character needs and the sense of a smart woman who had been beaten down by what life had to offer women in the small towns of the Plains. I taught with many of them for three years in Nebraska.
by Anonymous | reply 378 | May 10, 2025 9:11 PM |
R378 Let's hope she was less hammy than she was in The Bad Seed.
by Anonymous | reply 379 | May 10, 2025 9:16 PM |
Back in 1974, they could've cast Carol Burnett in 'Mame' instead of Lucy. CB had just won rave reviews (and a GG nomination) the previous year for the comedy "Pete 'N' Tillie" (which was a box office hit). She would have been an entertaining 'Mame' (and years later, an entertaining 'Dolly').
I'm surprised Linda Lavin never took a shot at 'Mame' or 'Dolly'.
by Anonymous | reply 380 | May 10, 2025 10:02 PM |
Carol Burnett, while a fine actress, couldn't pull off "sophistication."
by Anonymous | reply 381 | May 10, 2025 10:17 PM |
Agreed. Whoever plays Mame has to come across as glamorous and sophisticated as well as madcap and hilariously funny, and Carol Burnett doesn't possess the first two qualities.
by Anonymous | reply 382 | May 10, 2025 10:29 PM |
The naysayers for Burnett: The right make-up and costumes by Bob Mackie could make her glamorous, so that's an easy fix. She's a fine actress so playing 'sophisticated' would be something she could have mastered.
by Anonymous | reply 383 | May 10, 2025 10:41 PM |
Maybe, R383, but I really think she did not have the right look for the part facially, aside from the glamor issues.
by Anonymous | reply 384 | May 10, 2025 11:07 PM |
Yvonne De Carlo
by Anonymous | reply 385 | May 10, 2025 11:19 PM |
[quote]The right make-up and costumes by Bob Mackie could make her glamorous, so that's an easy fix.
M. Labisse: Lady, that is like a nun saying, with a little practice, she could become a streetwalker.
Victoria: [sighs] It has to come naturally.
I hesitate to make the lipstick/bulldog reference, because she's a national treasure. But let's be honest, the issue wouldn't be costumes. And no amount of makeup would help.
by Anonymous | reply 386 | May 10, 2025 11:25 PM |
The song "Love is only Love" that is in the film version of Hello Dolly was written for Mame originally. It was dropped out of town and took place just before the Fox Hunt and the big title number.
by Anonymous | reply 387 | May 10, 2025 11:34 PM |
The only good song in "Mame" is "If He Walked into My Life."
The title song, "Bosom Buddies," and "We Need a Little Christmas" are all total cheese, "It's Today" and "Open a New Window" are completely unmemorable, and everything else in the score is awful. "That's How Young I Feel" is basically a "we need a big dance number at this point, so how about this?" song.
by Anonymous | reply 388 | May 10, 2025 11:35 PM |
Christine Baranski did Mame once in LA, and she was great.
by Anonymous | reply 389 | May 10, 2025 11:36 PM |
Sorry if this get's double posted: The song "Love is only Love" from the film version of Hello Dolly was written for Mame. It was dropped out of town and took place just before the Fox Hunt and the big title number.
by Anonymous | reply 390 | May 10, 2025 11:39 PM |
Mame makes a terrific obc and IS a popular score. So stand alone. You have every right to. The title song alone is a classic. You want a score full of torch songs for a nephew?
by Anonymous | reply 391 | May 10, 2025 11:41 PM |
BTW the real Mame Dennis lived in the west village in NYC in the townhouse right next door to The Monster in Sheridan Square.
by Anonymous | reply 392 | May 10, 2025 11:42 PM |
The sheer number of times it's been revived on Broadway testifies to what a classic and enduring score it is.
by Anonymous | reply 393 | May 11, 2025 12:49 AM |
I remember when Herman was talking about bringing 'Mame' to B'way for a revival around the mid-2000s (along with 'La Cage' and 'Hello, Dolly') and he mentioned he wanted to cast actress Michele Lee in the role. He said he first got the idea a few years earlier seeing her onstage Tony-winning performance in 'Tales of the Allergist's Wife' (2001) and believed he found his new 'Mame'. (I don't think he ever formally offered her the role, as the revival didn't move forward). At the time, Lee was in her early 60s. Certainly not a bad casting idea...
by Anonymous | reply 394 | May 11, 2025 12:51 AM |
Isn't Mame Dennis only supposed to be around 40ish?
by Anonymous | reply 395 | May 11, 2025 12:53 AM |
I think so - but like other stage characters based on movies in a musical, I guess 'anything goes' ? Norma Desmond was supposed to be 50, but Diahann Carroll was 60 when she starred, and Petula Clark was even older. Glenn Close was 70 during the 2017 revival.
Keep in mind, before he was talking B'way revival, he reached a deal with Streisand to star, direct, and co-produce the TV remake for ABC. Streisand was in her late 50s. Then he went with Cher to star - she was in her mid-50s.
by Anonymous | reply 396 | May 11, 2025 12:59 AM |
Angela Lansbury "Love is Only Love" Piano Rehearsal Remastered "Mame" Herman
by Anonymous | reply 397 | May 11, 2025 1:03 AM |
There was no "real" Mame Dennis, R392. Patrick Dennis was the pseudonym of Edward Everett Tanner. His real-life aunt, Marion Tanner, loved to go around claiming that the character was based on her, but her life and personality were nothing like the character of Mame. There are some low-fact web pages out there that push the story, but Dennis himself nixed it in no uncertain terms -while his Aunt Marion dined out on it for years. Dennis himself was much more like the character of Mame, and his life story is almost as interesting a read as his novels.
by Anonymous | reply 398 | May 11, 2025 1:04 AM |
[quote]Diahann Carroll was 60 when she starred
But she didn't look 60, and she looked fantastic.
[quote]Petula Clark was even older
I saw her in SB and she looked just right.
by Anonymous | reply 399 | May 11, 2025 1:05 AM |
[quote]I saw her in SB and she looked just right.
How was her performance?
by Anonymous | reply 400 | May 11, 2025 1:06 AM |
A friend of mine has a copy of Dennis’s “Little Me” and there are a few nice photos of good looking men in there
And Mrs. Kravitz #1.
by Anonymous | reply 401 | May 11, 2025 2:09 AM |
I always wondered on 'Bewitched' if Liz Montgomery based 'Auntie Serena' on 'Mame', or had any inspiration from the character at all. When we first meet Serena when Tabitha was born in January, 1966, she's quite sophisticated, elegant and reserved. After the musical is on B'way and Serena returns to the series, the character is fun-loving and irresponsible -especially when she's with Tabitha.
by Anonymous | reply 402 | May 11, 2025 2:44 AM |
[quote]Christine Baranski did Mame once in LA, and she was great.
Did she also do a production in L.A.? Because I saw her play MAME in a production at the Kennedy Center in D.C. that almost came to Broadway.
by Anonymous | reply 403 | May 11, 2025 3:17 AM |
[quote]r401 = A friend of mine has a copy of Dennis’s “Little Me” and there are a few nice photos of good looking men in there
Letch Feeley aka Kurt Bieber
by Anonymous | reply 404 | May 11, 2025 3:17 AM |
R394, Michele Lee did play Mame. In Pittsburgh.
Well, when you're in Pittsburgh, you've got to do something.....
by Anonymous | reply 405 | May 11, 2025 3:20 AM |
[quote]Christine Baranski did Mame once in LA, and she was great.
I saw her in D.C. at the Kennedy Center and neither she nor the production was very good. There's a reason it didn't go to Broadway. This was almost 20 years ago (2006), and even then, the show hadn't aged well.
by Anonymous | reply 407 | May 11, 2025 8:19 AM |
R407, I agree with you that the show hasn't aged well, but I thought Baranski was close to perfect for the part. You know who else should have been great as Mame? The other Christine, Ebersole, when she did it at Paper Mill. But for some reason or reasons, that production just didn't click.
by Anonymous | reply 408 | May 11, 2025 12:28 PM |
Actually, Yvonne DeCarlo could sing and she could be sophisticated...
by Anonymous | reply 409 | May 11, 2025 1:42 PM |
R409: By the 70s, she was doing borderline soft porn like "Satan's Cheerleaders". When she was Lily Muster, she made it work by playing it straight. She'd need to be more madcap and eccentric for "Mame".
by Anonymous | reply 410 | May 11, 2025 2:01 PM |
R410 That's funny, I thought she was in Company in the '70s.
Anyway, I wasn't serious that anyone would cast her in the movie. Just saying she could probably have played the part, somewhere...since even Ann Miller was a successful Mame on Broadway.
by Anonymous | reply 411 | May 11, 2025 2:06 PM |
I'm betting Audra MacDonald will be working on a B'way revival of 'Mame' after 'Gypsy' is finished.
by Anonymous | reply 412 | May 11, 2025 3:28 PM |
R412 Does she dance well?
by Anonymous | reply 413 | May 11, 2025 3:33 PM |
[quote][R410] That's funny, I thought she was in Company in the '70s.
That was Jane Russell, r411.
by Anonymous | reply 414 | May 11, 2025 3:51 PM |
R413 Does it matter ? She's Audra MacDonald and can do no wrong ! She'll make every actress who ever played Mame in the past 60 years BE FORGOTTEN !
by Anonymous | reply 415 | May 11, 2025 4:08 PM |
That piece on Kurt Bieber was fascinating. He was a physique and porn model, but he never got much of a film role besides that of extra, and yet he was one in hundreds of films and made a living off that somehow. He must have supplemented it with other part-time work (escorting?).
by Anonymous | reply 416 | May 11, 2025 4:14 PM |
R414 Sorry, I meant Follies.
by Anonymous | reply 418 | May 11, 2025 4:20 PM |
Re-watching Gypsy with Rosalind Russell.....could Lucy have done it?
by Anonymous | reply 419 | May 11, 2025 5:52 PM |
[quote]could Lucy have done it?
no
by Anonymous | reply 420 | May 11, 2025 6:01 PM |
R419, interestingly Broadway performer Lisa Kirk dubbed most of Roz’s singing in Gypsy. There were rumors that WB wanted Lisa Kirk to do the same for Lucy in Mame, but for whatever reason they stuck with Lucy‘s awful vocals.
by Anonymous | reply 421 | May 11, 2025 6:37 PM |
You didn't cross Lucy. You'd regret it as long as you live.
by Anonymous | reply 422 | May 11, 2025 6:42 PM |
They weren't rumors, r421. Kirk was under consideration. I'm assuming that by 1974 they knew dubbing wasn't kept under wraps and it was just better to meticulously piece together Lucille's vocals.
by Anonymous | reply 423 | May 11, 2025 6:42 PM |
Lisa could have been a fabulous Mame. She was quite a broad.
by Anonymous | reply 424 | May 11, 2025 6:51 PM |
Little Me's Letch Feely (aka Kurt Bieber) was the go-to spank bank for at least one generation. Dennis wrote two fictional biographies -Little Me, and First Lady. Both were illustrated with photographs by Cris Alexander. Cris was in the original Broadway play of Auntie Mame, and appeared in the film version as the Macy's manager who fires Mame. He was in the original Broadway cast of On The Town, and was a close friend of Comden and Green as well as Patrick Dennis. He left acting to open a successful photography studio. I never got to meet him, but we had mutual friends who swore he was one of the nicest people on Earth. His partner was Shaun O'Brien, one of the principal dancers of the New York City Ballet. His life cries out for a biography of his own -and a bio pic!
Anyway -back to Little Me and First Lady. Alexander managed to get in more than a few beefcake shots and a few bare asses in those books. Not to mention a few familiar faces from the stage and screen.
by Anonymous | reply 425 | May 11, 2025 7:25 PM |
It would have been better with Shelley Hack. Thread closed.
by Anonymous | reply 426 | May 11, 2025 8:02 PM |
I read on Wiki that the movie cost $12M to make and took in only $6M at the box office. That had to crush Lucy. It opened in most theaters a few days before Easter and bombed (I guess they were hoping this 'family movie' would have attracted families over school vacation - and it didn't).
by Anonymous | reply 427 | May 11, 2025 8:14 PM |
[quote]It would have been better with Shelley Hack.
What *wouldn't* have been?
by Anonymous | reply 428 | May 11, 2025 8:34 PM |
[quote]They weren't rumors, [R421]. Kirk was under consideration. I'm assuming that by 1974 they knew dubbing wasn't kept under wraps and it was just better to meticulously piece together Lucille's vocals.
I seem to remember reading at the time that Lucy said they decided not to use Lisa Kirk to dub her in MAME because the whole world knew what Lucy sounded like when she sang, so it would have been very obvious.
by Anonymous | reply 429 | May 11, 2025 8:40 PM |
I think Bernadette would have made a good Mame in the early aughts.
She could handle humor well, could play glamorous, your root for her, very warm and in those days, her voice was stronger.
by Anonymous | reply 430 | May 11, 2025 8:42 PM |
[quote]This was almost 20 years ago (2006), and even then, the show hadn't aged well.
1999 didn't make a persuasive case for it.
by Anonymous | reply 431 | May 11, 2025 8:47 PM |
Agreed, R430. Bernadette would have been a great Mame if she had done the show back in the day when the show was not yet perceived as hopelessly dated.
by Anonymous | reply 432 | May 11, 2025 8:48 PM |
I'm afraid Bernadette would have turned Mame into a cloying kewpie doll.
by Anonymous | reply 433 | May 11, 2025 8:49 PM |
[quote]Agreed, [R430]. Bernadette would have been a great Mame
Because Bernadette just *screams* soignee upper east side sophisticate?
by Anonymous | reply 434 | May 11, 2025 8:54 PM |
Bernadette is enough of an actress that I'm sure she could have played sophisticated. In fact, I would say she did that very well in A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC
by Anonymous | reply 435 | May 11, 2025 9:07 PM |
She wasn't a sophisticate, r435, she was an actress who toured the towns.
by Anonymous | reply 436 | May 11, 2025 9:12 PM |
"She" being Desiree.
by Anonymous | reply 437 | May 11, 2025 9:13 PM |
[quote] His life cries out for a biography of his own -and a bio pic!
He spent most of his life being an extra in films. I don't think that would make for a very interesting film. And as a biography, it would have a VERY limited audience.
by Anonymous | reply 438 | May 11, 2025 9:23 PM |
That poster was referring to Cris Alexander, r438.
by Anonymous | reply 439 | May 11, 2025 9:29 PM |
I am unclear on just how the musical itself is "dated"? At no time was it set in the present -most of the action takes place from 1929 to 1949. Structurally, the musical follows the R&H formula, with the songs advancing the plot or defining characters. Musically, the score is very "Broadway" -but that sound is associated with the era where the story is principally set. The chromaticism of "If He Walked Into My Life" is a bit moderne for the period, but the only real transgressor is "That's How Young I Feel" which could easily live in the world of Bye Bye Birdie. Really, Mame is less dated than shows like Birdie or How To Succeed which were supposed to be contemporary.
by Anonymous | reply 440 | May 11, 2025 10:26 PM |
The humor is dated, r440. Patrick Dennis was out of style by the 70s.
by Anonymous | reply 441 | May 11, 2025 10:35 PM |
R440: Bye, Bye, Birdie was in practically a different time--the 50s. There wasn't much nostalgia for the 20s & 30s in the 70s---nostalgia for the 50s, maybe, but people who could remember earlier eras were dying. No one has much interest in the period, now. None of the songs have lived beyond "Mame" unlike earlier historical musicals like "Gypsy", "My Fair Lady" et al.
by Anonymous | reply 442 | May 11, 2025 10:46 PM |
"None of the songs have lived beyond "Mame"....
"If He Walked Into My Life" and "Mame" are standards, as is "My Best Girl." A holiday doesn't go by without hearing "We Need a Little Christmas." And "Bosom Buddies" is still regularly heard in cabaret shows.
by Anonymous | reply 443 | May 11, 2025 11:05 PM |
[quote] "If He Walked Into My Life" and "Mame" are standards,
No
[quote]as is "My Best Girl."
Absolutely not
by Anonymous | reply 444 | May 11, 2025 11:07 PM |
[quote]There wasn't much nostalgia for the 20s & 30s in the 70s
There was from the late 60s to early 70s, r442. It was over by 1974.
by Anonymous | reply 445 | May 11, 2025 11:09 PM |
^^^ God has spoken!
Or at any rate she has stated her boundaries.
by Anonymous | reply 446 | May 11, 2025 11:11 PM |
Are we still talking about this movie?
by Anonymous | reply 447 | May 11, 2025 11:22 PM |
I was *there*, r446. I had that Life magazine. FOLLIES and No, No, Nanette were both in 1971. What frame of reference are you bringing to the conversation?
by Anonymous | reply 448 | May 11, 2025 11:27 PM |
[quote]Agreed, [R430]. Bernadette would have been a great Mame if she had done the show back in the day when the show was not yet perceived as hopelessly dated.
I wasn't around back then but I can see how Mame would've looked like a relic in 1974. The Godfather (I and II), The Exorcist, Chinatown, Death Wish and Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore were huge movies around that time, movies and what audiences wanted to see had changed so dramatically, Mame must've seemed like a dinosaur in that era.
by Anonymous | reply 449 | May 11, 2025 11:39 PM |
Exactly, r449, and don't forget Bonnie and Clyde.
by Anonymous | reply 450 | May 11, 2025 11:43 PM |
[quote]There wasn't much nostalgia for the 20s & 30s in the 70s---
Oh my....you could not be more wrong.
Follies, Over Here!, No, No, Nanette, The film version The Boy Friend, Bette Midler singing "Bugle Boy"...became a top 10 hit, the TV version of Dames at Sea, That's Entertainment!...and the list goes on. All in the early 1970s. R445 is correct.
by Anonymous | reply 451 | May 12, 2025 12:08 AM |
The UCLA Daily Bruin review of this film, which was published on April Fool's Day 1974, opened with the line: "After various incarnations as a best-selling novel, a smash Broadway play, an Oscar nominated movie and a Tony winning stage musical, Mame has finally been given a funeral -with Lucille Ball as the corpse."
by Anonymous | reply 452 | May 12, 2025 12:18 AM |
R451 Agreed. Don't forget Streisand and Redford in 'The Way We Were' in 1973-74, a box office hit which became a classic.
by Anonymous | reply 453 | May 12, 2025 12:23 AM |
[quote]She wasn't a sophisticate, [R435], she was an actress who toured the towns.
I guessed someone would make a comment of this sort. Desiree is a very poised, self-possessed, classy woman despite certain elements of her lifestyle, and I think she's no less a "sophisticate" than MAME is, but also, "sophisticated" is not the best word to describe either character.
by Anonymous | reply 454 | May 12, 2025 3:55 AM |
Mame Dennis was most certainly sophisticated in dress.
by Anonymous | reply 455 | May 12, 2025 3:58 AM |
R440, I think much of MAME is hopelessly dated because much of its satire just doesn't work anymore, including its satire of all those Yankee-hating Southerners, and the really infantile "humor" of Gooch's unwanted pregnancy. Whereas, in my opinion, the satire in HOW TO SUCCEED still works just fine.
BYE BYE BIRDIE is a more complicated case that I don't want to get into right now :-)
by Anonymous | reply 456 | May 12, 2025 3:59 AM |
Rewrite the book, save most of the score, add a couple of "new" songs from other Jerry Herman shows. Could work.
by Anonymous | reply 457 | May 12, 2025 4:08 AM |
Rewriting and updating books isn't as easy as you make it sound, R457. Many such efforts have turned out to be dogs.
by Anonymous | reply 458 | May 12, 2025 7:09 AM |
Mame was doomed ever since Lucy was cast. Then except for the opening titles and the number Mame it is the ugliest big budget musical I've ever seen. The whole film which should have been a parade of incredible leading lady costumes and lavish sets instead has everyone a dog. It's the worst costumes I have ever seen in a period film. And when you think of the costumes designers who were still working at the time! Even the dogs of the late 60s like Star, Half a Sixpence and Dr. Dolittle got the productions right.
As noted '74 still had an enormous nostalgia audience. That's Entertainment opened shortly after Mame and was a huge success. Murder on the Orient Express was another huge success. Mame just got everything wrong. The director, the production designers, the photography, that little boy, LUCY. Even Doris Day or Debbie Reynolds who were age appropriate though not perfect could have done the role better. Mame should have been produced by Ross Hunter, directed by anybody else but Saks, and costumes could have been by Head or Sharaff. At least it would have been better with some things of interest. How such a property which was a still well known hit could have been so badly handled will always baffle movie musical lovers. Even Robert Osborne who adored Lucy would not go up to her after the Hollywood premiere he was so appalled.
by Anonymous | reply 459 | May 12, 2025 10:18 AM |
R451, R453, R459: Your examples mostly are from the later 30s or 40s. If you don't know your decades, you don't know nostalgia. People from "the greatest generation" were very much around and didn't want reminders of Depression poverty or wartime shortages and sacrifice. The post-war economy was still going strong and lifting people into the middle class in the early half of the 70s. Things started to fall off a cliff shortly threreafter.
by Anonymous | reply 460 | May 12, 2025 11:16 AM |
People ask why Lucy was cast. Wasn't she the one who proposed the idea of making this movie from the stage production in the first place ? I had always heard that she decided to make the movie because she thought Hollywood (with the exception of Disney) was getting away from family entertainment in the theaters in the 70s. Aside from Disney movies, she didn't see any movies being made which the 'whole family' could enjoy - so (from what I recall) this is why she proposed this musical starring her.
by Anonymous | reply 461 | May 12, 2025 11:35 AM |
I liked the costumes. Except for the white monstrosity with the big, pouty shoulders in Bosom Buddies.
Hideous.
by Anonymous | reply 462 | May 12, 2025 11:53 AM |
R461: Lucy put up some of the money for the film, but she didn't own the rights or propose making the movie. She may have dismayed that their weren't films for the whole family but her role in this turkey was limited. You and the other delusional Lucy fans need to quit making her more than a B-movie queen who got lucky.
by Anonymous | reply 463 | May 12, 2025 12:23 PM |
[quote]Your examples mostly are from the later 30s or 40s. If you don't know your decades, you don't know nostalgia. People from "the greatest generation" were very much around and didn't want reminders of Depression poverty or wartime shortages and sacrifice.
The one who doesn't know his decades is you.
"Dames at Sea" is the 1930s. "No, No, Nanette" and "The Boy Friend" are the 1920s. "Over Here!" is set during WWII, That's Entertainment is largely the 1930s and 40s.
And the early to mid 1970s thirst for nostalgia also included "Paper Moon", "Murder on the Orient Express", "Chinatown", "Funny Lady", "Cabaret", "The Sting" all set during the 1930s, "The Summer of 42". "The Great Gatsby" ....among others.
by Anonymous | reply 464 | May 12, 2025 1:23 PM |
Face it, Lucy was too low born to pull off Mame. A s talented as she was, she was basic.
by Anonymous | reply 465 | May 12, 2025 2:15 PM |
Liza might have been able to pull it off…
by Anonymous | reply 466 | May 12, 2025 4:35 PM |
And they help up the production for a couple of months while Lucy recovered from a broken leg - they should have gone on with whoever the second choice was.
by Anonymous | reply 467 | May 12, 2025 5:53 PM |
Lucy could have used a lot of Lucy Ricardoisms for DOLLY - both characters are over-the-top schemers.
by Anonymous | reply 468 | May 12, 2025 5:57 PM |
[quote] Liza might have been able to pull it off…
On the one hand, yes, she could probably have been a great Mame. But Liza was only in her mid-20s when filming took place. After all the pushback about 26 year old Streisand as Dolly, such a young Mame might not have gone over too well.
by Anonymous | reply 469 | May 12, 2025 6:06 PM |
[quote] Rewriting and updating books isn't as easy as you make it sound, [R457]. Many such efforts have turned out to be dogs.
I agree. There have been so many disasters among revivals that have tried to do this, from "Flower Drum Song" to "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever."
And at least in those cases, those were two very lovely scores with songs very much worth hearing again. I couldn't say the same about "Mame."
by Anonymous | reply 470 | May 12, 2025 6:24 PM |
Well, Mame is supposed to be young when she is given custody of her nephew. Roz was too old at fifty, but she was able to pull it off with sheer force of will.
by Anonymous | reply 471 | May 12, 2025 6:25 PM |
[quote] It was over by 1974.
“Chicago” (taking place in the 20s) was in 1975. So was Godfather 2, which took place in the 20s and 40s.
by Anonymous | reply 472 | May 12, 2025 6:31 PM |
Godfather 2 wasn't a musical, and Chicago was a modern musical with adult themes.
by Anonymous | reply 473 | May 12, 2025 6:34 PM |
If the movie version of Chicago had been made in the late 70s/early 80s, Liza and Goldie Hawn would've been perfect.
by Anonymous | reply 474 | May 12, 2025 6:40 PM |
[quote]“Chicago” (taking place in the 20s) was in 1975. So was Godfather 2, which took place in the 20s and 40s.
There's always nostalgia and there's always cinema and theatre that looks back at the past, but during the first half of the 1970s it was a strong cultural trend.
by Anonymous | reply 475 | May 12, 2025 7:49 PM |
Is it too late to add that my favorite Roz performance is as Hildy Johnson in 1940's His Girl Friday, directed at breakneck speed by Howard Hawks and co-starring Cary Grant and Ralph Bellamy. One of the best, ever.
by Anonymous | reply 476 | May 12, 2025 8:25 PM |
R463 Well, take a bow ! You were able to use the word 'delusional' in yet another post ! Good for you. It never gets old.
by Anonymous | reply 477 | May 12, 2025 9:35 PM |
Why has no one mentioned Linda Lavin as Mame yet? Surely she was on everyone's radar at that point as she was soon to be cast in one of the most sought after parts in TV history!
I know she gets a lot of push-back here, but Bonnie Franklin might have worked as well, though she was perhaps a bit too young, but she was a redhead like Lucy and was a hoofer from way back, she could have really made some of the dance numbers sing!
by Anonymous | reply 478 | May 12, 2025 9:41 PM |
I hate to exercise, but I love to live! Live! Live!
by Anonymous | reply 479 | May 12, 2025 9:51 PM |
R478 I mentioned both Lavin and Franklin hundreds of posts above somewhere, days ago. Bonnie would've actually been a great Gooch to Lavin's Mame. Polly Holliday as 'Vera' ? And Doug McKeon could've been Patrick.
by Anonymous | reply 480 | May 12, 2025 10:02 PM |
WHOOPS - meant to say Philip McKeon as Patrick.
by Anonymous | reply 481 | May 12, 2025 10:03 PM |
I have absolutely no idea what R460 was going on about. Could somebody explain it to me?
by Anonymous | reply 482 | May 13, 2025 2:13 AM |
[quote]Lucy could have used a lot of Lucy Ricardoisms for DOLLY - both characters are over-the-top schemers.
Perhaps the best reason of all for not casting her in the movie.
by Anonymous | reply 483 | May 13, 2025 2:30 AM |
I always felt that the only thing that was lacking in Lucy's interpretation of Mame was her famous "Spider" take. Had she included a few of thoughs sprinkled throughout the movie, it would have made for a wonderful change of pace and been just what the film needed to keep it from dragging!
by Anonymous | reply 484 | May 13, 2025 2:34 AM |
"a few of thoughs "
Oh, dear!
by Anonymous | reply 485 | May 13, 2025 2:44 AM |
KIDS! What's the matter with kids ta-daaay!?
by Anonymous | reply 486 | May 13, 2025 4:12 AM |