Mame, The worst musical film . Ever.

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.

The material was creaky by 1974 and that was emphasized by the casting of a creaky leading lady.

Jane Connell was robbed of an Oscar!

OP, I know you feel alone in this moment, but many of us have lived through what you're experiencing now.

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.

R5 Because Gary talked her out of serving the lobster.

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.

Now just wait a goddamn minute! This Lucy dame and I are going to have it out!

star

Thank you, r8.

[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.

Did she sing it as written? I hope so.

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.

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.

it would have been better with Barbara Cason as the rich bitch

I don't think Lucy's voice suits the score.

Barbara Cason

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.

I was NEVER in the chorus!

MY song!

Thanks r17!

godDAMN but I want those pink lounging pajamas she’s frolicking in at r4!

i want to be BURIED in them! OPEN CASKET!

I didnt realize that Andy Garvey was Mame's nephew.

It would've been better with Helen Lawson.

This topic is pretty well exhausted.

It was huge. HUGE, I tell ya!

"This topic is pretty well exhausted."

So was Lucy. That was the problem.

Dreadful.

R25. As is your attitude.

“Cut!”

“Get me a cigarette. Get me two!”

I was molested by a cool rider.

The ONLY movie version of Mame to watch, is the version with Rosalind Russel. Superior in every way.

R32. Except that wasn't a movie version of "Mame." That was "Auntie Mame"; two separate things.

The old, tired Lucy.

I rather liked the picture, actually.

It needed someone younger and more glamorous...like little Suzanne Cupito.

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.

YOU BLOW THE SHIT RIGHT OUTTA MY ASS... MAME

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!

Also John Huston's Annie and Sydney Lumet's Wiz

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.

[quote]Doctor Doolittle

DOLITTLE, as in "do little" -- get it?

R39 you forgot At Long Last Love

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.

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.

Did Lucy get all of Jerry Herman’s pauses in the right places?

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?

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.

In Goodbye Mr Chips I hated the way Petula Clark was killed .

Man of La Mancha

And it was so compelling on stage.

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.

Michele Lee? God only one of them, Ball or Lee, would have made it out of production alive.

R41, exactly. When Bea Arthur makes her first appearance and speaks her guest line, it’s just dead air onscreen for several moments after.

R50, it sure doesn’t help that Sophia Loren was not a singer and talks her way through the songs.

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.

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.

R49. SPOILER ALERT!

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.

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!!!

bitE and truth......

Mame is pretty bad but hardly the worst. CATS, MAN OF LA MANCHA, SONG OF NORWAY and many others are far worse.

R58. Pet Clark was a serious contender to play Neely O'Hara. No. Really. She was.

Song of Norway

R63. Mrs. Brady was a shit singer. I'm glad I put Drano in her coffee before her big Christmas Morning solo...

Mame was a shitty musical to begin with, but it did give us one of the all-time great torch songs.

Pia Zadora would've made a better Mame!

[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 (?)

In his scathing review of the movie, Rex Reed wrote of Lucille Ball, "Cut her in half and count the rings!"

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.

The film version of A Chorus Line is pretty dreadful. The only saving grace is Vicki Frederick and her amazing head of hair.

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.

R41 And there was so much of it!

[quote] Her scenes with the Upsons are fun....

In what way?

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?"

[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.

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.

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?

[quote] I didn't see her in the stage version but I did her on stage.

Oops. Haha.

[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.

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.

I blame Bernadette! She didn’t play the part, or sing, as written.

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.

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.

And there's At Long Last Love, and one From the Heart.

R82 Man of La Mancha is pretty much for James Coco’s Chubby Chaser Fan Club.

The remake of State Fair (1962) directed by Jose Ferrer...it was not good, but it's like a masterpiece compared to Mame.

Meh…

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.

Paint Your Wagon stunk. Clint made Lucy sound like Judy Garland

[quote]and one From the Heart.

I like One From the Heart, r84.

Lucy would have been great in HELLO, DOLLY!

r91 But Walter Matthau was fine in the role.

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.

You’d fuck a horse in a barn, wouldn’t you?

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 (!).

It would have been better with Shelley Hack R66!

[quote]Lucy would have been great in HELLO, DOLLY!

Lucy as Dolly and Gale Gordon as Vandergelder. Just imagine!

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.

They're movies featuring people on screen dancing not singing, r99. Musicals have people on screen singing.

R99 really?!

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!

Lucy croaking out the songs in her elderly, cigarette-ravaged voice was painful to hear.

[quote]“Cut!”

[quote]“Get me a cigarette. Get me two!”

Right away, Miss Ball.

Ann Margaret tested for Irene Molloy. Her screen test was up on YouTube for a bit.

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.

Tommy

[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!

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.

Song of Norway

[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.

[quote] Paint Your Wagon stunk. Clint made Lucy sound like Judy Garland.

And Lee Marvin made Clint sound like Risë Stevens.

[quote]r107 - Tommy

Tommy was nominated for best picture. You may not like it, but it's not a bad movie.

She would have been perfect with an age-appropriate Dolly, r111.

R108 I was the asst. to the second barista who made cappuccino on the MSW.

Be careful!

I liked it r113. I threw it out there to see what others thought

[quote]Ann Margaret

Oh, dear.

No you didn’t R116

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.

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?

If the moon shit electricity, civilization would survive another 20,000 years. But it doesn’t, so we won’t.

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.

He's no Lee Marvin, r122.

He's not even a Pierce Brosnan!

[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.

Don't forget "At Long Last Love," another now lamented misunderstood "masterpiece." Another badly sung, acted, directed, and costumed cinematic turd.

Judy Garland as Martha in Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf. Can you even imagine how insane that would've been?

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.

The Little Prince (1974)

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.

Connie got the part, but for Eliza, George Cukor also considered newcomer Donna Douglas.

Typical Cukor and his blonde casting couch...

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?!

Frankly, other than Robert Preston the entire movie was miscast!

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!

Barbra probably didn't want that cheap whore Annie Margaret to steal her thunder.

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.

R8 I never miss a Liv Ullmann musical!

R126 It's been mentioned a couple of times.

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.

Edward Albee wanted Bette Davis as Martha. That would've been perfect since Bette pretty much WAS Martha IRL.

I tried to watch it. But I couldn’t take her hoarse voice and had to stop watching. She just sounded so bad.

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

[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.

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.

R144 there's a recording of Ura Hagen doing Martha and her drunk scenes sound very much like those Judy recordings

I think the problem with Xanadu is that it's so damn dull.

It’s dull and ONJ couldn’t act worth a damn.

[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?

Angela Lansbury looked old from the time she hit 18.

FIFY

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.

[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.

You're correct, r152. She opened on Broadway. Shirley Booth did the role on film.

[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".

^ Marilyn

R154, I hope you're joking, because the idea of Marilyn Monroe (of all people!) as Martha in Virginia Woolf is beyond ridiculous.

R149 Judy Garland didn't have the right toughness for either Martha or Helen Lawson she was too tremulous and vulnerable.

Marilyn Monroe was too attractive for Martha, who was a slovenly frump.

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.

The salt'n'pepper hair helped.

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.

She'd recently done Travels With My Aunt, r161.

Which was just on TCM, R162. She was great in that movie.

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.

[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.

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.

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?

R167, she also played the bad gal in Don't Bother to Knock

She wasn't bad, r168, she was disturbed.

"I'm sorry I was ever part of this movie."

"IT WAS A TOTAL HORROR!!!!"

-Bea being interviewed about Mame

R164 made that up.

R164. Nice to see Randy Rainbow sold out...

R169 ...she was just drawn that way.

[quote]Liz Taylor could do slovenly and unattractive,

Preaching to the choir.

[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?

“Mame” cries for a more creditable remake, even if it’s with stunt casting and presented on Thanksgiving.

It would be good with age apropos casting with Beyoncé or Adele. Maybe even the “Wicked” girls.

1985, r171... it was in Drama-Logue.

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.

[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.

r180, I saw Juidy in Antigone and she was marvelous.

[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.

If there had been one titled-

Joanie Love Chaci- The Musical

That would be the worst musical film ever.

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."

Chachi!

I don't know why Lucy never remade the movie 'Hello Dolly' in the early 80s after her success with 'Mame'.

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).

[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.

Yeah I mean they offered to play Vandergelder and Irene Malloy, so the film could be made with Gordon as Dolly.

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.

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).

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).

Whenever anyone says Oh, So-and-so would have been a great Martha! I ask if so-and-so could do these scenes.

or this

[quote]*I* could!

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.

Myrtle Fargate, again?

Always picking on poor Mary Todd Lincoln…

R193 So are you saying only Elizabeth Taylor could do those scenes?

Thanks, R196, I had no idea there was a TV version of THE MATCHMAKER with Ruth Gordon.

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.

Watching this now. Thanks to you bitches.

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.

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.

Patrick certainly is a plump little boy.

"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

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.

R113, Ken Russell’s Tommy was not a Best Picture nominee. Though Ann-Margret was nominated for Best Actress.

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.

I was molested by Virginia Woolf.

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.

At Long Last Love was recut by Bogdanovich before his passing. It's on Blu-Ray and it got good reviews when released.

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.

I thought people liked 1776. Every 4th of July, people online post about how it’s time to watch it.

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.

R35 is Desi Jr., always trying to placate The Monster at home.

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?

I remember Lucy had "Funny Girl" lined up as her next major movie musical after 'Mame'. Desi talked her out of it.

R216 Thanks. It drives me crazy.

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!

Who doesn't love an art deco feast starring Lucille Ball in her 60s?

The opening titles really are fab. And ditto the orchestrations. I love them, especially for “Loving You,” the song Herman wrote for the film.

Lucy wanted to replace that moon number with "I am the Queen of the Gypsies!" But thankfully Gary talked her out of it.

And by the way, whose idea was it to have Paul Zindel write the screenplay?

Another by the way...why didn't Robert Preston (from Newton, Massachusetts) have a southern accent?

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.”

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?

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!

>>I’ve never seen the film version of SSS

What is SSS?

It may be "1776."

That is a new level of stupid DL code.

[quote] Wasn’t BA already on Maude when this came out?

Maude debuted in 1972. Wasn't Gene Saks once married to Beatrice Arthur?

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.

If you start doing “teams” like in the tennis threads—I’m outta here.

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.

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.

a Fatty Arbuckle musical fan?

[quote] She has the moves, she can still dance

She can still dance, yet she was never a dancer.

People have justifiably forgotten THE PRODUCERS. A mediocre musical turned into a worse musical film.

I thought she was a dancer. She did Wildcat on B’way. Wasn’t she originally a chorus girl?

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.

(She also sang in Wildcat, but that didn't mean she was a singer.)

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.

Has anyone mentioned 60s model sensation Twiggy in "The Boyfriend", yet?

Our high school did a better version of The Boyfriend.

Lucille was graceful and could handle basic ballroom but she wasn't a dancer-dancer.

[quote]r239 = I thought she was a dancer. She did Wildcat on B’way.

The *real* dancing in Wildcat was done by the pros.

the one I can't get through despite the star power is Thoroughly Modern Millie.

But you could always depend on Julie for a good soundtrack, r247.

It's good on weed r247

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.

[quote]It's good on weed

What isn't?

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...

R250: Completely different kind of film. No singing.

[quote]I’ve never seen the film version of SSS.

SSS? Will you please just stop it?

I don't think much of Angela Lansbury's singing either.

I'm a big fan of it, r255. To each his own.

[quote]I don't think much of Angela Lansbury's singing either.

Front page news!!!!!

[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.

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.

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.

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.

^^^^ Tell us about it!

^^How old was George when he made that one, though?

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?

[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.

Ginger...tried. Lansbury she *wasn't*.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Madeline Kahn as Gooch would have been wonderful.

Connell didn’t really have much of a screen presence.

R269 they like any musical in the West End 😵‍💫

Also, r272, the cast recording was never released.

R270 It became her comfort zone, it didn't start out as her comfort zone.

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?

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".

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.

[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.

[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.

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?

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.

[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.

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.

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.

Well I think you’re ALL wrong! After all, Lucy DID get a Golden Globe nomination!

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.

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.

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.

I'm surprised we didn't end up with Gale Gordon as Beauregard.

[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.

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.

Lucy was good in The Big Street and Easy to Wed

[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.

Lucy was also excellent in STAGE DOOR. It's a small role, of course, but she was perfect in it.

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.

R293 Yeah, what R295 said, Miss Bossypants!

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?

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.

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

Maggie Smith would have been a great Vera Charles.

And Ruth Buzzi would have been a good Gooch.

[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..

The Babs version of what?

R303 My bad. Confusing Herman's Mame with Dolly.

Diana would have sang the shit out of "If He Walked Into My Life"

The plot of Mame makes no sense if the characters are black.

How old is Mame supposed to be, anyway? In her 30s?

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.

Not in 1974

[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?

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."

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.

If Debbie could do Irene on Broadway then I'm sure she could handle Mame on screen .

Well, except that she’s dead.

I'm laughing picturing Ann Margret bumping and grinding as Mame.

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!).

[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.

[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.

Lauren Bacall as Mame? She croaked her way through musicals as well as Lucy.

Barbra Streisand considered Mame, but Jon Peters told her she couldn’t play anyone over 30 because she’s so young and sexy.

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.

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.

[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.

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.

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?

Nunsense.

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.

[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.

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.

*wanted to

Robert Preston is practically Lucy’s boy toy in this.

There are so many shots of that ghastly child. He looks like Beau’s mother in miniature.

Did Frankie Michaels deserve the Tony as Young Patrick?

Did they ever do this show in summer stock, like under a big tent? Did Dottie West or Edie Adams ever play Mame?

How come Patrick is the only person who ages in this film?

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.

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.

Did Vicki Lord comment?

[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.

[quote]How come Patrick is the only person who ages in this film?

If they aged Lucy, she'd have been a corpse.

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.

Henry Fonda was an old man in the1960s. He gave me the creeps from then on.

Tom Joad! Abe Lincoln! Barbara Stanwyck’s prey! Juror #8! A knight in shining armor!

A pox on you

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.

TRUTH: Mame is not a good show aside from one song.

[quote]Lucy would have been great in HELLO, DOLLY!

Only if they got Everett Dirksen to dub her songs.

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.

R347. She was great singing "My Hero"

I preferred her "Lily of the Valley."

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.)

[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.

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.

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!

R352: Her version of warmth is sentimental slush. Even someone as frequently hammy as Roz Russell was capable of greater subtlety.

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.

Bea won the Tony for her Vera Charles in Mame.

Sassafrassa should have been cast as Vera Charles...

What role would Lucy have played if they'd cast her in "The Women"?

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.

[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.

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.

What’s WRONG with Phyllis Thacker?

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.

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.

R358

[quote]What role would Lucy have played if they'd cast her in "The Women"?

Olga the manucurist

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.

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.

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.)

R63: She's over the top in Picnic.

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.

[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.

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.

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.

Lucy would have sucked as Dolly. It requires a range of emotion, which she lacks.

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.

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.

R376 I guess that's why they say opinions are like assholes.

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.

R378 Let's hope she was less hammy than she was in The Bad Seed.

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'.

Carol Burnett, while a fine actress, couldn't pull off "sophistication."

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.

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.

Maybe, R383, but I really think she did not have the right look for the part facially, aside from the glamor issues.

Yvonne De Carlo

[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.

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.

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.

Christine Baranski did Mame once in LA, and she was great.

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.

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?

BTW the real Mame Dennis lived in the west village in NYC in the townhouse right next door to The Monster in Sheridan Square.

The sheer number of times it's been revived on Broadway testifies to what a classic and enduring score it is.

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...

Isn't Mame Dennis only supposed to be around 40ish?

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.

Angela Lansbury "Love is Only Love" Piano Rehearsal Remastered "Mame" Herman

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.

[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.

[quote]I saw her in SB and she looked just right.

How was her performance?

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.

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.

[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.

[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

R394, Michele Lee did play Mame. In Pittsburgh.

Well, when you're in Pittsburgh, you've got to do something.....

Kurt Bieber...

[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.

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.

Actually, Yvonne DeCarlo could sing and she could be sophisticated...

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".

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.

I'm betting Audra MacDonald will be working on a B'way revival of 'Mame' after 'Gypsy' is finished.

R412 Does she dance well?

[quote][R410] That's funny, I thought she was in Company in the '70s.

That was Jane Russell, r411.

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 !

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?).

I think that's a safe assumption, r416.

R414 Sorry, I meant Follies.

Re-watching Gypsy with Rosalind Russell.....could Lucy have done it?

[quote]could Lucy have done it?

no

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.

You didn't cross Lucy. You'd regret it as long as you live.

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.

Lisa could have been a fabulous Mame. She was quite a broad.

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.

It would have been better with Shelley Hack. Thread closed.

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).

[quote]It would have been better with Shelley Hack.

What *wouldn't* have been?

[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.

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.

[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.

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'm afraid Bernadette would have turned Mame into a cloying kewpie doll.

[quote]Agreed, [R430]. Bernadette would have been a great Mame

Because Bernadette just *screams* soignee upper east side sophisticate?

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

She wasn't a sophisticate, r435, she was an actress who toured the towns.

"She" being Desiree.

[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.

That poster was referring to Cris Alexander, r438.

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.

The humor is dated, r440. Patrick Dennis was out of style by the 70s.

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.

"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.

[quote] "If He Walked Into My Life" and "Mame" are standards,

No

[quote]as is "My Best Girl."

Absolutely not

[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.

^^^ God has spoken!

Or at any rate she has stated her boundaries.

Are we still talking about this movie?

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?

[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.

Exactly, r449, and don't forget Bonnie and Clyde.

[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.

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."

R451 Agreed. Don't forget Streisand and Redford in 'The Way We Were' in 1973-74, a box office hit which became a classic.

[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.

Mame Dennis was most certainly sophisticated in dress.

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 :-)

Rewrite the book, save most of the score, add a couple of "new" songs from other Jerry Herman shows. Could work.

Rewriting and updating books isn't as easy as you make it sound, R457. Many such efforts have turned out to be dogs.

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.

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.

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.

I liked the costumes. Except for the white monstrosity with the big, pouty shoulders in Bosom Buddies.

Hideous.

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.

[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.

Face it, Lucy was too low born to pull off Mame. A s talented as she was, she was basic.

Liza might have been able to pull it off…

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.

Lucy could have used a lot of Lucy Ricardoisms for DOLLY - both characters are over-the-top schemers.

[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.

[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."

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.

[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.

Godfather 2 wasn't a musical, and Chicago was a modern musical with adult themes.

If the movie version of Chicago had been made in the late 70s/early 80s, Liza and Goldie Hawn would've been perfect.

[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.

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.

R463 Well, take a bow ! You were able to use the word 'delusional' in yet another post ! Good for you. It never gets old.

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!

I hate to exercise, but I love to live! Live! Live!

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.

WHOOPS - meant to say Philip McKeon as Patrick.

I have absolutely no idea what R460 was going on about. Could somebody explain it to me?

[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.

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!

"a few of thoughs "

Oh, dear!

KIDS! What's the matter with kids ta-daaay!?