Lucille Ball as You've Never Heard Her

Wunerful

I would certainly not disparage Lucy's alluring boy toy caregivers who gingerly help her get off the piano.

Why didn’t she make more musicals?

That last scene at the top of the stairs, sliding down the bannister and crossing the room to sitting atop the piano was one take. Not necessarily a long take (20 seconds), but it certainly required some rehearsal for the choreography, blocking, and planning a crane shot. And Lucy definitely had some energy!

I always forget how truly awful she was in this.

Even the arrangement sucks!

Did you catch Sandahl Bergman as an extra?

Oof. There’s a lot to unpack here.

If you listen with headphones, it becomes ridiculously obvious that they pieced dozens of takes together.

Gary, you really let us down here.

I guess that wonderful parody got yanked off Youtube.

It’s no At Long Last Love.

Reporter: Ms. Lansbury, Ms. Ball says you passed on this or she wouldn’t have done it.

Lansbury: That isn’t true. I wanted to do it in the worst possible way!

Reporter: Well, that’s how Ms. Ball did it.

It's just sad.

R12, Oh Angie, get over it. You would NEVER have gotten the movie role under any circumstances.

One of the many, MANY problems with this particular number is that the tempo is TOO SLOW. This number takes place in 1928, and they slowed it down to practically ragtime (which was, musically, two decades earlier). Listen to Angela on the cast album… the only two words she sings slowly are “Light… the…” and then she launches into an uptempo that stopped the show in her first number; plus, she had one of the greatest star entrances ever at the top of the staircase playing a bugle, instead of Lucy suddenly appearing out of nowhere standing on a piano, (possibly via an “apple picker” on the soundstage). This was the era of the Charleston, not the foxtrot. I’m not even getting into the vocals, the awful lipsynching, and the dark wig. It reminds me of when Lucy Ricardo wanted to be an Italian movie star…

Lucy had been coasting on being “America’s favorite redhead” for ten years. NOW she decides to mix it up and look like Ava Gardner?

The first glimpse we have of the Klimt inspired portrait has Lucy with red hair and then it suddenly changes to dark hair.

[quote]Lucille Ball as You've Never Heard Her

You think no one on Datalounge has seen Mame?! Jesus this is probably the only place on the entire World Wide Web where it's ever still mentioned

According to Lucie Arnaz, who overheard the phone call, Ball did fight for Lansbury but Warner Bros. wouldn’t budge. They told her if she didn’t do it, they’d cast someone else but it wouldn’t be Lansbury.

It's always so much worse than I remembered. No matter how many times I've seen this number, it's always like I'm seeing it for the first time.

Why is she wearing a Halston knock-off made of Quiana in 1974, when all her guests are dressed for 1924?

What kind of contraption is underneath her wig that attempts to make her look 44, when she is 64?

Klimt died in 1918, so how did she get to Vienna while World War One was raging, to have him paint her?

Oh so Shirley MacLaine in postcards singing I'm still here is inspired by this?

Sounds great to me!

Lucy was semi competent for singing on her TV shows, but not for elaborate musical films.

I do like that walking/dancing bit with the chorus boys. I wonder if that was from the show or was it invented for Lucy?

Everything looks so cheap and artless…and her voice is what it is, but actually I think Lucy does a pretty damn good job of it. Yes, she never should have been cast, but she does well here with what she was called on to do.

[QUOTE]Oh so Shirley MacLaine in postcards singing I'm still here is inspired by this?

I smiled through the whole piano scene as Lucy awkwardly tries to be alluring and then when they hoisted grandma off, LOL'd. Yes, there is definitely an overt homage in Postcards I'd never considered before. Deliciously bitchy!

R4: You're trying to hard to make it seem like she's more talented than she really was. Ditto R26.

It's the Platonic Form of a turkey.

Didn't Lucy break her leg and filming had to be postponed? Everything was carefully choreographed because the leg was still fucked up.

We've never heard her for a damn good reason, OP.

R24, it may not be elaborate but it's a film!

Trust me -- no one wanted to see that broad's klimt.

I'm going to admit finally that one person who could have actually been cast and been good in the role is Debbie Reynolds.

There. I said it.

Maybe r34. But I couldn't stand her in The Unsinkable Molly Brown.

Lucy is also pretty awful in that "Jitterbug Bites" number. She's young and pretty enough, but she's simply not musical in any way. She moves gracelessly and can't sing.

MGM put her under contract in '42 and gave her a few chances toplining in DuBarry Was a Lady, and Best Foot Forward, and had to dub her singing, but both kind of flopped. They moved her down to "Sassy Best Friend" roles where she did a little better, but she didn't last long there either.

Vance did "Sassy Best Friend" a LOT better.

Mame is Datalounge’s favorite horror movie

Debbie Reynolds would’ve been the right age and she could actually sing.

Datalounge prepares for Halloween with a Mame clip! 👻 🎃

Lucy croaking out the songs in her voice ravaged by booze and cigs is tough to listen to.

I think she's tremendous!

Watching it for the umpteenth time, it occurs to me that Lucy is a bit too earnest and "common" to play Mame. There should be a level of sophistication to the character that is inherently out of Lucy's wheelhouse.

What's so fascinating to me is that Lucille Ball musty have known from an early age she could not sing: that's even a running gag in the "I Love Lucy" episodes. Yet even so, she kept wanting to do musical theater, thinking she could get away with it.

For R10.

That wasn't the one I was referring to, r45. It was an over-dubbed It's Today.

For "Too Many Girls" (1940), Lucy was dubbed by Miss Trudy Erwin to sing the beautiful standard "I Didn't Know What Time it Was." The people at RKO didn't dare let her wreck it in her own voice.

Just like Punxsutawney Phil on Groundhog Day, a new thread on the movie of Mame pops up on DL every year. I admit I am fascinated by this movie that is so bad that you can't take your eyes off it. It's not like other movie musicals that massacred their source material, such as A Chorus Line or Man of La Mancha. I'm not sure even Angela Lansbury could have saved this turkey, although I wish she had been cast. Did Gene Saks ever direct a good movie?

Everything is wrong in the "It's Today" number: the tempo, Lucy's "singing" (spliced together note by note during the pre-recording sessions), Lucy's wardrobe, Lucy's dancing (when she cuts a rug with her dancing partner she holds her head and neck so stiffly that she looks like a department store mannequin being hauled around the room)...and most of all, Lucy's style. As Pauline Kael put it: "When she throws up her arms, in their red giant-batwing sleeves, and cries out 'Listen, everybody!' does she really think she's a fun person?" Lucy was all wrong for the role, and not just because she was too old. Way too old.

One thing I do love about this number, though, is the brief glimpse of Jane Connell darting her head around like a mongoose searching for that wretched child actor who played Patrick. She and Bea Arthur and Robert Preston couldn't save the movie by themselves, but they sure gave it a good try.

R45 that was brilliant. I laughed out loud.

Saks only directed seven feature films. His first three were big hits; after that, nada.

Judy Garland would've been absolutely perfect as Mame in the 50s musical and film but unfortunately she was too much of a wreck by then.

"Auntie Mame" was in the '50s. The musical opened in 1966, three years before Judy died. She was briefly considered as a Broadway replacement, but she could never have handled a Broadway performance schedule at that point in her life.

What about Mitzi Gaynor? Her career got a boost with her television specials. Maybe she was still too young.

Sorry r52 I meant to type "60s" for the musical. But you are correct - nobody would've hired Judy for a Broadway musical in 1966, she was too far gone by then. I doubt she would've been hired for the movie "Auntie Mame" because even by the late 50s she had a reputation for being undependable.

Still, if she had been in better shape she would've been perfect. Judy Garland as Mame is one of the great "what ifs" in show business history.

R19, Lucie is LYING.

Saint Lucie would never lie!

[quote]Still, if she had been in better shape she would've been perfect. Judy Garland as Mame is one of the great "what ifs" in show business history.

In an interview, Jerry Herman talked about when Judy Garland was considered as a replacement for Angela Lansbury, which was probably around1968. Herman said that when he wrote the songs for "Mame," it was Garland's voice he imagined singing them. He was hoping she'd be hired, saying that, even if she ended up doing only one performance, it would have been worth it to hear her sing the score.

[quote]Lucille Ball as You've Never Heard Her

This is DL. We've been hearing her murder those songs nonstop for years.

Although the story was that the producers were unwilling to take a risk on Garland, it's believed that her family and management begged the producers not to hire her because the money she made in concerts was far beyond what she'd make on Broadway and if her reputation for missing performances extended to the theater, it could have hurt future concert bookings as well. Garland wanted to do it badly, but she likely could not have handled 8 performances a week.

No way in hell Judy could've done 8 performances a week by 1966. She was already living on borrowed time by then and the drugs had fried her brain.

Judy was too gamine for Mame Dennis.

Garland as Mama Rose with Ann Margret as Louise is the biggest what if of her career.

A-M would have been a great Mame onscreen. This was around the time of Tommy and having a career resurgence. She was in her mid-30s and the concept of a younger Mame was something Pauline Kael said the work needed. "A young smashing actress who makes it clear why homosexuals find her a turn-on". Roger Smith could have played Beau and Madeline Kahn could have played Vera. Maybe Sally Struthers as Gooch.

Fuck Struthers! Gooch was MINE!

Lucie is pretty honest about Lucy Sr so I gotta believe she's telling the truth.

She hadn't really started her career yet but Beverly Archer would have been a lot of fun as Gooch.

Alice Ghostley

R19. Damn, I saw Lucie in PS a few weeks ago and could have asked her.

And she’s at the DNGAF part of life, so she’d fess up.

She should be performing in Feb, so I’ll ask.

When you see her, r67, ask her why the hell the SEESAW tour skipped Denver.

R58

Noted.

At the time, r69, I was told she didn't want to do Denver and I've held it against her ever since.

I put the blame on her.

[quote]R62 A-M would have been a great Mame onscreen.

I don’t think she had the comedic chops for a role like Mame Dennis. Sorry.

It goes beyond comedic chops, r72. It's a type/persona thing.

Needs her clutching and swigging a huge bottle of VItameatavegamin.

the concept of a younger Mame was something Pauline Kael said the work needed. "A young smashing actress

If they were going for a younger Mame they would have asked Barbra or Liza.

Lucy is particularly awful, but Gene Saks made so many disastrous choices, from the mausoleum like set for the Beekman Place apartment to the exceptionally ugly over-the-top clothes.

It's just not a very good musical to begin with, either.

R75, Barbra and Liza are too ethnic.

I'll say.

Mame Dennis is not a JEW. She lived at Sutton Place and was old money WASP.