Mame

Mame
March 27, 1974
Warner Bros.
Musical, Comedy, Historical
VHS
B-

Yes, Lucy and the little boy can't sing.  Yes, she's miscast in other ways (age, appearance, demeanor, etc.), but I enjoy this film about as much as the 1958 non-musical Rosalind Russell version, and not just as cheese.  For one thing, it has the better Vera Charles, the wonderful Bea Arthur, who gets a good duet with Lucy and knows how to deliver a zinger, as she was then proving on Maude and would later prove on The Golden Girls.  (The duet does have a reference to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, but on the surface the two of them are presented as straight.)  I also like seeing Don Porter as Mr. Upson, since even as a bigot he's fun to watch.  Oh, and I was pleasantly surprised that Ito, while still sterotyped, seemed to have more dignity and didn't giggle.

That said, I don't know why they cast John McGiver as Mr. Babcock and gave him less to do than Fred Clark did.  I don't know why Pegeen has been changed from an interior decorator to a maid and interacts even less with Patrick.  Or why Agnes Gooch has been blended with Norah Muldoon, and the father of her child made a complete mystery.  By 1974, unwed pregnancy was a lot less controversial or shocking than it was in the '50s, so this time Mame can open a home for "single mothers."

But, yes, it is campy.  Though it tugs at the emotions with what must be at least fifty hugs (there's even a hug montage towards the end), it's even less plausible than the Russell version, to say nothing of the Patrick Dennis novel, reviewed here http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/06/auntie-mame-irreverent-escapade.html.  I mean, there's a scene where Mame and her nephew are sitting on a spoke of the Statue of Liberty's tiara!  And what about the HUGE production number about how Mame has given the South back its pride by capturing a fox, with her charm!  The movie was considered, with reason, to be dated upon its release, but watching it now it seems more like a warm-up for the overdone musicals of the later '70s, such as Sextette and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Burt Mustin had a small role in a Merlin Jones movie and was 90 when he appeared here as Uncle Jeff.  Barbara Bosson, who plays Emily, had a minor role in The Love God?  Ruth McDevitt was in Change of Habit and plays Cousin Fan here.  Leonard Stone, who plays the stage manager, was Mr. Beauregarde in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.  Jerry Trent was a dancer in The One and Only...Family Band as well, while Kenneth Grant, Sr. would dance in Sgt. Pepper.