Mame (film)

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This is an article about a 1974 film. For the Broadway musical upon which it's based, see Mame.

Mame
Image:MameFilmPoster.jpg Original poster
Directed by	Gene Saks
Produced by	James Cresson Robert Fryer
Written by	Patrick Dennis (novel) Jerome Lawrence (play) Paul Zindel
Starring	Lucille Ball
Music by	Jerry Herman
Cinematography	Philip H. Lathrop
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date(s)	1974
Running time	132 min.
Country	U.S.A.
Language	English
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Mame is a 1974 American musical film.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Production 4 Reception 5 DVD Release 6 References 7 External link

Plot

Based on the 1966 Broadway musical of the same name, it focuses on eccentric Mame Dennis, whose madcap life is disrupted when her deceased brother's son Patrick is entrusted to her care. Rather than bow to convention, Mame introduces the boy to her free-wheeling lifestyle, which includes her personal secretary Agnes Gooch, "bosom buddy" actress Vera Charles, and husband Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside, a Southern aristocrat with a Georgia plantation called Peckerwood.

Cast

Paul Zindel's screenplay was directed by Gene Saks. The cast included Lucille Ball, Beatrice Arthur, Robert Preston, Bruce Davison, Jane Connell, Joyce Van Patten, Don Porter, and John McGiver.

Warner Bros. studio heads were concerned Angela Lansbury, who had originated the title role on Broadway but had not yet captured the attention of the general public with her portrayal of Jessica Fletcher on the primetime series Murder, She Wrote, was not enough of a household name to draw audiences to what was already a difficult sell, as the movie musical no longer was the draw it once was. Relying upon her reputation and name value, the studio signed Ball to star in the production, though she was not up to the vocal demands of the role.

Production

Filming, scheduled to begin in early 1972, was postponed when Ball broke her leg in a skiing accident. Due to the delay, original director George Cukor was forced to withdraw from the project. The assignment went to Gene Saks, who had helmed the Broadway production, and his influence resulted in his then-wife Beatrice Arthur nabbing the role of Vera Charles she had created on stage, and which had been actively sought by Bette Davis.

Production began in January 1973. Ball, who had casting approval, was dissatisfied with Madeline Kahn's interpretation of Gooch and had her replaced by Connell, another member of the original Broadway cast. Cinematographer Philip H. Lathrop made a valiant effort to draw attention from Ball's age by filming her with special lens filters, but the contrast between her soft-focus close-ups and the clarity of everyone and everything else was noticeable and jarring. Furthermore, despite extensive rehearsal sessions with Jerry Herman, who had composed the score, there was nothing that could be done to diminish her lack of singing ability. Finally, Ball at age 62 was slowing down and still ailing from the previous year's mishap, and her movements, especially in the dance routines choreographed by Onna White, were tentative at best.

Reception

Radio City Music Hall selected the film to be its Easter attraction. The film broke box-office records in its run at Radio City, but many reviews, particularly those for Ball, were brutal. Time Magazine said, "The movie spans about 20 years, and seems that long in running time . . . Miss Ball has been molded over the years into some sort of national monument, and she performs like one too. Her grace, her timing, her vigor have all vanished." [1] Time Out London declared she "simply hasn't the drive and steel of a Rosalind Russell, an Angela Lansbury or a Ginger Rogers, all of whom played the part before her," and said of Saks, "When he's not ogling his star in perpetual soft focus and a $300,000 fashion parade, [he] fails to get enough retakes, match his shots, or inject the essential vim." [2] Pauline Kael in The New Yorker wondered, "After forty years in movies and TV, did she discover in herself an unfulfilled ambition to be a flaming drag queen?" The New Republic's Stanley Kauffman, though he pointed out that Ball would have made a perfect Mame had she played the role "fifteen years earlier," described her as "too old, too stringy in the legs, too basso in the voice, and too creaky in the joints."

However, contrary to popular perception, not all the reviews were bad. Vincent Canby in the New York Times, for example, expressed "great reservations" about the film and Ball's close-ups, but noted that the film is "as determined to please in its way as Mame is in hers" and that the opening credits, "which look like a Cubist collage in motion, are so good they could be a separate subject." Canby went on to praise Ball as well: "When the character of Lucy, an inspired slapstick performer, coincides with that of Auntie Mame, the Big-Town sophisticate, 'Mame' is marvelous. I think of Lucy's turning a Georgia fox hunt into a gigantic shambles, or of her bringing the curtain down on a New Haven first-night when, as a budding actress, she falls off a huge cardboard moon. I even treasure her prying loose the fingers of a sloshed Beatrice Arthur who won't give up her martini glass." [3] The show-business bible Variety reported that the film is "why movies were invented" and added that "Lucille never looked lovelier." Molly Haskell in the Village Voice was "pro-Ball but anti-'Mame'" and felt that Lucy made the character of Mame--someone "you'd walk a mile to avoid" in real life--palatable. Milton Krims, the film critic for The Saturday Evening Post, wrote (in the magazine's March 1974 issue) a breathless paean to Lucille Ball and the film, concluding that "Mame is Lucille Ball and Lucille Ball is Mame."

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association awarded Ball a Golden Globe nomination (Arthur received one as well) but, disheartened by its reception, she swore she never would appear on the big screen again, and the film proved to be her last.

DVD Release

Many fans of Mame, writing in public forums such as imdb.com, have longed for Warner Brothers to release a DVD of the film. A recent WB press release has announced that on June 19th, 2007, Mame will be released on DVD in a special collection of Lucille Ball's films.

References

• Desilu: The Story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz by Coyne Steven Sanders and Tom Gilbert, published by William Morrow & Company, 1993, pages 336-340
• Showtune, A Memoir by Jerry Herman with Marilyn Stasio, published by Donald I. Fine Books, 1996, pages 209-211

External link

• Mame at the Internet Movie Database
• Mame at All Movie Guide

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