MAME the movie.- Page 3

[sondheimboy2]

Posted: 1/6/07 at 7:44pm

Whenever I come across MAME on tv, I always end up watching it for a number of reasons:

To admire Lucy for all the effort that she put in it. She was 65 when she filmed it and worked very hard on those dances. Miscast as she was in it, she wasn't just walking through it.

Having said that, some of the wrong choices in it are delightful. Her "facial interpretations" as "If He Walked Into My Life" is played as a voiceover. Her reaction shot in "Gooch's Song," it looks as if someone out of camera range poked her in the back with a stick.

And to wonder what Bea Arthur ever did to the costume designer to make her hate Bea so much that she made Bea wear those hideous costume dresses. The one she sings "Bosom Buddies" in, especially.

And I really like the song written for Robert Preston "Loving You." I'd say to include it in any stage revivals of MAME, but it would come early in the second act and you'd have to do Beau's death and it start the act out on the wrong foot.

[Theatrical Landladies]

Posted: 1/6/07 at 8:49pm

I can't say a lot about the MAME the movie. I was in a very early teens and went with my grandmother. We both loved LUCY on TV and so we loved the movie too. The songs were great and we laughed a lot at the roller-skate episode and the MAN IN THE MOON number. Many year later and having spent a lot of time going to Broadway and the West End and having seen loads of great performances in musicals I find I can still enjoy the movie MAME and LUCY's performance. I would love to see the movie with her song vocals dubbed as she is very monotone which gets a bit trying. She looks gorgeous though and I think at the time they boasted she had the most costume changes of any film character. The musical arrangements are great and I especially loved the "overture" and IT'S TODAY. It's a nice wee story and I think it lifts the spirits so would recommend it to anyone.

ONE QUESTION - Can you get a WIDESCREEN version of it on VHS or DVD?

[joeybiltmore1]

Posted: 1/6/07 at 8:51pm

Sure Lucy is lousy in it but I find the film incredibly watchable since she is surrounded by many great comedic moments. Bea Arthur, of course, has more than her share. (My favorite: the "...and a peekaboo bodice..." bit in the apparently scandalous Laboratory of Life scene.)

But what about stage and film veteran Joyce Van Patten tearing it up in her few scenes as Sally Cato, the excellent Audrey Christie perfectly cast as the smilingly abominable Mrs Upson ("this used to be an old slave kitchen...oh THERE you are Beulah") and, best of all, the superb Doria Cook (whatever happened to her?) who makes the most of her brief turn as the snotty Gloria.

Where is the DVD???

Updated On: 1/6/07 at 08:51 PM

[roquat]

Posted: 1/6/07 at 10:23pm

Oh, I can't do this justice; I have to bring in some of the best film-critic quotes ever--

"When that sound comes out, it's somewhere between a bark, a croak, and a quaver, and it doesn't quite match the movement of the lips. Did Lucille Ball sync her own singing in MAME, or did Dick Cavett dub it for her? ... Why did Lucille Ball do MAME? After conquering the world, did she suddenly discover an unfulfilled ambition in herself to be a flaming drag queen? ... We in the audience are not thinking of fun; we're thinking of age and self-deception. When Mame's best friend Vera Charles asks Mame, 'How old do you think I am?' and Mame answers 'Somewhere between forty and death,' one may feel a shudder in the audience. How can a woman well over sixty say a line like that, with the cameraman using every lying device he knows and still unable to hide the blurred eyes?

This MAME doesn't rise to camp until Beatrice Arthur is on--and she transcends it. She's monstrously marvellous--like a coquettish tank. When she sings, the low tones that come out of her cathedral chest make Ethel Merman sound like a tinkling virgin."

--Pauline Kael, "The New Yorker"

[nealb1]

Posted: 1/6/07 at 10:48pm

Again, I don't understand why people feel the need to bash this film. I think the mindset is I-have-to-bash-this-movie-because-everyone-does. WRONG!!!!

When "Mame" opened at Radio City in April of 1974, it broke, at that time, the house record...earning almost $1 million in ticket sales in 1 week. That's when admission, was.......what, maybe $1.50???

The whole point of art is.............did it touch people's lives? Did it stand the test of time? Can you remember where you were when you saw it, or heard it for the first time? Perhaps, during a relationship...or a marriage.

Awards don't really matter. What we remember is the work....the completed piece.

Is "Mame" supposed to be "Gone With The Wind" or "Citizen Kane?" No, of course not. It is what it is. It's not supposed to be something it's not.

[roquat]

Posted: 1/6/07 at 10:57pm

"It is what it is."

I don't think there's a more meaningless phrase. People resort to that when they've run out of arguments.

[StageManager2]

Posted: 1/6/07 at 11:00pm

It is what it is 'cause it is what it is.

[D2]

Posted: 1/7/07 at 12:04am

and what it is, is ____