"MAME" STARRING LUCILLE BALL

[ChgoTheatreGuy]

Posted: 5/17/21 at 7:56pm

Over the weekend, I had some time to kill and decided to revisit a film that my mother tortured me with as a child, "Mame", starring comic icon Lucille Ball.  There was a very old recording of "The Phil Donahue Show", that presented her as smug and bragadocius, calling the film, "a present" for her female fans, because their was nothing that the time that would allow them to go to the film.  The clips that were shown mostly involved her croaky singing and bad dancing.  The film cost $12 million dollars and only made half of that money back at the box office.  If I had a better kiving environment, I would have sued my mother for child abuse!...

[Marianne2]

Posted: 5/17/21 at 9:25pm

I saw it on TCM a couple of years ago and I remember it being horrible. I felt bad for Bea Arthur for attaching herself to that film. While I know it wasn't a musical, "Auntie Mame" with Roslind Russell was so much better.

[fosterfan2]

Posted: 5/17/21 at 9:45pm

I love the "Auntie Mame" film! Rosalind Russell was excellent. I watched it with my mom after Thanksgiving last year and we laughed so much.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 5/18/21 at 4:28pm

There are many informative threads here on BWW discussing this film. I get a kick out of the fact that Bruce Davison, known at that time as sort of a counterculture hero for his roles in Last Summer and The Strawberry Statement played adult Patrick in this.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/18/21 at 9:35pm

I hope somewhere out there MARC SHAIMAN is reading this.  (All caps in case he has google alerts.)

[Dollypop]

Posted: 5/23/21 at 5:08pm

What's sad for me is how grotesque Jane Connell comes off as in the film. How I wish some of the footage of Madalyn Kahn's performance emerges on YouTube. It's a crime that she got dumped.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 5/23/21 at 10:02pm

Dollypop said: "What's sad for me is how grotesque Jane Connell comes off as in the film. How I wish some of the footage of Madalyn Kahn's performance emerges on YouTube. It's a crime that she got dumped."

There is no footage. She didn't make it to principal photography. 

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/24/21 at 4:27pm

Lucy, whom I adore in the exact same most of us adore Joan Crawford, was mostly awful to other women.

[Musical Master]

Posted: 5/25/21 at 11:02pm

Definitely a misfire if I've ever seen one. Not to mention this being a case of notorious miscasting ever done on a musical film, which unfortunately Hollywood is still guilty of from time to time.