Mame: the motion picture extravaganza- Page 2

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 8/24/11 at 3:54pm

Was it even a hit? Did Lucy prove to be the financial investment Warners hoped for?

[redmustang]

Posted: 8/24/11 at 4:15pm

Mame Dennis was not British. Julie can't drop the English accent.

Posted: 8/24/11 at 4:21pm

"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."

And Lucy speaks too: "Ball told one interviewer "Mame stayed up all night and drank champagne! What did you expect her to sound like? Julie Andrews?"
Wikipedia

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 8/24/11 at 4:25pm

IIRC, no, it wasn't a hit. At least not the smash hit the studio was hoping it would be. It didn't make the top ten grossing films of its year.

Posted: 8/24/11 at 4:46pm

It was an unequivocal flop. Totally finished Lucy's film career.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 8/24/11 at 4:52pm

The Wiki entry implies that Ball retired from the big screen after Mame because of the nasty reviews, not bad box office, but I'm not sure that's true. The "box office records" at Radio City don't impress me because a lot of those tickets were probably sold before anyone saw the movie.

Posted: 8/24/11 at 4:55pm

Exactly- it was a hugely anticipated releases that got PANNED.

[staunchcharacter]

Posted: 8/24/11 at 5:21pm

Its okay chichi. Its also my guilty pleasure. But if Lucy could sing......it would've been something else. An thank GOD Bea's performance is saved for posterity. Still Angie should've been cast....maybe she would've finally won that well deserved oscar.

[goldenboy]

Posted: 8/24/11 at 5:21pm

I remember one New York Review (Post? Daily News? Times?)
was entitled:


Maimed

Lucy brought the musical for herself. Without Lucy there would be no Maimed...er Mame.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 8/24/11 at 5:24pm

Well, the snub left Angela Lansbury in the company of Ethel Merman (not cast in the film version of Gypsy), Carol Channing (Hello, Dolly!), and even Mary Martin (South Pacific).

Pretty swell club. Though of all those women, Lansbury has the best technique as an actress and would probably make the easiest transition to film.

[candydog2]

Posted: 8/24/11 at 7:01pm

Just to clarify CarlosAlberto, Lansbury's casting in "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" had nothing to do with star power. Disney used to cast most of their movies with whoever they liked because the name "Disney" would sell more tickets than any current Hollywood A-lister.

Remember Julie Andrews was cast in Mary Poppins the same year she was TURNED DOWN for My Fair Lady because she wasn't a big enough name for it. Mary Poppins became a smash hit because it was a great Disney movie and Disney didn't need a star to sell it, although they had a familiar face in Dick Van Dyke.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 8/24/11 at 7:52pm

^^^^

I realize that was the conventional wisdom on the Warner lot, and I'm sure you are right that Disney figured the company name was the star of its movies. But I think Warner underestimated the power of OBC albums and the Ed Sullivan show in those days.

My family, who never attended professional theater until I dragged them to it and who only went to movies once a year or less, went to see Mary Poppins only BECAUSE it starred Julie Andrews. They knew her from the OBC album of My Fair Lady and from appearances as Eliza and Guinevere on The Ed Sullivan Show.

That Andrews won an Oscar for a role (Poppins) that is long on charm and short on drama suggests the Hollywood community knew her, too. (This isn't a knock against Andrews or the film, just an acknowledgement that the role doesn't give the actress a lot of scenery-chewing moments.)
Updated On: 8/24/11 at 07:52 PM

[Scarlett212]

Posted: 8/25/11 at 1:07am

So glad to see this link. I just rented the DVD so I had a fresh look at this wonderful film. Lucy was a perfect Mame. She didn't overact with her sitcom Zany ways. The material was treated to a first rate preservation of the classic songs. Most important their is that good to be alive feeling when it is over. One thing that did bug me was didn't Mame hug Patrick wife at the airport Isn't it her relation through marriage and both parents are letting Mame take her great nephew for the entire summer .

[allofmylife]

Posted: 8/25/11 at 7:05am

No matter what we say now, Lucille Ball was a wise and very safe choice for the studio to make in 1973. That the film was a disaster should not be laid strictly at her doorstep. I think a great number of "the best and brightest" labored long and hard to turn out that dud.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 8/25/11 at 8:43am

According to Wikipedia, Lucille Ball was originally considered for the part of Mrs.Isley in The Manchurian Candidate but the director insisted on Angela Lansbury..which I found vaguely interesting.

[Will42]

Posted: 8/26/11 at 2:34pm

Unlike Merman, Channing and Martin, Lansbury began her career in films and by the time she did Mame she was already a 3-time Oscar nominee, so they would've not been an transition from stage to the silver screen, since Lansbury was never out of it.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 8/26/11 at 5:56pm

^^^

True. I was talking about the transition in the specific role created on Broadway.

In fact, all the women I mentioned had appeared in films. Ethel Merman had been appearing in films since the early 1930s ("There's No Business Like Show Business" shows her at her best), Mary Martin since the 1940s. Carol Channing started a little later, but she also had an Oscar nomination for "Thoroughly Modern Millie."

My point was just an opinion that Lansbury would be the best bet in terms of knowing exactly how to translate a stage character to the screen.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 8/26/11 at 6:27pm

The material was treated to a first rate preservation of the classic songs.

I am going to have to disagree with this. The songs in MAME, specifically Lucille Ball's numbers are terrible. Jerry Herman himself stated her singing performance was created by splicing phrases from different takes on all of the songs to generate something that was listenable. That is not in my opinion a first rate preservation of any kind. It's a very poor representation of a first rate score.

[jv92]

Posted: 8/26/11 at 8:20pm

At least Robert Preston was good. "Loving You" is a nice song.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 8/26/11 at 10:07pm

Is that where that damn "Loving You" came from? A friend of the family recorded it on one of her albums and now everybody in the clan plays it at every wedding. Not that it's a terrible song, but enough is enough!