Researching the 1958 film Auntie Mame can be a bit of a challenge since there is not only a book and a stage play, there is also a second play musical based on the same book and a movie based on that version. It seems that this story has resonated with people enough to merit so many different adaptations from a single book. The novel itself, allegedly written by Patrick Dennis (in reality Edward Everett Tanner II), is a madcap adventure yarn about a young boy and his overbearing aunt who is tasked with raising him when his father, her brother, dies. The book has a manic energy to it that attracted audiences and a few years later a sequel was released. The property remained popular until Lucille Ball took over the role of Mame in the 1970’s to dismal returns.
In 1958 a film version of Auntie Mame was released to theaters following the popularity of the first stage play. Rosalind Russell, who was nominated for a Tony for her performance as Mame, returned for the film. It is on the strength of her performance that this movie succeeds where the later film failed. There is a certain degree of over-the-top insanity that Rosalind brings to the role that is very difficult to reproduce. A young Lucille Ball may have been able to duplicate it somewhat but by the 1970’s she was past her prime and not up to the singing demands a musical required, too. Rosalind is Mame and it’s hard to get past that and accept someone else in that role.
Auntie Mame opens up in 1928 when Patrick Dennis (Jan Handzlik) is suddenly orphaned, placing him in the care of his wealthy and eccentric Auntie, living in Manhattan. Mame spends her evenings hosting elaborate parties with free-spirited guests, an environment that Patrick shouldn’t really be exposed to in the opinion of Dwight Babcock (Fred Clark), the trustee hired to shield him from Mame’s more outlandish influences. Mame ignores Dwight’s wishes for a proper school and enrolls him in a more progressive one that is so offensive to conservative views that Dwight has Patrick taken away from her and forcibly enrolled in a stuffy school, preventing her from seeing him except during holidays and the summer.
The stock market crash of 1929 wipes out all of Mame’s wealth and she is forced to enter the work force. Unfortunately this leads from one disaster to another until she meets a wealthy southerner who marries her and takes her all over the world on adventures. Meanwhile, Patrick is growing up and, now an adult, wishes to marry a woman from a stuffy uppercrust family who have some antisemitic views that greatly offend Mame. She will have to find a way to support Patrick in his life choices without compromising her own feelings and views.
It is refreshing to find an outright comedy represented amongst the Academy Award Best Picture nominees. There aren’t many amongst those ranks. Even more rare are movies that are this broad. There are times when Auntie Mame is a full fledged screwball comedy. For instance, when Mame first visits her soon-to-be husband’s family in the south there is an extended scene where she has lied about being able to ride horses. She is sabotaged by a family member who arranges for her horse to be wild and uncontrollable. The resulting fox hunt is filled with images of Mame, stuck side-saddle on this wild horse while crashing through brush, jumping fences, colliding with a car, and outpacing all the other riders as well as the blood hounds and even the fox.
Early on there is some humorous wordplay using slang and mature phrases that Patrick wouldn’t know as a child. He writes down all the words he doesn’t know wishing for Mame to explain everything he is hearing but as he reads the words out loud it becomes apparent to her that maybe he shouldn’t be being exposed to quite so much so soon in life. She quickly grows very fond of the boy which is the primary reason she defies Dwight’s attempts to put him in a school that will separate the two often. Her reasons for choosing such an inappropriate school are not quite as clear other than that she knows the instructor there. When we hear what the school she chose is doing, though, it’s obvious he shouldn’t be going there.
Even the more serious moments of the film are laced with a heavy layer of comedy. Mame gets informed of the loss of her wealth by a phone call from her broker who is preparing to jump out a window as soon as he hangs up. Her attempts to secure employment go from bad to worse starting with a small role on the stage that she tries to expand while performing it live. She eventually lands at a job selling skates for Macy’s but never figures out how to ring up a sale unless it’s mailed COD. This bit of oversight on the company’s part leads to an encounter with southern oil baron Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside (Forrest Tucker), the man she will marry and end her ever needing to have a job again. Their marriage is a happy one but his sudden death is also a bit of a punchline as he is always taking pictures of her and it causes him to fall to his death on the Matterhorn while trying to get a better shot of her.
Mame may be very free-spirited but she does have a good sense of right and wrong. Her meeting with Patrick’s potential in-laws, the Upsons, as well as his snobbish fiancé, shows that being “top drawer” doesn’t equate to being a good person. They live in a restricted community, meaning no minorities, and are looking to buy the lot next door for Patrick and his intended as a way to extend the restricted boundaries and prevent a jewish family from buying it instead. Mame rightfully believes Patrick shouldn’t be marrying into such a family and finds her own way of helping him see that.
Auntie Mame proves that just because a movie is a broad comedy doesn’t mean it cannot have a strong message to convey. Dwight and the Upsons represent the boorish and close mindedness of a certain group of people of privilege. Mame, while also well-off for most of the film, may appear outlandish and completely inappropriate but she brings with her a viewpoint of exclusivity that Patrick should learn a lot from. Her house staff are evidently so well treated by her that when she goes completely broke they stay on serving her even though she can no longer pay them. That’s some dedication. This movie has some ludicrous moments to it but that comes from the over exaggerations of the stage show. Some of it is dated, too, like the characterization of Mame’s asian housekeeper, but nothing here is on the level of what we got in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. This isn’t the deepest movie but it has a good message and more than its share of laughs to carry it through its lengthy runtime.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Motion Picture: Jack L. Warner
Best Actress: Rosalind Russell
Best Supporting Actress: Peggy Cass
Best Art Direction: Malcolm Bert and George James Hopkins
Best Cinematography - Color: Harry Stradling
Best Film Editing: William Ziegler
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Release Date: December 27, 1958
Running Time: 143 Minutes
Not Rated
Starring: Rosalind Russell, Forrest Tucker, Coral Browne, Roger Smith, Peggy Cass, Jan Handzlik, Joanna Barnes, Robin Hughes and Pippa Scott
Directed By: Morton DaCosta
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