Auntie Mame: A remedy for the isolation blues.
Film is my fellow blogger Mike's forte. He does an excellent job of movie and TV series analysis on his Friday blog here on the Consortium of Seven. I hope he'll forgive me for lightly stepping on his toes on this particular movie, Auntie Mame. I'm just going to talk about how it made me feel and leave in-depth film reviews to Mike. It's a movie that holds a lot of memories for me and has always left me feeling uplifted after every viewing. Being a book, play and movie would also place it in the realm of interest of our blog founder Garbo. She seems to focus on 1940s movies, however, and often writes about literature that makes the leap to both stage and film. I highly recommend them. Her submissions are posted on Tuesdays.
My friend Art first introduced me to the film Auntie Mame back in 1994 during the dark days of the AIDS Crisis. I fell in love from the first scene where Mame's newly orphaned nephew Patrick, is accompanied by his former nanny Norah Muldoon who tries to introduce Patrick. The flummoxed Norah's efforts are up against a rowdy group of bohemian partiers at one of Mame's many bootlegged parties. This story begins in the year 1928. The diverse group of party goers is the first indication of the type of person Mame is, an intelligent, progressive thinking, self-sufficient woman in a time when such qualities were frowned upon by society.
Mame is a woman of the world and sits about to show Patrick all the riches that abound. She is stifled when Patrick's trustee, a banker forces him to attend a school far from Mame, to mold him into an image of himself.
Mame then has to try to survive the Great Depression and meets a nice and very wealthy gentleman that saves her from financial ruin. Her new husband that she actually loves, dies in an accident on their around the world honeymoon. After a period of grieving, a now older Patrick arranges for Mame to write her memoirs. This sets in motion a whole series of comedic adventures that include Peggy Cass as Mame's new secretary.
I'll leave the rest without further spoilers. It is, in my opinion, a delicious comedic romp with a lot of substance unlike say the Doris Day, Rock Hudson fluff movies that still also have a place in my heart.
What made the character Mame special for me was that she wasn't attached to her money. She was attached to the experiences of life and her catchphrase, "Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving" may seem a bit elitist, as that philosophy is easier to exploit when you have means. But I got her meaning. Look for the experience and don't get bogged down with the minutia.
I never tire of this movie and I'm always lifted by Mame and her message. It has got me through many tough times and I am grateful to my friend Art for sharing it with me back in those dark days.
The author, whose pen name is Patrick Dennis has the same name as Mame's nephew in the story. He, however, claims that this is not an autobiographical account of his time with his own aunt.
Here's a Wikipedia link to fill in the holes if you like.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Dennis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auntie_Mame_(film)
An excellent film, all as you've said. Wonderful story and performances. I haven't watched it in probably a couple years - whenever I last came across it on TCM, most likely.
ReplyDeleteFor me, it's indirectly yet another example of the power of first impressions, as I didn't see this until somewhat later either, and my impression of Rosalind Russell was formed and reinforced by her role as Mother Superior in THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS (1966) and the sequel, WHERE ANGELS GO, TROUBLE FOLLOWS (1968), which I'd seen as movies on tv mostly in the early to mid-'70s. Especially as someone who went to a Catholic school, this connection got in the way of my quickly accepting her in any sort of sexualized, bohemian role. Even so, the layered role and her performance overcomes my personal stumble.
(It's a bit of narrowness we all run into sometime, like those who primarily and almost only know the late Alec Guinness as Ben Kenobi - much to his great irritation.)
Loosely related, my DVR queue includes the 1974 musical remake (adapted from the Broadway musical), MAME, starring Lucille Ball. I've been curious to see as I know Lucy long wanted to play the part, and used all of her influence to make it happen despite arguably much better casting choices. All this, with me going in knowing that this version was heavily panned, by nearly all lights with good reason, and that the lead was a bad miscast, even if just for her age and smoking-damaged lung capacity.
Thanks, too, for the kind blogging comments.