Stars: Rosalind Russell, Forrest Tucker, Coral Browne, Fred Clark, Roger Smith, Peggy Cass
Director: Morton DaCosta
Oscar History: 6 nominations (Best Picture, Best Actress-Rosalind Russell, Supporting Actress-Peggy Cass, Cinematography, Art Direction, Film Editing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars
The movie is the story of Mame Dennis, an eccentric Bohemian in the late 1920's who inherits her nephew after her stoic brother dies. Mame, never one to let anything get her down, treats her new child as if he is one of her many kooky friends, and suddenly has him going on adventures with her, everywhere from nudist schools to misadventures in fox-hunting to lavishly wild dinner parties. Mame has an avid devotion to her new ward, and though he's constantly being whisked away to be raised "properly" at boarding school, she still gets a general amount of whimsy and wildness into the boys upbringing, which in a movie is adorable, and in real life would probably be considered child endangerment.
The film itself was, I'm going to admit, largely a miss for me, primarily for everything that doesn't have to do with Russell. All of the side characters (with the possible exception of Coral Browne as the lush actress Vera Charles) are well out-of-their-league when Russell is present, and primarily fall into the sorts of stock stereotypes that may work in the "big, big, big" of the stage (this was a smash hit on Broadway before becoming a film), but seem gaudy on-screen. Even the large comic set-pieces (those rising and falling chairs are something I want in my apartment to fit more people in my living room) can't make up for the fact that most of the characters seem flat, even in a film about celebrating "life." It's as if everyone's just standing around holding their breath, since Russell's about to saunter onto the set and steal all of the oxygen anyway. Even Oscar-nominated Peggy Cass can't breath much life into her nasal-voiced, knocked-up frump of a secretary. The role is surely, again, the type that would be a crowd-pleaser on the Great White Way, but one that causes abrasive whiplash on the screen.
That being said, and I've heard the detractors and don't particularly care-I thought Russell was divine, if wildly over-the-top. Her Mame is always best when Patrick isn't on-screen and she's bumbling through the set like an episode of I Love Lucy (perhaps that's why Ball was hired for the 1974 musical instead of the more appropriate Lansbury)-when Patrick's on-screen, Russell goes into that dramatic melodrama she never pulls off well. She's a comedienne, and when she's exchanging quips with Browne or Cass, or sneaking insults at her soon to be bigoted in-laws, she's got the timing and jokes down-pat.
Oscar seemed very fond of the film, and considering that it had just completed a huge run on Broadway with the same stars and had a plush pleasantness to it, it's not hard to see why. For myself, the biggest crime may be that Best Picture nomination-this is a year where Vertigo and Touch of Evil, two of the finest films of the 1950's, were both eligible, and yet neither was chosen over this film. Hello, Dolly! and its robbery of The Wild Bunch's Oscar nomination a decade later comes to mind, never a good thing. Probably the most wisely-chosen nomination of the six is for Russell, though I'd have to give the edge to Liz Taylor as Maggie the Cat for the time being (I've still got a date with Susan Hayward, Shirley MacLaine, and Deborah Kerr for the final decision).
What about you-which version of Mame do you like best? Should they have won on any of their nominations? Should Russell have an Oscar or should she have gone home empty-handed on all four attempts? And what movie of the last few years deserves to be turned into a musical next?
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