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FOR MOCKSTERS ONLY Auntie Mame is every lib’s favorite aunt as theatre, and by every measure it’s what the 1958 movie is. While there’s some minor effort to expand out from the confines of Beekman Place, director Morton DaCosta and Warner Bros. stay close to its roots, as the movie fades after each act, an obvious blessing for TV stations clocking in the commercials. Rosalind Russell, recreating her Broadway success, has never seemed more mechanized; every line, every inflection, intonation, wave of an arm, adjustment of the hair or scribble on a pad are fixed for posterity. Yet the role, with its zany freethinker import, has lasting appeal and inevitably would be turned into a stage musical, with people like Mary Martin, Ann Southern and Lucille Ball chomping at the bit. (Politely asked if interested, Roz wisely bowed out after her braying Gypsy.) The plum called Mame went to Angela Lansbury, in a personal triumph. She didn’t get to the chance to repeat her acclaimed version because Hollywood didn’t think she had the box office power, despite the persistent long lines waiting for months to see her on Broadway. In fact, she wasn’t even asked and, saying to Larry King how really “ticked” she was over the slight, never forgave Warner Bros., who purchased the rights to the musical for $3 million. Yet somehow the property ended up being controlled by Lucille Ball, looking for a big career-capping vanity splash. Gossip has it she quietly bought the rights from the studio—the sum of $5 million has been bandied about—because she was pissed over not getting the stage version (deceiving herself into thinking she was a hot ticket on the big white way after Wildcat!) and to prevent Lansbury repeating her smash. Just how Lucy, whose television ratings never quite translated into box office lure except for the 1954 The Long, Long Trailer, convinced Warner Bros. to give her $12 million to murder Mame remains a mystery unless, as suggested on the Internet and elsewhere, she actually financed it herself in order to get the studio’s coveted distribution apparatus. (And inveigle the studio to pull Russell’s Auntie Mame from public view for a limited time to prevent embarrassing comparisons.) Her former husband Desi Arnaz, who still advised her on projects, cautioned against doing the role, but with George Cukor originally tabbed as director, she was determined. During early filming, she took a brief ski holiday, during which she broke a leg in several places, thus production had to closed down for months. Upon resumption, and with increasing anxiety, her behavior, always emphatic on any set, became dictatorial. She had Madeline Khan fired, lashed out at her makeup artist (who used a form of glue on her face to squeeze together the wrinkles), refused to allow lyrics already recorded to be included in the actual film, and frequently usurped director Gene Saks. These otherwise misfortunes circumstantially back up the belief she used her own cash to make and keep afloat the movie. As bad as Mame is, it’s still a great party flick: you and your guests will whoop it up watching what you can’t really believe you’re seeing. Our Lucy—she can’t sing, can’t dance, won’t do closeups. (In The Hollywood Musical, author Ethan Mordden quipped, she’s “not clearly seen through the mass of Ponce de Leon filters.”) Adding more viperous treats are Theadora van Runkle’s costumes for Lucy and Bea Arthur—they’re Adrian gone drag queen bonkers on shoulder pads, elephantine hats, turbans, dinosaurfins and furs galore. Lucy is particularly misfitted in that pink-lavender ensemble (with blonde hair!) donned at Robert Preston’s little Southern farm. (But Russell can’t save this dreadful section, either.) Arthur is much luckier: a grotesque to begin with, she’s every bit the match for the outfits and she’s also got the movie’s one real laugh when asked by Lucy if she’d like to imbibe. Rarely a bad actress, what was destructive for Lucy was her obsessive control of self-image. Always aware the World Loves Lucy, she feared losing the public if she challenged herself with material it might object to. In The Facts of Life and Critic’s Choice with Bob Hope, she had opportunities to do some grown up themes, until safety devices such as a leaky roof derailing an adulterous rendezvous in the former and amateur writing contests in the latter blocked any implicit unzipping. Watching Mame turn into an enhaloed lushed-up Lucy Ricardo, the mucilaged spider woman compulsively ensnares herself in the web of retard puerility.
Text COPYRIGHT © 2007 RALPH BENNER All Rights Reserved.
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