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Rosalind Russell turned in the most dazzling performance of her career in 1958's Auntie Mame.
This classic was released the year I was born, but it has become one of my favorites and is part of my permanent video collection. Based on the memoirs of Patrick Dennis, this brilliant episodic film chronicles the relationship between Mame Dennis, a stylish, eccentric, and bombastic Greenwich village socialite and her young nephew, Patrick, who is brought to live with Mame as a child after the death of Mame's brother.
It is evident from the beginning that Mame hasn't a clue how to be a mother but her immediate unconditional love for Patrick is evident as well and even though we know Mame would walk through fire for Patrick, we also know that at some point Mame will screw up or suffocate Patrick in her loving but iron grasp.
Russell is perfection in what seems to be a tailor-made role and was clearly robbed of the Oscar that alluded her for her whole career. Coral Browne garners major laughs throughout as Vera Charles, an alcoholic actress and Mame's best friend. Forrest Tucker is a charmer as Beaurogard Jackson Pickett Burnside, an oil millionaire who romances Mame and Peggy Cass steals every scene she is in with her Oscar-nominated performance as Agnes Gooch, the stenographer hired to write Mame's memoirs.
This long, episodic film, lovingly directed by Morton DeCosta, was later turned into the Broadway musical MAME which won Angela Lansbury a Tony Award and that musical was later turned into a movie starring Lucille Ball, but my advice is...stick with the original. "Life is a banquet...and most poor suckers are starving to death!"
Rosalind Russell turned in the most dazzling performance of her career in 1958's Auntie Mame.
This classic was released the year I was born, but it has become one of my favorites and is part of my permanent video collection. Based on the memoirs of Patrick Dennis, this brilliant episodic film chronicles the relationship between Mame Dennis, a stylish, eccentric, and bombastic Greenwich village socialite and her young nephew, Patrick, who is brought to live with Mame as a child after the death of Mame's brother.
It is evident from the beginning that Mame hasn't a clue how to be a mother but her immediate unconditional love for Patrick is evident as well and even though we know Mame would walk through fire for Patrick, we also know that at some point Mame will screw up or suffocate Patrick in her loving but iron grasp.
Russell is perfection in what seems to be a tailor-made role and was clearly robbed of the Oscar that alluded her for her whole career. Coral Browne garners major laughs throughout as Vera Charles, an alcoholic actress and Mame's best friend. Forrest Tucker is a charmer as Beaurogard Jackson Pickett Burnside, an oil millionaire who romances Mame and Peggy Cass steals every scene she is in with her Oscar-nominated performance as Agnes Gooch, the stenographer hired to write Mame's memoirs.
This long, episodic film, lovingly directed by Morton DeCosta, was later turned into the Broadway musical MAME which won Angela Lansbury a Tony Award and that musical was later turned into a movie starring Lucille Ball, but my advice is...stick with the original. "Life is a banquet...and most poor suckers are starving to death!"