Auntie Mame (film)

For the 1974 musical film starring Lucille Ball, see Mame (film).

Auntie Mame
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Morton DaCosta
Produced by	Morton DaCosta
Written by	Betty Comden Adolph Green based on the play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee and the novel by Patrick Dennis
Starring	Rosalind Russell Forrest Tucker Coral Browne Roger Smith
Music by	Bronislau Kaper
Cinematography	Harry Stradling
Editing by	William H. Ziegler
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	December 27, 1958 (1958-12-27)
Running time	143 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Auntie Mame is a 1958 film based on the novel by Patrick Dennis and its theatrical adaptation by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee. This film version stars Rosalind Russell and was directed by Morton DaCosta. Mame, a musical version of the story, appeared on Broadway and was later made into a 1974 film starring Lucille Ball as the title character.

Plot

Patrick Dennis, orphaned in 1928 when his father unexpectedly dies, is placed in the care of Mame Dennis (Rosalind Russell), his father's sister in Manhattan. Mame is a flamboyant, madcap woman, who hosts frequent parties with eclectic, bohemian guests. Patrick is quickly introduced to his aunt's free-spirited and eccentric lifestyle, including Vera Charles, a lush of a Broadway actress, who spends many of her nights passed out in Mame's guest room. Mame's frequently repeated motto is "Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!"

Since Patrick's father was a wealthy man at the time of his death, Patrick's inheritance comes with an trustee, Mr. Dwight Babcock. Mr. Babcock disapproves of Mame's lifestyle (as did her brother Edwin) and wants to interject decorum and discipline in Patrick's life. Mame has Patrick enrolled at a progressive school run by a friend of hers. Mr. Babcock insists that Patrick be enrolled at Bixby's, a nearby boy's prep school. When he finds out that Mame has not enrolled Patrick at Bixby's, he issues an order: Patrick is to go to St. Boniface boarding school and Mame will only see him at the holidays and during the summer.

When Mame's investments are lost in the stock market crash of 1929, she takes a series of jobs—stage acting, telephone operator, sales girl at Macy's -- that all end disastrously. At her sales job at Macy's, she meets a man named Beaureguard Burnside, a rich oil man from the South. He's immediately smitten with her and she falls in love with him as well. Mame and Patrick visit Beau's family estate in Georgia. Sally Cato, who's in love with Beau, tries to sabotage Mame's relationship with Beau. She organizes a fox hunt, suspecting Mame is lying about being a horsewoman (and rightly so) and gives Mame a wild horse. Mame manages to stay on the horse and catches the fox at the end. Beau proposes to her on the spot in front of his family.

For their honeymoon, Beau and Mame travel around the world. Mame is sad about leaving Patrick, but they keep in touch through letters and frequent visits during holidays. Through their correspondence, Mame gets a sense that Patrick is growing into a stuffy, conventional man, and she worries for him. When Beau dies while they are climbing the Matterhorn, Mame comes home. Patrick surprises her by installing a dictating machine and a secretary, Agnes Gooch, for her convenience. He and her friends convince her to write her autobiography.

Patrick and Lindsay, a friend of Mame's, arrange for a collaborator (and ghost writer) for Mame, a Mr. Brian O'Bannion. It becomes clear that O'Bannion is using Mame as a meal ticket; Mame dictates her life to Agnes and both of them are hard at work on her autobiography, while O'Bannion does nothing. One day, as he tries to get fresh with Mame (apparently to retain her favor lest she kick him out), Patrick walks in on them and disapproves. He announces that he has a girlfriend, Gloria, and wants to bring her over to meet Mame. He cautions Mame to act responsibly while Gloria is there. She calls him beastly and he almost leaves, but at the last minute Mame says she will do whatever he wants to make him and Gloria happy.

Patrick thanks her for agreeing to behave (and possibly for everything she's done for him) -- and goes to bring Gloria. Meanwhile, O'Bannion insists Mame get dressed for a party to meet movie producers interested in Mame's autobiography. Mame hurriedly dresses the dowdy Agnes up and tells O'Bannion that Agnes is an heiress merely doing secretarial work for "life experience." O'Bannion's mercenary instincts kick in and he gladly escorts Agnes to the party in Mame's place. When Agnes returns the next day, she is disheveled and remembers very little of her night with O'Bannion—only that she thinks she saw a movie with a wedding scene in it.

Patrick brings Gloria over, but Mame is horrified to see how upper-crust and snobby she is. Against Patrick's wishes, she goes to visit Gloria's family in a Connecticut gated community, where they express anti-Semitic views. Her parents are just like Gloria, and Mame wants nothing to do with them.

Mame arranges a dinner party at her apartment and she invites Gloria, her parents, and Mr. Babcock...and a few of Mame's closest friends, including Vera, Lindsay and the man who runs the progressive school Patrick used to attend. On the night of the party, Patrick meets Pegeen, Mame's new secretary—Agnes is now several months pregnant and staying with Mame in "her friendless condition." Everything about the evening is a disaster—the food, the drink, the furniture, and the company. Lindsay surprises the attendees with the galleys from Mame's autobiography; the madcap content leads Gloria to insult the other attendees; Patrick defends them, attacking Gloria's friends instead. In a bizarre twist, the release of the book prompts a telegram from O'Bannion, requesting his efforts be rewarded, efforts that can be proven by his wife—Agnes Gooch O'Bannion!!! The evening ends with Babcock also having a go at Mame, but Mame puts him in his place.

Cut to several years later, with Patrick and Pegeen now a married couple. Their son Michael wants to travel with Mame on her trip to India. The two of them wear down Patrick and Pegeen's objections, and the movie fades away as Mame tells Michael of all the wondrous sights they will see.

Awards and honors

The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Rosalind Russell), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Peggy Cass), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White or Color (Malcolm Bert, George James Hopkins), Best Cinematography, Color, Best Film Editing and Best Picture. It was also nominated for three Golden Globes of which it won two.

American Film Institute recognition

• 2000: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs #94
• 2005: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes #93
  • "Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!"

Cast

Rosalind Russell as Mame Dennis

• Rosalind Russell as Mame Dennis
• Forrest Tucker as Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside
• Coral Browne as Vera Charles
• Fred Clark as Dwight Babcock
• Roger Smith as Patrick Dennis - older
• Patric Knowles as Lindsay Woolsey
• Peggy Cass as Agnes Gooch
• Jan Handzlik as Patrick Dennis - younger
• Joanna Barnes as Gloria Upson
• Pippa Scott as Pegeen Ryan
• Lee Patrick as Doris Upson
• Willard Waterman as Claude Upson
• Robin Hughes as Brian O'Bannion
• Connie Gilchrist as Norah Muldoon
• Yuki Shimoda as Ito
• Brook Byron as Sally Cato MacDougall
• Carol Veazie as Mrs. Burnside
• Henry Brandon as Acacius Page

Production Crew

• Production Design - Malcolm C. Bert
• Art Direction - Malcolm C. Bert
• Set Decoration - George James Hopkins
• Costume Design - Orry-Kelly
• Makeup Supervisor - Gordon Bau
• Makeup - Gene Hibbs
• Hair stylist - Myrl Stoltz
• Makeup - Robert J. Schiffer
• Assistant Director - Joseph Don Page
• Art - interior - Robert Hanley
• Storyboard - Harold Michelson
• Sound Department - M.A. Merrick
• Stunts - Roydon Clark, Bob Herron, Dick Hudkins, Boyd 'Red' Morgan, Audrey Scott, Dean Smith
• Stage producers - Lawrence Carr & Robert Fryer
• Music supervisor - Ray Heindorf

Box office performance

This film was the #1 moneymaker of 1959, earning a net profit of $8,800,000.

Pop culture references

In the 1983 movie Trading Places, Louis Winthorpe III's girlfriend Penelope Witherspoon is overheard telling her friends at the golf club a story that ends with "...and she stepped on the ping pong ball!", a clear reference to Gloria Upson's story about herself and Bunny Bixler which she tells at the ill-fated dinner party.

Phoebe imitates Gloria when she meets Mike's parents in an episode of Friends, "The One with Ross's Inappropriate Song".

See also

• List of American films of 1958
• Auntie Mame (novel by Patrick Dennis)
• Mame (musical)
• Mame (musical film)

External links

• Auntie Mame at the Internet Movie Database
• Auntie Mame at AllRovi
• Auntie Mame at the TCM Movie Database
• Auntie Mame at Rotten Tomatoes