Movie Review: Mame

Stars: 3 out of 5

Pros: Lots of fun

Cons: Rushed ending, Lucy’s uneven performance and weak singing

The Bottom Line:

Enjoyable parts

But ending is too abrupt

And the star is weak

More Mixed Than I Was Expecting

I’d heard the reviews for years – the movie musical Mame wasn’t that good.  But, being the I Love Lucy fan that I am, I’d still always been curious about it since it stars Lucille Ball.  I finally set down to watch it, and I can see flaws, but not that ones you usually hear.

The movie is set in the 1920’s and focuses on Mame Dennis (Lucille Ball).  Single and rich in New York City, her life is one carefree party until the day her orphaned nephew Patrick (Kirby Furlong) shows up on her doorstep.  She quickly falls in love with her ward, and does her best to raise him right.  However, her best and society’s standards are two very different things.  Will she be forced to change her lifestyle?  And what will happen when the market crashes in 1929?

Most of the critics pick on Lucille Ball, and they aren’t completely wrong.  Parts of the movie are comedic, and she is perfect at those scenes.  In fact, some of what happened would have felt at home in an I Love Lucy episode.  She pulls off some of the more serious scenes, but there are a couple of scenes that she can’t quite pull off.  The worst part of her performance is her singing.  While she can’t sing, she refused to let them dub her vocals.  The singing it patched together from many different studio takes.  While it isn’t bad, it isn’t nearly as strong as the singing of her co-stars.

And she has some impressive co-stars.  Bea Arthur and Jane Connell reprise their roles from the Broadway production.  Robert Preston plays Mame’s love interest.  And a young Bruce Davison plays Patrick when he reaches adulthood.

Mame lives a very wild lifestyle, and Patrick gets influenced by that at a young age.  This is a PG rated movie, but adults of young kids still might want to watch it first for a couple of scenes in the first half.

Honestly, I was mostly enjoying the movie.  There are some very funny scenes, and I was really growing to like the characters.  While the songs aren’t especially memorable, there are still some fun song and dance numbers.

Then I hit the final act.  Mame does something in the name of protecting Patrick that really crossed a line for me.  Yet, the ending is so rushed after that we don’t get to see any of the fallout she would have received.  We go from Patrick being furious with her to the final scene without any transition to show us how he forgave her.  It is very jarring.

Maybe if I had seen a stage production of Mame, I would see even more reasons why the movie is bad.  But judging it just based on the movie itself, it is a film with many fun moments ruined mostly by a very rushed ending.