Tony Maietta:
Hello. I'm film historian Tony Maietta.

Brad Shreve:
And I'm Brad Shreve, who's just a guy who likes movies.

Tony Maietta:
We discuss movies and television from Hollywood's golden age. We go behind the scenes and share our opinions too.

Brad Shreve:
And of course, being the average guy, my opinions are the ones that matter.

Tony Maietta:
As does your self delusion. Welcome to going Hollywood.

Brad Shreve:
Hey, Tony, I know you know we're supposed to begin, but, but you've got something.

Tony Maietta:
Hold on a second. Hold on, hold on. I gotta, I gotta do something. Hold on, hold on.

Brad Shreve:
Oh my God, what are you doing now? There, a sign for me.

Tony Maietta:
That's, that's for you. That's for you.

Brad Shreve:
No Lucy bashing. Do you know how hard that is gonna be?

Tony Maietta:
Keep that in your view when we're doing this. I only agreed to do this film under that guideline. No Lucy bashing.

Brad Shreve:
Well, I can say this, that I don't know what is in the air, but my throat is somewhat hoarse, so I won't try to sing because I'll sound like Lucy trying to sing.

Tony Maietta:
But your voice is almost as gravelly. Almost. Almost.

Brad Shreve:
I'd rather sound like, uh, Eartha Kitt than Lucy, but I'll get— I'll do my best here today.

Tony Maietta:
I don't want to say reluctantly we're talking about this film because I, you know, I talk about Lucy anytime, anytime, but we have been avoiding it. And if it were not for the myriad of requests we've had— what is, what is with our listeners? The myriad of requests we've had to do this film, I don't think we'd be doing it. So I'm grateful that people are so energized about it. But I just wanna set those parameters. I, I don't want any Lucy bashing here. I think we should talk about, have a clear-eyed discussion of the good points, the bad points, and where this train went off the track. 'Cause there's a couple places. It's not just Lucy.

Tony Maietta:
What do you think?

Brad Shreve:
Well, I'm gonna say I, I'm not gonna curse anybody for wanting us to watch this film because I, I don't know why. Maybe they thought it was a, uh, an important film or an interesting film, or maybe they like it because everybody has a different taste. I'm not going to curse anyone for it, but I'm also going to be very honest. So we will take that for what it's worth.

Tony Maietta:
Like you're ever anything else. Like you sugarcoat anything.

Brad Shreve:
This one's going to be painfully honest.

Tony Maietta:
There's more diffusion in this film than there ever is in any comment you make. Well, I guess we should say this also fits in perfectly with our Guilty Pleasures series because We are. Yes, yes, we are. Today is the day we are talking about Mame from 1974, from Warner Brothers in 1974, starring Miss Lucille Ball.

Brad Shreve:
And I do want to agree with you 1,000% that definitely, 1,000%, we appreciate any requests and we will not always honor them, but, uh, we will definitely consider them seriously. And I can't—

Tony Maietta:
I'm—

Brad Shreve:
there's a few we didn't do.

Tony Maietta:
Well, yeah, well, the people have clearly spoken. I mean, when we get more than—

Brad Shreve:
Yes, this one they have.

Tony Maietta:
More than 1, 2, 3, I don't know how many requests we got to do this. You know, Robert from Virginia, one of my favorite requests was, you know, smear Vaseline on the lens and just smear Vaseline on the mic and just do it. So I guess that's what we're gonna do today.

Brad Shreve:
That's what we're gonna do.

Tony Maietta:
But you know, another reason why we wanted to avoid this, I wanted to, not necessarily avoid it, but I didn't think it was important for us to talk about was because we talked about anti-maim in our first season. It was our season or our holiday special, and we did touch on this. So that's why I was like, do we need to talk about maim? And clearly we do. Clearly we do. So that's what we're doing today.

Brad Shreve:
Okay. So before we begin though, I've got a surprise for you.

Tony Maietta:
Uh-oh.

Brad Shreve:
I have not shared this information.

Tony Maietta:
That can sometimes not be good.

Brad Shreve:
This is a, a good thing. I'm gonna do it real quick because we already did a thank you to the listeners and that sort of thing. But there, there's something we need to do today because I looked at some stats and I found some interesting information. We owe our international listeners a big welcome and thank you, especially a big thank you.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Not a welcome because they've been around. And here's the information I found. Of the downloads that we get, and for you listeners, just Real quick, download means somebody either downloaded it to their phone or streamed it. Either way, it's called a download. So basically, any, anytime you listen, it's a download. The majority of our listeners come from Los Angeles and New York. No big surprise.

Tony Maietta:
Right.

Brad Shreve:
But when I say that, Los Angeles is 4% of our listeners and New York is 2%. So it's not as like this massive number. Third is Toronto and not Toronto particularly, but I'm talking about anywhere from Oshawa to Kitchener. So that whole Southern Ontario area is a big listenership through that area. So welcome.

Tony Maietta:
We have some of our big BFFs in Toronto. Yeah, absolutely.

Brad Shreve:
Absolutely. We all, it's also followed by a lot of different cities throughout Australia. I know Australia is a big country and different, each state's different and each city's different, but if you group Australia together, we have a lot of Australians that listen.

Tony Maietta:
Really?

Brad Shreve:
That's so cool. Yes.

Tony Maietta:
I'm gonna come visit. I'm gonna come visit.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, please send us a ticket. We'll be happy to come visit. But here's, here's the interesting thing that really showed me how international our show is. I'm gonna run this, run through this list. International. We have as many downloads from Frankfurt, Germany as we do from Seattle. We have as many from Taipei as we do from Fort Worth, Texas. We have as many from Phnom Penh—

Tony Maietta:
Phnom Penh.

Brad Shreve:
I know I pronounced that wrong. Phnom Penh. As we do from Cincinnati. We have as many from Zurich as we do from Memphis, as many from Berlin as Dayton, Ohio, as many from the province of Pampanga, which is in the Philippines, as we do from Tampa, Florida. And right up the road from me, 50 miles, We have as many from Valencia as Rochester, New York. And we also get— some of our other top countries are Italy, Singapore, Mexico, Sweden, Thailand, Brazil, Netherlands, South Africa, and the list goes on. But those are the biggies. And England, of course.

Brad Shreve:
I think I missed them.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
So, we have a bigger listenership internationally than I think either of us have paid attention to. I took a look and I'm like, wow.

Tony Maietta:
That's amazing. We're so international. We're so international.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
It's, you know, that really— I'm not going to get all oogly about, you know, that means there are no barriers. We're all one. We're all one big group of people. You know, I love that. I love the fact that you went through those stats. Thank you. Because that was a really nice thing to hear. I suspected some of them.

Tony Maietta:
I know we have a good UK representation. I know we have our BFFs like Ellen in Toronto, but it's nice to hear. So thank you everybody. Thank you. Dankeschön. And merci, all that stuff.

Brad Shreve:
And if you've left reviews for us, sorry if we've missed them. I will tell you that Apple, if you're— if you get a, uh, review from the country that you're not based in, it— I, I can look it up, but it's not easy. So they don't— it's not like where I can quickly see some of, uh, some of the other countries. So Sorry if we missed you, and I will do a deep dive one day and see what I can find.

Tony Maietta:
Good. That sounds good.

Brad Shreve:
Now on to our show. I just felt like we need to reach out to the international folks.

Tony Maietta:
I know. I appreciate it. I appreciate you did that. Yeah, but let's get on to— if we must, let's rip off this Band-Aid.

Brad Shreve:
Okay.

Tony Maietta:
To rip off this Band-Aid. I want to say too that as we discussed so much of this— not so much of this, but as we touched on this in our anti-mame episode, Forgive us if there's a little reiteration here. Go back and listen to the Auntie Mame episode. It's a lot of fun. But I think that what we said in the Auntie Mame episode when we talked about Mame was the fact that it's more than a question of Lucille being about 20 years too old to play Mame. Mame is supposed to be technically around 40, just for reference. Okay. That doesn't mean that now older actors can't play it.

Tony Maietta:
Russell was almost 50 when he played it.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
when she did the film of Mame. And Lansbury on Broadway was actually the correct age. She was in her 40s. But even if Lucy had done this when she was in her 40s, you know, 1958, she was in her 40s, it still wouldn't have worked. It wouldn't have worked because it's not about her age, it's the persona.

Brad Shreve:
Mm-hmm.

Tony Maietta:
I keep saying this over and over and over again. Lucy is a clown. Mame is a grande dame. And even Jerry Herman said, A little Monday afternoon, Monday evening quarterbacking. What's it called? I don't know. Monday quarterbacking. Jerry Herman, who wrote the score for Mame, said a clown cannot play the part, and we had America's greatest clown playing this. Mame is regal.

Tony Maietta:
If Queen Elizabeth did something slightly off-color, it's a lot funnier than if Phyllis Diller did the same thing. So there you go. That's Pretty much the issue with, with Mame and Lucy as Mame. Just because Lucy is funny, it's a different kind of funny with this character of Mame Dennis. There.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, I've never seen the Broadway musical or any, any rendition other than this as far as the musical goes. I can only imagine that Angela Lansbury was incredible. But when I watch this, I'm like, okay, when we talk, I'm not going to compare it to Annie Mame with Rosalind Russell, but it's going to be next to impossible to not to.

Tony Maietta:
No, it is. It's gonna be next to impossible not, not only because Russell's made so much, made this so much her own that, you know, you say Auntie Mame, I think most people think of Roz Russell, but it's just, it's the ultimate, it's the ultimate performance of this, of this thing. I never saw Lansbury do it either. I'm not that old. Um, but I can imagine, you know, interestingly, Lansbury tried to do a revival in '83, which I actually could have seen, but it only ran for a few weeks. It was very sad. The musical is great, but the musical is very slim. And I think that you can see that in this film.

Tony Maietta:
You know, Auntie Mame, as we said before in our Auntie Mame episode, when Fryer, Carr, and Harris, the producers of the Broadway musical of Mame, were pitching it, were looking for backers, so many of the backers said to them, is this a revival? What do you mean? Because so many people think that the play Auntie Mame was a musical because it looks built just like one, but it's not. Yeah, everybody was confused. No, this is a brand new musical, and some of the surgery that they had to do in order to fit these wonderful songs in really affect the story. And we'll, we'll talk about that. We'll talk about that.

Brad Shreve:
And I do want to get into the music because I'm not— while I I love Mame. Of course, We Need a Little Christmas has become a classic, and rightfully so, right? But I'm not real fond of most of the music in this one. And I, I'll get out there right now, Loving You, which I know was added to this film, the one Robert Preston sings, right? I listened to some covers because I love Robert Preston, and I'm like, I'm not wild about this. So I went and listened to some, uh, some covers to see if maybe it was not— it's— I just don't like the song. I just don't think it's a very good song at all. But man, that's my taste. And I, you know me, when it comes to music, I am across the board.

Tony Maietta:
You are.

Brad Shreve:
So I really am, from rap to hip-hop to opera and, and jazz and classical. So, uh, I'm not a fan of that one, but we'll talk more about the music.

Tony Maietta:
Loving You was written specifically for this film because Bo does not have a song In the stage production of Mame, written because of Robert Preston. Because when you have Robert Preston, you need a song. And I think—

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, that would've been criminal.

Tony Maietta:
Jerry Herman was so excited to actually have a real singer in this cast. He's like, I gotta have one. We have one real singer. I gotta write him a song. No shade to Jane Connell or Bea Arthur, God knows. But you know, that was important. I think though, before we, before we dive into this. I just want to say that I don't want to— I think it's important that we do not place the entire blame for this disaster at Lucy's feet.

Tony Maietta:
There's a lot more that is problematic about this film and the reason it wasn't successful. And I just want to throw out a couple. Now, Gene Saks, who directed this film, was not the first choice, first of all. George Cukor was to direct it, but when Lucy broke her leg in a skiing accident, they had to postpone for a year and they lost George Cukor. So Gene Sachs, who directed the Broadway version with Angela Lansbury and, P.S., was Bea Arthur's husband at the time, came on to be the director. And Gene Sachs is a perfectly serviceable director. I mean, he's more successful on Broadway, but he did some great films. He did Barefoot in the Park.

Tony Maietta:
He did The Odd Couple, but he was no George Cukor.

Brad Shreve:
No.

Tony Maietta:
And this is the problem. I have no doubt that had Cukor been able to do this, he would have been able to rein Lucy in just from the sheer respect Lucy had for him and the fact that he was George frickin' Cukor. I mean, he tamed Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer and Rosalind Russell in The Women, a cast of, you know, 136 women. So that's one problem. You know, Lucy would not have been able to be calling all the shots had George Cukor actually directed this. Well, there's just no way. She would've been way too respectful of him.

Brad Shreve:
Well, the other thing, I don't know enough about Gene Sachs, but you just named 2 Neil Simon films. And yeah, those are much different than this type of movie.

Tony Maietta:
They are. But he also directed the Broadway version of this. He directed the Broadway—

Brad Shreve:
oh, okay. Okay.

Tony Maietta:
The Broadway musical. So he knew this story. But he's not George Cukor. A film is a different animal.

Brad Shreve:
No.

Tony Maietta:
And my point was that Lucy would have been, I think, much more manageable as an actress, much more malleable, had George— she respected George Cukor so much, she would not have been giving him a hard time. I really believe that. So the second thing is, we have a screenplay here that's allegedly written by Paul Zindel, who is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright. And this screenplay, it's, it's, you know, derivative at worst and unimaginative at best. I mean, it's basically— he brought nothing new to this script other than curse words that they can now use and a few kind of— a few tasteless jokes. If you think about what Anita Loos did when she wrote the screenplay for The Women, based on Clare Boothe Luce's play. It's a brilliant screenplay on its own, all new material, very funny.

Brad Shreve:
Mm-hmm.

Tony Maietta:
And she had the production code tying her hands behind her back. Paul Zindel didn't have this. And so there's really no excuse for how sloppy this screenplay is and how really unimaginative it is. And finally, I think, and this goes hand in hand with Jean Sachs, we have a group of very capable actors here, real veterans here, most of which come off to my, in my opinion, as dull and unmemorable due to the bad writing, due to the bad editing, and due to the fact they had no direction. For example, in Auntie Mame, the Upsons. Is there a more delightfully ignorant, fun couple than the Upsons, played by our good friend Lee Patrick that we just talked about in Maltese Falcon? and Willard Waterman. I mean, they're just so much fun.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, I love it.

Tony Maietta:
We love the Upsons, right? In Auntie Mame, they're, they're kooky, they're ignorant, but they're funny. They're so funny. There's no sugar in a Claude Upson daiquiri.

Brad Shreve:
I was so excited when we reached that scene in this movie.

Tony Maietta:
And they're just ignorant bigots. Yeah, they're just hateful, ignorant bigots in, in this version. There is no charm to them whatsoever. And these are not slipshod actors. Don Porter and Audrey Christie are very, very good actors, but their characters are just—

Brad Shreve:
They're not fun to hate. They're not fun to hate at all.

Tony Maietta:
They're not, they're not, they're not fun to hate. So that's just a few of the things that I just wanna get out there before we start talking about this movie, just so we can kind of exonerate Lucille a little bit. Just to say, this is not all Lucy's fault.

Brad Shreve:
No. And I think it's very clear exactly what you said. This isn't all Lucy's fault. I think Lucy was a was a bad choice for several reasons that we'll get into. But it goes beyond Lucy. As you said, we had some great people in this.

Tony Maietta:
Yes.

Brad Shreve:
We had Bea Arthur, we had Robert Preston, we had a number of character actors, more than you can count, who I love them all, and they all were wooden. That is directing. That is directing. That has nothing to do with who's starring in the film.

Tony Maietta:
We had one of your favorite character actors completely wasted in this film.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
Yes. What did you— tell the people who I'm talking about.

Brad Shreve:
John McIver. And you know, I love John McIver. And as always, John McIver plays the exact same character. And that's sometimes, that's what happens to character actors a lot, but he's just fun regardless of that. And he is delightful. He's just fun to watch. And you know exactly who he's gonna be when he shows up on the screen.

Tony Maietta:
He's delightful.

Brad Shreve:
He was so brief. and so uninteresting. And Robert Preston— how anybody can make Robert Preston boring, I don't know how you can do that. And really, when I watched Bea Arthur and I watched Robert Preston— I know Bea was on stage. I mean, she, she won Tonys for this, right?

Tony Maietta:
A Tony Award for playing Vera.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, yeah, she won a Tony for this. When I watched both of them and I'm like, was it bad directing or did they know this was going so badly that they didn't care.

Tony Maietta:
Well, I disagree with you about that. I think John MacGyver was completely wasted as Mr. Babcock. The part was just way underwritten. It's not a huge part, but there's more Mr. Babcock in Auntie Mame than there certainly is in this. And to me, the only time this movie comes to life is when the magnificent Beatrice Arthur is on screen. I mean, she is— I love Coral Browne.

Tony Maietta:
It's really hard for me not to say— I'm not saying anything bad about Coral Browne. Bees is a different interpretation. And in my mind, and as I think in many reviewers' minds, she was the best fucking thing in this movie. Don't you think so? Sure.

Brad Shreve:
And I will, I, I will agree with you. And I will say that, um, she redeemed herself cuz in the beginning I was not impressed. And I, I believe that character Vera Charles had a little more to do in the anti-Mame in the beginning.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Bea seemed like she was held more till the end, so I was kind of really let down. So I will admit, I'm— you're correct, you corrected me, because at the end I was like, I really like her. And as far as her singing goes, no, Bea Arthur is not a great singer, but she comes across fine because she's— you know she's not a great singer, and she's one of those singers that doesn't— that isn't a great singer, but you still enjoy listening to her.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Because she's not trying to fool anybody.

Tony Maietta:
She— I will defend her a little bit. I think she is a good singer. She's a theater singer. She's a character singer. She sings— she's an actress when she sings. She, she gives you the emotions of the song. On Golden Girls, she sang, and she, she's wonderful as far as I'm concerned. No, she's not Streisand.

Tony Maietta:
So, you know.

Brad Shreve:
No, she's not Streisand. And I have seen her from, uh, some of the old variety shows. You're correct. But she's not— she would never— you would never say Bea Arthur the singer.

Tony Maietta:
She would never cut an album, basically. No, is what you're saying.

Brad Shreve:
You're welcome.

Tony Maietta:
But she's a wonderful Broadway character singing actress. She is.

Brad Shreve:
But Robert Preston's a great singer and I, he's just so full of energy and I, I almost wanted to cry.

Tony Maietta:
So let's go through, let's go, I know, let's go through this cast. You already mentioned some of 'em. Uh, obviously we have Lucille Ball as the titular character, first on the call sheet, Auntie Mame, Dennis Burnside. Then we have, yes, Robert Preston as Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside. We have the magnificent Beatrice Arthur as Vera Charles, the First Lady of the American Theater. Bruce Davidson, who we haven't mentioned yet, as Patrick, as older Patrick Dennis. Bruce Davidson, who proved himself to be a very, very good actor later in his career. He'd gotten an Academy Award nomination for A Longtime Companion in 1989 or 1990.

Tony Maietta:
Very, very capable actor. Kirby Furlong as young Patrick Dennis. And I think I said in our Auntie Mame episode, This is one of the things I think the film Mame does better than the film Auntie Mame. I love Jan Hadlick, still think he's a little too old by the time he got to do the film of Auntie Mame. I think Kirby Furlong is the exact right age for this part and is a really adorable little kid. What do you think?

Brad Shreve:
Oh, I'm gonna disagree with you here. Okay, he's definitely the right— he's definitely the right age. And what, what would the— what Who played, uh, young Patrick in the first movie?

Tony Maietta:
Jan Henslick, or Jan Henslick, as you call him.

Brad Shreve:
Okay, Jan Henslick. I thought he was great. Definitely not the right age, but I thought he was great. This Kirby Furlong, I— he wanted to put me to sleep, and I thought his singing was terrible. Well, I'm glad he's adult now because I can talk openly. This was a terrible child actor. Oh, I don't know what it is. I don't know what is her— I wanted to look up what Kirby's history was after this, and I didn't.

Brad Shreve:
So I don't know if there was one.

Tony Maietta:
With a name like Kirby, how can you be so mean? Hasn't he been through enough with a name like Kirby Furlong? God bless him. Uh, we have the wonderful Jane Connell as Agnes Gooch. Um, Jane Connell did it on Broadway. She played the Gooch on Broadway, and we talked before, and we'll get into it. She was not the first choice for the film, but we know what happened there, or we'll talk about what happened there, because there was another actress who was basically fired, uh, by Lucy for this part, and they brought in Jane. We have the marvelous Joyce Van Patten, wasted, as Sally Kato. I can't believe it.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
We have Lucille Benson as Mother Burnside. You're everything I expected, Mother Burnside, and quite a bit more. Um, we have Dora Cook Nelson as Gloria Upson, which I want to talk about. Don Porter as Mr. Upson, Audrey Christie as Mrs. Upson, And the delightfully wasted John MacGyver as Mr. Babcock. So that's your cast of characters, but you might as well say Lucy and then everybody else, because this film is truly just built around Lucille Ball, around Mame.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, great cast. And we'll leave it at that for now.

Tony Maietta:
Yes. And we have songs, as I said, by Jerry Herman. He wrote one original song for this, Loving You, for the film. And we have costumes by Theodora van Runkel. And Theodore van Runkel was a brilliant costume designer. I think there's some real fun costumes in this and some really atrocious costumes in this. Um, but we'll get to that. We'll, we'll get to that.

Tony Maietta:
We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. So let's go a little bit into the background.

Brad Shreve:
Well, let me, let me first do a synopsis. Not that anybody doesn't know, so I'm gonna do it really fast.

Tony Maietta:
That's a good idea.

Brad Shreve:
Let's just get outta the way 'cause it's really fast. The, the movie starts in the '20s. Mame, uh, it's about Mame Dennis, a wealthy eccentric woman, uh, who suddenly becomes the guardian of her young nephew Patrick when his father dies. And his father was very conservative, the opposite of Mame. She's instructed to raise him conservatively, but of course that doesn't happen. Uh, through her life she finds love and tragedy and heartbreak, and it's very funny and very dramatic. pretty much should have everything everybody wants in the film. And in the end, Patrick realizes how much he appreciates his upbringing and his love, which we don't see a whole lot of in this film like we did in the original, but we'll get to that as well.

Brad Shreve:
And that's pretty much it in a nutshell.

Tony Maietta:
That is it. It's basically Auntie Mame with some combined characters. Interesting stuff that they did when— okay, when they decided that they were gonna take the stage play Auntie Mame And they wanted to make it into a musical. And as I said, many people thought, what? Wasn't it— is this a revival? I said, no, it's new.

Brad Shreve:
Mm-hmm.

Tony Maietta:
And after many, many suggestions, including the legend that Rosalind Russell was offered it, I don't know. Yes, no, that's debatable. Angela Lansbury won the part after many, many, many, many auditions, many auditions. And she became a Broadway superstar. She won a Tony Award.

Brad Shreve:
Mm-hmm.

Tony Maietta:
So Lawrence and Lee, who wrote the original play Auntie Mame, they didn't write the screenplay. Comden and Green wrote the screenplay. Lawrence and Lee wrote the play. They were going to write this musical Broadway musical adaption of it, and they wanted to make substantial changes into it. This is interesting. One of the changes they wanted to make was making Beauregard a British earl and not from the South. And the title song would've been called Mame the Most, as opposed to just Mame.

Brad Shreve:
Interesting.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, I think we dodged a bullet with that. I think that he belongs in the South. He's Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside, for God's sake.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, interesting.

Tony Maietta:
Some of the changes they made, which I actually kind of like, is they streamlined scenes and they combined the characters of Nora Muldoon and Agnes Gooch into one character. into the Gooch, and I really like that change. What do you think about that change, Brad?

Brad Shreve:
I was actually disappointed. I didn't like that. I, I liked, uh, them as separate characters. I kept, uh, wondering what was going on before I finally realized that really the, the, the other was really written out. It was mostly Agnes Gooch, but kind of sort of was— I never really understood her, her situation there. I I wouldn't say it was a terrible decision. I understand why when you start adding music and that sort of thing, there's going to have to be cuts and stuff. Yeah, I get why.

Brad Shreve:
I wasn't thrilled with it.

Tony Maietta:
I really like it. I like it. But they also completely got rid of characters like Lindsay Woolsey, like Mr. O'Banion, Brian O'Banion. In fact, before Beauregard, Mame had— there's no more romantic— he's the only romantic interest Mame has in this whole movie. is Beauregard. So they got rid of all those characters. And when the time came to make this into a film version of it, there were names bandied about, but really Warner Brothers had only one name in mind, and that was Lucy.

Tony Maietta:
I mean, Lucy had made it clear since 1958— remember we talked about this—

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
That she coveted this role, said it was the only time she was ever envious of anybody. was Rosalind Russell in this role. So, as I said, they agreed to do it, and they actually— she broke her leg, and they agreed to postpone filming for a year. This is how badly they wanted her. They agreed to postpone filming for an entire year, losing their director and really causing some problems. But they did it because they wanted her so badly. Because Gene Sachs then came on as the director, naturally, He's gonna push for his wife to reprise her role as Vera. But also very important, Bea Arthur was now a big TV star because Maude had debuted a season before.

Tony Maietta:
So she was now a name.

Brad Shreve:
Mm-hmm.

Tony Maietta:
So who knows if Maude hadn't happened, if she would've been Vera in this film? Maybe not. 'Cause you know who really wanted to play Vera and who lobbied Lucy for it actually? Bug Lucy about it. You know, I'll, I'll throw it out there.

Brad Shreve:
Vivian Vance. No, that would have been great.

Tony Maietta:
Maybe would have saved this movie. Um, no, uh, Ruth Elizabeth Davis herself. Bette Davis wanted to play Vera. So can you imagine if— as if the Bea Arthur-Lucille Ball duet of Bosom Buddies isn't bad enough— can you imagine if it was Bette Davis and Lucy singing that?

Brad Shreve:
You know, I, I wasn't wild about that song together, but one of the things that I was surprised was I did feel there was chemistry between Lucy and Bea.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, well, they were friends actually. They were friendly.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, I, I could feel that. The song, the song together was, was— we won't— we'll get into that later maybe, but I, I think everybody can—

Tony Maietta:
well, we'll talk about how I felt about it.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, but I thought them together, I was like I, I can feel this.

Tony Maietta:
The Broadway version of the song is much better than the film version. They had to transpose because Lucy couldn't hear those harmonies in her head, so they had to cut lyrics, they had to make changes. We'll get to it. Um, but Bea, yeah, the whole thing about Bea not— and Lucy not getting along is a total— that's not true. Uh, Bea, in fact, when Lucy got her Kennedy Center Honors in, in '86, Bea was one of the honor presenters. She They were friendly. They were not adversaries in any shape or form. But Bea later did call her involvement in this film a tremendous embarrassment.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, I saw that.

Tony Maietta:
After the fact, of course. And she expressed regret at having participated. However, can you imagine if she hadn't done it and somebody else did it? Maybe she would've said, glad I dodged that bullet. But if it had been a hit, she would've been pissed off that she didn't do it. So of course she also said, you know, that Lucy was terribly miscast, which, duh, we know that.

Brad Shreve:
So I presume she waited till after Lucy died before she said that statement, or did she?

Tony Maietta:
No, no, she, I think after the film bombed, she was like, you know, that was a mistake.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, okay.

Tony Maietta:
That was a mistake. 'Cause everybody was saying, yeah, but everybody was also saying that Bea was the best thing in it. So, hello, you gotta take that with a grain of salt. So then we come to Gooch and Brad, let me ask you. If you remember, who was the original choice to play Agnes Gooch?

Brad Shreve:
Well, of course I remember.

Tony Maietta:
Who was it?

Brad Shreve:
Madelyn Kahn. And thank God, thank God Madelyn was fired.

Tony Maietta:
Yes, Madelyn was indeed originally cast as Gooch. Um, but she was allegedly— there's a couple different stories out there, but the most verifiable one was that she was fired by Lucille after only a few days of rehearsal. Because she wasn't giving Lucy what she needed in the character. Now you have to remember, Lucy's a TV— is now used to television. 4 days to shoot 1 show, instant characters, instant results. Madeline is an actress of the theater. She needed to develop her character. She wasn't about to give you an instant gooch.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
And Lucy didn't like this. Lucy didn't wanna be surprised by what Madeline might do on screen. that she wasn't prepared for. So after a few times, she said, get out of here. She was fired. No big deal for her because she went right into Blazing Saddles and got an Oscar nomination, which is what Lucy said she did on purpose. But I don't agree with that. I don't think that's true at all.

Brad Shreve:
No.

Tony Maietta:
I think that thank God Blazing Saddles happened and she did get an Oscar nomination as Lily von Stupp, and she did dodge this bullet of Agnes Gooch, which brought in— which meant it opened the role to Jane Connell, who was the original Gooch On Broadway. What do you think of her, Brad? What do you think of her in this part?

Brad Shreve:
Uh, first, regarding, uh, Lucy claiming that, uh, she let, um, her go for— because she would be better off somewhere else. No. When you think of how much Lucy wanted to do this and wanted it to do well, she would never have let somebody go that she thought was a, was a great start. So I'm not buying that. I'm not buying that. As far as Jane goes, uh, again, I, I think it comes down to directing. I'm like, she's terrible. Madelyn Cohn would have been much better.

Brad Shreve:
But again, I think it was the directing because she did get better. There were moments where I thought she's great, and there were moments— but she was underused, just like she—

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
There was a lot just tossed at the end to say, okay, this is— here's like the original movie. And it was It was very awkward to me.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. I kind of wonder why Madeline Kahn even agreed to do it because, you know, we know that when we talked about What's Up, Doc? and we talked about how, though she was grateful for Eunice Burns, she really fought against that characterization for the rest of her career and was always trying to do different things. And Agnes Gooch is just a different version of, of Eunice Burns. You know, it's, it's just, it's the same character really, except she sings. Don't you think?

Brad Shreve:
No. Yes, but it was also very early in her career, and as much as she might have— may have wanted to move on, it might have been too early for her to be too, uh, picky.

Tony Maietta:
Well, no, but she did Paper Moon.

Brad Shreve:
Oh yeah, I mean, yeah, you're right.

Tony Maietta:
I, I don't— I think that— I think it was a good thing.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
That she didn't do it for her career, obviously. For the movie, I don't know, you know, supposition, who cares? It didn't happen.

Brad Shreve:
So what did you think of Jane Connell?

Tony Maietta:
I like, I like the fact that she got to have a shot at memorializing this performance, uh, from Broadway. You know, a lot of actors don't get that opportunity. I think she's good, but I do think she's underutilized. I, I, there's, you know what I mean? It's like, yeah, how can you, first of all, how can you top Peggy Cass? I mean, that's, you really can't.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
You know? Yes. And I love, I think Jane Connell was a very, very gifted actress, but she's no Madelyn Cahn. There's— there just wouldn't— there's no comparison. So it's a good part, but it's kind of like a, eh, yeah, okay, you're the character, that's it. So that's the way I feel about it.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
And then of course we have Robert Preston as Beauregard, as we talked about. So before we bag this, I kind of would like to talk about the things I do like in this film. What do you think about that?

Brad Shreve:
Okay.

Tony Maietta:
Wanna do that?

Brad Shreve:
That's fine. I think that's a good idea because no movies— well, most movies are not 1,000% terrible. Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
Although in his review of this, Leonard Maltin began with bomb.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
So he might disagree with you.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
So there are things I love about this film. There are some things I really love about this film. First of all, I think the production values are incredible. Outstanding. I mean, this is an A-class production. This film is beautiful to watch. The production designer was Robert F. Boyle, cinematographer Philip Lathrop.

Tony Maietta:
Now, aside from the filters and the air quotes Vaseline on the lens, this film is beautifully shot. It's edited terribly, but it's beautifully shot. The opening sequence is fantastic. In fact, Vincent Canby said in his New York Times review something along the lines of, if the rest of the film had only lived up to the excitement and the sophistication of the title sequence. Because the opening with our friend John MacGyver is so fun. And so it's not— it's exposition, but it doesn't feel like exposition.

Brad Shreve:
No.

Tony Maietta:
It's so quick, and you get, you get the whole backstory of what's going on with Patrick and Gooch Under the titles with this wonderful music. It's so fast and it brings you right into the movie. I love the opening sequence. The minute Ido opens that door, the movie goes in the toilet as far as I'm concerned. Yes.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
Um, I already said that I like Kirby Furlong better than Jan Hadzlik. You don't agree. All right, we all agree to disagree on that. And I love Bea. I, I do. I think Bea is a magnificent Vera Charles. Every time she's on the screen, I light up watching her because she's so, she's so over the top in this. Now think about Bea as, as Dorothy.

Tony Maietta:
I mean, was there an actor more deadpan?

Brad Shreve:
Right.

Tony Maietta:
Was there a character more deadpan than Dorothy Zbornak? No. Bea is the exact opposite here. She gets upset. She's over the top. She's grand. That's why she was such a wonderful actress. She's so imperious. As Vera.

Tony Maietta:
I love it, love it, love it. And funny. And funny. That's what I love about it.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. And I do wanna once again cover my ass when I said that I wasn't fond of her in this film. She was in, in the beginning where she was, um, basically drunk and then hungover. She was very stiff as the character should be, but then she vanished for the most part. She wasn't in that much. And then I'm like, that would, I mean, I was like, it's like, That was awful. But then when she came back and became more participatory, she did redeem herself to me.

Tony Maietta:
Yes. I mean, I love her, uh, the Man in the Moon sequence.

Brad Shreve:
She could only do so much.

Tony Maietta:
The Man in the Moon, because she's a supporting act. She's a supporting character here, and she shouldn't be the whole film, but you want her to be because she's so wonderful. That Man in the Moon song is so delicious and so funny. Tell her to get her ass on that moon. And she's just so over the top and hysterically funny as Vera. So is Coral Brown. I'm not taking anything away from Coral Brown, but it's a different interpretation. And that's the problem.

Tony Maietta:
That's why this— that's what we needed more of in this film. We needed different interpretations of these characters, but just as good as in this Ant-Man. And we don't get that. We only get that with Bea Arthur, in my opinion. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
You know, if you're gonna remake something or make something off of something else, such as a play, reimagine it. Give us something different, but make it good.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. I mean, that's absolutely true. And she does. I love it when, after she storms off the stage and she's furious and the costume lady comes in to take off her pearls and she says, leave me alone. And she does it again. She turns around and smacks her. And then that like 3-foot-tall costume woman smacks her back and she goes, and she dissolves into tears. That's genius stuff.

Tony Maietta:
That's genius stuff. So Brad, I just told you the things I like about this movie. Is there anything you like about this movie?

Brad Shreve:
There, there's not a lot, but I can tell you a few things. Um, the sets— I was really impressed with the sets. I don't I didn't feel as connected with them as in Auntie Mame.

Tony Maietta:
Mm-hmm.

Brad Shreve:
But I was impressed with how extravagant they were. Uh, like, I did not— in Auntie Mame, the, the, uh, apartment, I just was like, I want to live there. And it's so bizarre and so interesting. I didn't feel that when they walked into the party, as you mentioned. I didn't feel that, but I was impressed. The costumes were real hit or miss. Some of them I'm like, wow, that looks fantastic. Other times I'm like, that's pretty boring.

Brad Shreve:
So that was a real hit or miss, but there were some good costuming as well. I think they, they were nominated for both of those things.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Beyond that, there isn't a whole lot. Um, even the songs that I like, that I enjoy from the play, I I thought were pretty weak here. Um, there's not a lot I can say about this film that I can say that's good about it, to be honest.

Tony Maietta:
I love the, uh, I love her townhouse too. I think that is, that's a realistic townhouse. You could see someone of lots of money having a place like that on Beekman Place. Like we talked about with Auntie Mame, that's not a house, that's not an apartment, that's a set. You know, Ross and Russell said this is way too big, but that's what, that's part of That we talked about this with Auntie Mame. You know, the whole motif behind that film is very theatrical because Mame is very theatrical.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
So she needs an environment to support that theatricality. That's why the sets in Auntie Mame are so big and over the top. Well, you take the same theatrical character and you try to drop her into this kind of more realistic world and it doesn't work. That's another reason why the film doesn't work.

Brad Shreve:
Now, one of my few complaints about Auntie Mame was the fading in and out, right, as, you know, like changing sets. But that actually worked better to me because of the sets themselves and everything. And it's almost like that would help this a little bit.

Tony Maietta:
Well, it's a very— she's a very— as we said in Auntie Mame, Mame's life is on stage. She's basically, you know, she lives her life on a stage. So you need that theatrical presentation to support that. theatricality of that character. So you have the same theatrical character dropped into a very realistic setting. It doesn't, it doesn't gel.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. And you hinted at the, uh, the open— not the opening scene, but the, the scene where they show up at the door, uh, and go in and the big party's going on. When I watched Annie Mame, I'm like, I wanna be at that party.

Tony Maietta:
Right.

Brad Shreve:
And I did not feel that with this. I didn't feel like that was a house I wanted to go party in. I didn't feel like I was at a party. I felt like I was at people, acting at a party. It just didn't have, uh, and a lot of it may have been Lucy, and not because she's a bad actress, as we've said already a dozen times and probably will say a dozen times more, she was wrong for the part. Um, and just, it didn't have the warmth. Well, so, but that, but that set, because I was originally talking about the set, as elaborate as the set was, the set just didn't— it, it kind of felt like the, the tone of the whole film. It just didn't have that Right.

Tony Maietta:
No, I agree with you.

Brad Shreve:
What's the connection there?

Tony Maietta:
And it's too literal. It's too literal.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
And so, and that kind of bleeds into Lucy. Lucy is too literal in her interpretation of Mame. Mame should be delightfully arbitrary, like Russell is. She's light. She's easily distracted. She is prone to flights of fancy. Lucy's too literal. And that extends to the script.

Tony Maietta:
One of the most charming things about the script of Auntie Mame, and it's because of the PCA, so thank you PCA, sometimes it actually worked in favor of films, is that Mame couldn't say son of a bitch.

Brad Shreve:
Mm-hmm.

Tony Maietta:
And Mame couldn't say bastard in 1958. So, they create something that is even more delightful. You know, when she says, she says, most poor suckers are starving to death. I like that better. When she says, she says, uh, she's talking about Patrick's father and Rosalind Russell grabs the tablet and starts writing because she doesn't want to say bastard in front of a child. And he says, what is that? And she says, that's a B, the first letter in a 7-letter word, which means your late father.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
That's so much more elegant than saying that bastard. You know, it's, it's just, it's— say what you want about the Production Code, it really forced writers to work harder to make things more imaginative and to make things even better sometimes.

Brad Shreve:
Well, and an example, since you were on that, as far as the imagination, the whole children's school, which, yeah, I found very disturbing in here, not because they're showing like the boy's butt and there was the nudity going on. It just, it was more fun in my imagination to have that school described to me and it made me laugh.

Tony Maietta:
So true.

Brad Shreve:
I didn't laugh in this one.

Tony Maietta:
So true. So true. So unnecessary and so much better just to hear the description than to have to see it. It's just, it's again, too literal. This is a problem throughout the entire film.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
Like the Upsons, they're just nasty bigots in this film. There's no delightful comic tone to them at all. Mm-hmm. And I think that, you know, What's wonderful about Bea Arthur in this is she is that theatrical. She's the one who's doing that kind of style, which really sells this story. And it's just another example of where this film is not just Lucy's fault. Everybody had a hand in this. This is a directing thing.

Tony Maietta:
This is a producing thing. It's just, it is what it is. I think that As we said before, the only time when that Lucy really is effective in this film is when she's doing Lucy stuff, when she's able to do things like the roller skate scene, like try to be dignified when you can't get your roller skates off. She did a very similar scene in The Lucy Show in 1964, I think. When she can do Lucy stuff, also the fox hunt. You know, no, no accident. Lucy Ricardo also did a fox hunt in I Love Lucy. When she can do Lucy stuff, it works.

Tony Maietta:
But that is not the story. That's Lucy Ricardo. That's not Mame Dennis. And that's exactly why. What do you think about the Mame sequence at the plantation at Peckerwood where they all sing Mame to her?

Brad Shreve:
Um, I thought it was, uh, I, I liked the song from the, the play, or at least the versions I've heard of it. I was a little disappointed. I didn't like it nearly as well. And my biggest problem with that was what I felt through this whole— when I lived in Vegas, I used to go to the MGM Grand. I, the company I worked for, Marriott, we had a connection with the MGM Grand, so I was always getting tickets to the MGM Grand shows.

Tony Maietta:
Mm-hmm.

Brad Shreve:
And one thing I noticed about the shows at the MGM Grand were they did a lot of costuming so that all they had to do was train somebody to kick. They didn't have to train people to do big dance routines. And that's what I felt like I was watching people doing here. Nobody was really moving. There was mostly swaying going on.

Tony Maietta:
Well, especially, especially not your star.

Brad Shreve:
No, especially not the star.

Tony Maietta:
Come on.

Brad Shreve:
But I kept— I I felt like that was a scene that should have just been wow.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And Robert Preston singing it should have been wow. And instead I'm just like, okay, that's it. I like this song a lot.

Tony Maietta:
Okay. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And I was underwhelmed.

Tony Maietta:
It's underwhelming. It is, you know. And it's— funnily enough, that song, that sequence, it was cited most often by critics as the best musical sequence in the film. But you're like, best of What?

Brad Shreve:
You know what I mean?

Tony Maietta:
It's like, okay, the best of the worst. It's still the best, but it's still the worst. I like it a little more than you do. I think that it works because first of all, Lucy doesn't sing. Lucy just pretty much—

Brad Shreve:
That is true.

Tony Maietta:
Has to stand there and be strangely admired like she discovered penicillin. I mean, she just won a fox hunt, that's all, by accident. But they're genuflecting to her and they're doffing their hats to her as the second coming when, okay, she wanted to fox hunt people. Let's get over it.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
But I find it— I think it's beautiful to watch. But just like everything else in this film, and if you notice too, Lucy, they really, really dumbed down the choreography for Lucy. I mean, Angela Lansbury was doing high kicks on Broadway. It's today. The big opening number should be a riot. And it just kind of lays there. There's no joy in it. There's no energy to it.

Tony Maietta:
When Angela Lansbury came out blowing a bugle and doing high kicks and probably somersaults— I mean, who knows? I didn't see it, but I know she was doing high kicks. It really energizes you. And in this, it just kind of lays there. And I think the same thing with, with this number. It's good, but again, best of the worst. What kind of criteria is that?

Brad Shreve:
I, I will defend Lucy here for a second. Um, knowing that her dancing career was long past and knowing that she was hurt in, uh, snow skiing before this film, right, I was actually quite impressed at her moves.

Tony Maietta:
Well, she worked her ass off with Anna White, the choreographer, to do what she did.

Brad Shreve:
And I know they did a lot of retakes on a lot of these things, including a lot of her singing. So, but she did— I was really impressed with how well she was able to move, including on the roller skates.

Tony Maietta:
She was, but she did all those Lucy Ricardo moves that we've seen a million times. Yes, she did. In I Love Lucy.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, she did.

Tony Maietta:
But yes, you're right.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, she did.

Tony Maietta:
Let's give her a break. She just broke her leg. She was very aware of it. And considering, you know, she was 62 years old and she had just broken her leg very badly, she does a great— she does a very, very admirable job. when she's called upon to do things. But that makes the film suffer. That's the point. The film then suffers because you're basically dumbing down what should be an exultant musical experience.

Tony Maietta:
That's another problem with the film.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, your audience should never say, that was pretty good considering.

Tony Maietta:
Exactly, exactly. You don't really need that. You don't need a caveat. Considering she's 62 and just broke her leg, it's pretty pretty good. No, you want to be blown away by it. So yeah, another thing we need to talk about, Bosom Buddies, the song. You've already expressed your dislike of it. Have you ever heard the one from the Broadway with Angela Lansbury and Bea Arthur?

Brad Shreve:
Uh, I think I did when I first— when it first started, I thought, I don't recognize this song. At some point I think I did, um, but it's, it's hard for me to say.

Tony Maietta:
It's a classic vaudeville-type song. Wonderful on the Broadway score. Angela Lansbury and Bea Arthur. This, the barbs, you know, how old are you? Somewhere between 40 and death. I mean, when you hear a woman who is, you know, 15 years older than the person she's talking to saying you're somewhere between 40 and death, you're kind of like, eh, I don't know about that.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
So they— it's kind of icky. Um, I love the song, but again, what I said before was they truncated so much of it because Lucy couldn't hear the harmonies, so they had to lose a lot of it, change some lyrics, and it's just not— it's not fun. It's just like this bitchy number that has its moments, mostly Bea Arthur, um, and her looks and her pauses are delicious, but it's just like It's like a, uh, a bitch fest that's no fun.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
As far as I'm concerned.

Brad Shreve:
And I am almost certain I've heard it before and enjoyed it. And it, it wasn't fun here. It was just like, okay, let's get it over. It's kinda like We Need a Little Christmas. Like, I don't, I didn't recognize it at the beginning.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. It's very song. It's, it's just not energizing.

Brad Shreve:
No. And that's a song that should have just, I mean, once I caught it, I, I knew it, but it's like, you know, uh, that Mame and, and bosom buddies all should have like, oh yeah, there was that great song, and I wasn't.

Tony Maietta:
What do you think about Dora Cook Nelson, who plays Gloria Upson in this? Now, we love Joanna Barnes. We've always talked about Joanna Barnes, you know, uh, in the film Auntie Mame. What do you think of this actress and her interpretation?

Brad Shreve:
I don't want to say anything bad about her, only because I think it was mostly the direction and, and from— what was the actress's name from the film?

Tony Maietta:
Joanna Barnes.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, she is so ingrained into your brain. It's—

Tony Maietta:
it's—

Brad Shreve:
you wanted to— I really wanted to see somebody do something totally different and make it not necessarily better but interesting because she was better. And I just felt like she had no direction, and it just— she was not very interesting at all.

Tony Maietta:
See, I kind of like— I like her because I do think she does something different. I think the temptation to mimic Joanna Barnes and that way of talking, like you have a hot potato in your mouth, would probably be very great. What I think she does is she does like, she tries, she mimics kind of a young Katharine Hepburn in this, because if you notice, her jaw's very tight, you know, and she looks like a young Kate Hepburn. And I think that's a valid interpretation of this part. And I also think it's like Bea Arthur did with Vera. She created her own unique individual interpretation of this part that, in my opinion, works. I think it's— I think this— and it's a thankless role, it's cut so much from what we see in Auntie Mame. I think she does an admirable job.

Tony Maietta:
I really like— I like her in this. I think she's one of the successes of this film. No Joanna Barnes, and don't get me wrong, but still pretty good.

Brad Shreve:
And that's why I was hesitant to say anything bad about her. I, I think she did fine. I just, um, I think she could have been better, and I, I think it comes more to directing than her.

Tony Maietta:
Because this film is centered so much around the character of Mame, all the other characters suffer. I mean, you really have— exactly, you really have to fight like Bea Arthur. You really have to stand out because so much of this film, by getting rid of all those other characters And just by the— because it's a musical with songs for Mame and it's called Mame, uh, the other characters just kind of like fade into the background. And I think that's, that's so sad.

Brad Shreve:
Well, like Patrick, like, okay, obviously Patrick is the big part in the beginning, but I never— he almost vanished. And when, when there were— when he was being taken away and that sort of thing, I felt nothing in my heart because I felt nothing between her, him, and Mame.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
It just— there was no connection, no love between them that I felt at all. So when he became older Patrick, again, I, I didn't— it was like, uh, yeah, because, because I never felt that connection between them to begin with. When, when I watched Auntie Mame and Mame takes off with Beauregard, it, it hurts me that she's traveling around the world when she and Patrick were so close. I didn't feel that at all here because I felt like Patrick would be like, I don't care.

Tony Maietta:
No, I agree with you. And, you know, I like Bruce Davidson as an actor. I think he's a very, very good actor. He proved that later, as I said. But there's no chemistry. I think about Roger Smith, who played Patrick in the film with Roz Russell, and they have such a wonderful connection. You know, when he calls out Auntie Mame, I mean, it's a little over the top, but the movie's over the top. But you feel that love between them, between Roz Russell and between those characters.

Tony Maietta:
You don't feel that with Bruce Davidson and Lucy at all, at all. It's like, but you know, not there.

Brad Shreve:
But, but also look what they did to Bruce Davidson, because going back to Auntie Mame, the older Patrick was there. He saw that they were rude and disgusting to Mame. And you saw this connection between him and— I don't remember the maid's name— the connection between them. And you saw this— it was very quick, but there was a quick blossoming at the end. But here, Mame was— what she did was horrendous, but— and the family didn't react in a way that made them look any different than what you would expect them to.

Tony Maietta:
Right.

Brad Shreve:
act. They didn't call Mae anything nasty. And he runs away mad, and the next thing we know, we're ending and he's with the maid. There was like—

Tony Maietta:
yes.

Brad Shreve:
So again, it's no reflection on him. I, I— there's so much in this film I don't think is a reflection on the cast. And I even give Lucille Ball some, some slack here.

Tony Maietta:
Good.

Brad Shreve:
I, I just don't think anything— I don't think they were given anything to do.

Tony Maietta:
No, it's the script. It's the script and the direction.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, there's no— The script and the direction.

Tony Maietta:
You're absolutely right. There is no kind of— I mean, at the end of Auntie Mame, Patrick stands up to Gloria and you see that, and he has that Auntie Mame and they have that embrace. So, you know, things are gonna be okay here. He just runs off. So I guess you just have to assume that he finally fell in love with the maid somewhere along the line that we didn't get to see, and now everything's okay between them. So you're absolutely right. There is no climax to that relationship with Gloria. And Patrick, it just kind of peters out and he runs off and that's it.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, it's just like Peggy Cass with Agnes Scrooge. She had a lot bigger role. She interacted. Here she vanished. Then they, they dress her up and she goes away, and then she's back and she's pregnant, and then we don't, we don't see her again until she comes out the party. I mean, I'm, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but not much.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, there's no—

Brad Shreve:
Again, great character. Again, great character that you didn't have the opportunity to connect with and was taken away from us for this film.

Tony Maietta:
Well, one of the problems with this screenplay is there's no motivation for Mame to want to make over Gooch other than the fact that, hey, let's do a makeover. You know what I mean? It's in the play and in the film Auntie Mame, it's for a reason. It's so she can go out with Brian. so Mame can meet Gloria Upson. So there's a reason why she sends the gooch onto Brian. Well, you don't have a Brian O'Banion anymore in this, in this film. He's gone. So it's just like, oh, they're drinking, let's make her over.

Tony Maietta:
And then she goes out and gets pregnant. It has absolutely no justification. And that's a problem with the script right there. That's—

Brad Shreve:
I think it would have been better if they just wrote her out.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, I, yeah, I just So finally, the final scene. Mame has got to be about 125 years old by now. She's like— She's like the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey, you know. Remember Maggie Smith said, how old is she now? Because she just goes on. You look at Mame at the end when she's got the little kid now, Patrick's son, and you're like, how old is this woman now that she's now taking this little kid off on another event. It's— oh, it's not good. It's not good. Yeah, but that was the film.

Tony Maietta:
That's the film.

Brad Shreve:
Um, I, I just want to say I'm sorry to those of you that, uh, requested it. And if you really like the movie, that's one thing this show is all about. We don't all agree. I really tried. I tried, and this just— this just wasn't my cup of tea.

Tony Maietta:
Listen, this is a guilty pleasure. I actually find watching scenes from this movie pleasurable. I said there are some things I really like about this movie. I love, and I love watching. So this is kind of the definition of a guilty pleasure, just like with Can't Stop the Music. You're looking at it and you're thinking, oh my God, this is bad, but I can't look away. You know what I mean? It's just, it's, it's the, it's not quite a train wreck, but it really, it really is something that it grabs your attention.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
And you can't look away. That's the way I feel about it. I don't like bashing it, but I, there's also things about it I really like, I have to admit.

Brad Shreve:
And I just, well, and you know, I love a good bad film and this is not a good bad film. This is just a bad, bad film. This is not one I can, this is just a bad, bad film.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Well, you know, it all started out well when the film was finished. Lucy did all kinds of publicity for it. She did The Tonight Show, she did Dinah, Phil Donahue. Sometimes she was in her Mame costumes. There was actually an episode of Here's Lucy in which the character of Lucy met Lucy.

Brad Shreve:
Oh.

Tony Maietta:
Lucy Carter Meets Lucille Ball is an actual episode of Here's Lucy. And of course, it was all just big publicity for Mame because Mame was about to be released. I guess I'm gonna say the Hollywood premiere It was Easter time and they— the Cinerama Dome was where it premiered. It was a huge premiere, uh, decked out like a big Easter egg, and there was a whole 1920s theme. And the film, when it opened in New York, it opened at Radio City and it actually broke box office records. So in the initial weeks of this, Lucy was incredibly optimistic and incredibly happy because she thought This is a hit. And then the reviews started coming in, and that's when the shit really hit the fan.

Brad Shreve:
Mm-hmm.

Tony Maietta:
The reviewers focusing on her, the filters, the soft focus, the closeups, her croaking voice. I mean, it got, it got really nasty. It got really nasty. In fact, my good pal Pauline Kael, in her review in The New Yorker, said something along the lines of, After 40 years in show business, did Miss Ball discover in herself an ambition to become a flaming drag queen? Oh, Pauline. Oh, Pauline, go easy on me, will ya?

Brad Shreve:
That's just cruel. That's just cruel.

Tony Maietta:
It's just, it's, it's, it's just so cruel. And the movie just, oh, it just got worse and worse and worse. And So when these things started to happen, Lucy started to backtrack a bit as the reviews came out and she would be on talk shows. And as she was realizing what a disaster this was becoming, she would say out loud, well, I'm not a singer, I'm not a dancer. And so you, which begs the question, then why did you do this part? This part is a musical. Why did you do it? You know?

Brad Shreve:
And especially after smoking for how many years?

Tony Maietta:
Smoking and having a real affinity for scotch. Um, it's just— and, you know, screaming on her TV show and getting it just— yeah, yeah, yeah. But I just, I just want to get serious here for a minute about this whole thing because yes, we make fun of this film, we talk about how horrible it is, we make fun of her in it, which— this is why I was like, the no Lucy bashing, because I want to defend her a little bit. I just want to put this in a context. as to where this woman was coming from. I think it's really important. So maybe we can understand it a bit more and maybe give her a little slack, a little grace here. Because in Lucy's mind, despite the fact that she was, you know, kind of the most famous woman in the world— I mean, you know, no, her face had been seen by more people than Mary Pickford's.

Tony Maietta:
I mean, she was right up there with Mary Pickford. Lucy never felt she was a star. Now think about that for a minute. She's the most famous woman in the world, first lady of television, never felt she was a star because in her mind, a star was a movie star. Think about it. She came up working alongside Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Maureen O'Hara, who she really envied. And so to Lucy, being a star meant being a movie star. And I think we can kind of all relate to that.

Tony Maietta:
No matter how much you've achieved in your life, there's always somebody else out there who we feel has achieved more. It's a very human thing. I may have achieved all this stuff, but there's somebody else out there who's got something else that I want. It's sad, but it's human. I mean, so when her TV career is winding down, and this major Hollywood film musical is being tailored to her talents and is offered to her. How is she gonna say no to that? How is she gonna say, I'm not right for it? This is all she ever wanted in her life. So of course she said yes. So I think that we, after we, you know, trash this film, let's have a little grace for her and to unders— a little more empathy for her than Pauline Kael did.

Tony Maietta:
And just realize how, how sad that is and kind of have sympathy for her of how hugely devastating this was to her because it was such a tremendous bomb, you know, and it truly, truly affected the rest of her life.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, I can't, you know, I'll say till the day I die she was wrong for this film, but for anybody to diss Lucy in general because of this, with her amazing career, who didn't have a bomb in their career?

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, she—

Brad Shreve:
it's just she shines. She— this was devastating to her because it doesn't happen to Lucy.

Tony Maietta:
Well, it's devastating to her because it, it ended up being the one she went out on. That's the problem.

Brad Shreve:
True.

Tony Maietta:
That it's her final— it was her final film, and she had such high hopes for it. Such high hopes for it.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
You know, in fact, Tom, Tom Watson, friend of the pod Tom Watson, we know who's been on before, told me that Lucy had a 35mm print of Mame that she would occasionally run in her screening room at her house. She was proud of it. She was. And she couldn't understand why nobody liked it.

Brad Shreve:
It's interesting.

Tony Maietta:
It's very sad. It's very sad. It's a very, very sad chapter in this illustrious career. But you people asked for it. We just talked about Mame. At least we can put it to bed.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, it is done. It is done.

Tony Maietta:
So, Brad, in that Lucille-like voice of yours, you're showing off right now. Do you want to— is there anything you want to say about the podcast or anything else?

Brad Shreve:
Well, if we ask that you rate and review this podcast, if we just made you mad, maybe you want to wait a week. But you can do it right there from whatever app you're listening on. Just click rate or review and let others know what you think of the show so they can see it and hopefully enjoy it just as much as you do. Also, we'd love for you to get in touch with us. You can do so through our email at goinghollywoodpod@gmail.com or right there in the show notes, there's a button that says, uh, leave a voicemail or text us. You can do either of those and we'd love to hear from you. And we've already played somebody's recording on there. We'd love to do yours.

Brad Shreve:
Or you can leave a voicemail and say, hey, don't play this on the air. Either way, we want to hear from you folks. And we do still have our survey going, which you probably heard before the episode started. So we've got some of those in and we would like a whole lot more.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, do that survey. Do that survey. I'm interested to get opinions about that and what people think. That's a great idea. Well, Brad, I guess the people spoke. We did it. I really, really, I hope we were, you know, clear-eyed and objective about this as to what exactly happened to this film and some of the enjoyable and not so enjoyable things about it. At least I hope we were.

Tony Maietta:
Forgive me, Lucy, if that wasn't the case. But anyway, after all that, I guess I really just have one thing left to say. And I don't want to say it's As usual, so let's not say goodbye, let's just say au revoir.

Brad Shreve:
No, let's say goodbye.

Tony Maietta:
Go listen to the Broadway cast of Mame. Goodbye, everybody!