Auntie Mame

As I mentioned a few days ago in my article on Vertigo, that Hitchcock film was not nominated for the 1958 Best Picture Oscar. Over the next few days I'll take a look at the films that were nominated, and I'll start with an example of how tastes have changed over fifty years. The idea that this bloated bit of frippery was once considered by film professionals to be one of the best films of the year is a head-scratcher, right up there with pink aluminum Christmas trees.

Based on a book by Patrick Dennis, which was then adapted into a stage play, Auntie Mame was lush and gaudy, and almost without substance. It's the story of a young boy in the 1920s who is suddenly orphaned and sent to live with his larger-than-life aunt, who cavorts with the oddballs of high society, smokes cigarettes with a long holder, and speaks as if she is always on stage. Rosalind Russell played the title role, and it's the kind of performance that today only a drag queen could love. Russell was a big star at the time who is largely forgotten today. If you want to learn more about her, check out His Girl Friday, not this one.

The film was directed by Morton DaCosta (he would later direct The Music Man) in the kind of film that was prevalent in the fifties: brilliant colors and a theatricality that made people think they were seeing a Broadway show. There's no attempt at realism here--apartments on Beekman Place are as large as a mansion, and scenes set in Egypt or the Matterhorn have backgrounds that look like they are made of papier mache. The spirit of the piece is mawkish sentimentality (Auntie Mame and her nephew love each other to pieces, despite her being delightfully kooky) mixed with slapstick comedy (mostly from Peggy Cass as Mame's socially inept secretary). Almost none of it works.

So, fifty years ago this was a Best Picture contender. Today it seems like punishment.