Don't get me wrong, I love musicals, most of them I grew up on, and I always find myself singing a tune from one. However, Mame is a contender for the worst movie musical I've seen, and I have seen quite a lot of movie musicals, old and new, good and bad.
Are there any redeeming qualities? Yes there are actually. They are the songs and score, which are excellent- I was particularly taken with We Need a Little Christmas and If He Walked into my Life, and the support playing of Jane Conell, the dashing Robert Preston and especially Bea Arthur, for me the only members of the cast who try to breathe life into the film.
The main problem with Mame is the miscasting of Lucille Ball as Mame. She does try hard with the slapstick, but her singing was to be honest painful to the ears especially in It's Today and she was too old and too cold for the role. Madeline Kahn or Angela Lansbury would have been better in my personal opinion. Kirby Furlong doesn't work either, as others have said he turns Patrick into a wimp, while the film is really quite dated with some curiously garish close-ups. The film is also too long, and suffers further from a weak and predictable story, confused script, poor pacing, sluggish direction and very sketchy characterisation.
So overall, as a fan of musicals this was a complete disappointment. 2/10 for the music and some of the supporting cast. Bethany Cox
Are there any redeeming qualities? Yes there are actually. They are the songs and score, which are excellent- I was particularly taken with We Need a Little Christmas and If He Walked into my Life, and the support playing of Jane Conell, the dashing Robert Preston and especially Bea Arthur, for me the only members of the cast who try to breathe life into the film.
The main problem with Mame is the miscasting of Lucille Ball as Mame. She does try hard with the slapstick, but her singing was to be honest painful to the ears especially in It's Today and she was too old and too cold for the role. Madeline Kahn or Angela Lansbury would have been better in my personal opinion. Kirby Furlong doesn't work either, as others have said he turns Patrick into a wimp, while the film is really quite dated with some curiously garish close-ups. The film is also too long, and suffers further from a weak and predictable story, confused script, poor pacing, sluggish direction and very sketchy characterisation.
So overall, as a fan of musicals this was a complete disappointment. 2/10 for the music and some of the supporting cast. Bethany Cox