Auntie Mame (1958)

(On Cable TV, March 2019) Late-1950s comedy Auntie Mame is a bit of an odd duck to me. Its helter-skelter structure and narrative certainly reflect its eventful origins—first a novel in 1955, then a play in 1956, followed by this film (and then later as a Broadway musical in 1966 that led to another movie in 1974—whew!) The key of Auntie Mame isn’t the plot, though: it’s an eccentric character study featuring Rosalind Russell in a powerhouse late-career performance. Compared to her, it’s fine if the rest of the film pales a bit. Still, the weirdness is often conscious and sometimes not. It feels harmlessly eccentric at first, with a young boy being taken in by a socialite aunt whose main talent appears to be giving lavish parties in her large apartment. But then it goes on to become darker (all the way to tackling prejudices), only to win viewers back by the time the finale rolls by. There’s a new thing every ten minutes which sounds exciting but often lends a disconnected feeling to the proceedings. In many ways, Auntie Mamie often feels like a different kind of film than it is—the multi-decade plot is more akin to serious family epic dramas, whereas the bright Cinerama cinematography and overall tone seem to belong to a musical even if it never bursts in song and dance—and then there’s the theatrical scene transitions. Fortunately, Russell is formidable as a formidable character (with Peggy Cass also having a short but likable turn), which helps to ground everything on a central focus. Eventually, her performance coheres to go beyond the “quirky character” to demonstrate the kindness and determination of the woman behind the eccentricities. But it does occur to me that Auntie Mame is the kind of film that may appreciate considerably on a second viewing, once you know what to expect.