This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Mark Peikert: 1974 was the year no one could wear flannel. Gene Sachs had used it all to shoot Lucille Ball through in MAME. But pushing aside that Lucy was a little long in the tooth to play America's Favorite Ant, does MAME work as a movie musical? Would it have been better if George Cukor had directed as originally intended? Or without original star Angela Lansbury, was MAME always destined to be what Bea Arthur once called a tremendous embarrassment? One that got reviewed with so much gleeful viciousness that Lucy failed to never make a movie again. Almost 50 years later, is MAME really that bad? I'm Mark Peikert, the world's greatest lush. And this is Movie Musical Madness, Auntie Mame.

[0:51] Mark Peikert: Joining me today is my bosom buddy, Robert Horn. Oh, Robert, your fangs are showing. Try looking in the front.

[1:00] Robert Horn: Oh, those aren't fangs. You just took like my best jokes in your introduction. I didn't know you were gonna do that. Well, hello.

[1:06] Robert Horn: That's why I have a Tony Award for writing the book for Tootsie.

[1:09] Mark Peikert: That is why. Um, uh hi, Mark. Hello, Mark. You and I go back.

[1:15] Robert Horn: You really fought. You really fought having to talk about MAME.

[1:18] Mark Peikert: I did fight. It was not my first choice. You kept pushing me on MAME.

[1:21] Robert Horn: I know, because I want to hear what you have to say about MAME.

[1:24] Mark Peikert: Well, I know you're a huge Jane Connell fan.

[1:27] Robert Horn: I am, and Lucille Benson.

[1:30] Mark Peikert: Oh, and who, you know, was Tilly Shanks on The Waltons. So, well, of course, you were so you knew Lucy when you were, uh, uh, script boy on I Love Lucy.

[1:38] Robert Horn: I did. That was actually when it was, I only worked on The Long, Long Trailer. I did not, I did not actually.

[1:45] Robert Horn: Yes, I remember when they bought the studio, when they bought Desilu.

[1:48] Mark Peikert: RKO.

[1:50] Robert Horn: She used to be a starlet just waiting for her big break on that studio. Her hair was brown.

[1:53] Mark Peikert: If we know. Um, yes, MAME, 1974. I remember. It's not good. I remember it was the year Nixon was forced to resign, and I remember thinking these are the two biggest tragedies of 1974. And that for thousands of little gay boys, this was gonna be their introduction to musical theater, and how sad that was.

[2:17] Robert Horn: And their introduction to MAME. I think that you were on the same page about this as I am. We're huge Rosalind Russell fans.

[2:24] Mark Peikert: I'm a huge Roz fan. And Auntie Mame is probably one of the movies that I quote the most in my everyday life. As we often do, we actually, on the first time we met, we sat there and we continued to text quotes from Auntie Mame.

[2:36] Robert Horn: Yes. In fact, everywhere we go, we block out with a spotlight when we're about to leave a room. Everywhere we go.

[2:43] Robert Horn: No, Auntie Mame was formative in my youth and in wanting to, I just loved the movie. And I loved, I remember seeing Angela in the original and every incarnation since on Broadway. So this was both blasphemous, but also because I watched it again yesterday, because I knew when we were doing this, not horribly horrible. I mean, it was bad, but they were actually, first of all, no straight man should have directed this movie.

[3:15] Robert Horn: Gene Sachs. And straight man married a Bea. So you know that that relationship was not good, and you knew that he was, this was gonna be his vengeance. Sure, honey, let's do the movie too. Now, remember, he directed the original staged musical.

[3:31] Mark Peikert: I know, he did. Um, more for the home listeners who might not know. But in the stage musical, he waited for laughs. In the movie, he waited for laughs that never came. I mean, it was just so, the entire movie, one feels lugubrious.

[3:47] Robert Horn: Yes.

[3:48] Robert Horn: Two, there are, and we talk about comedy a lot, and we both love breathless comedy. We don't have nowhere. And there are giant quotation marks around the camera's there for five seconds, punchline, the camera sits on that face for five seconds more in the next scene. And then the next, and you're gone. And as you said, I mean, the whole thing was shot through a mosquito net and boy butter. I mean, it was just like, you literally, it was just literally like they were trying to grow yeast on the camera lens. No one had sex at a continental bath because all the Vaseline was used for this lens. There was nothing left. Manalone bet, nothing. They were just, it was, there was dry humping at the Continental Baths after this.

Sorry, I'm sorry, we're in mixed company. I shouldn't have said that. But it was, but it really was a drama. There really was not a, and God bless Lucy, who was way, way too old for the part. She, she, from the very beginning, there was no joy. I mean, when Roz does this, there is such joy. She is regal, not royal.

[4:53] Mark Peikert: Yes, Lucy was playing royal, not regal.

[4:55] Robert Horn: Yes. If that makes sense. Yes. And you could just feel it. And you wanted to love it. I mean, when she, when she's sitting on that floor and she calls over that little fox and he doesn't even want to come. That's a tell. That's a tell. He's like, do I want to go over there? Is it in my writer? Can I not go?

[5:14] Mark Peikert: So I want to address the big things that everyone talks about very quickly. The biggest is always that they shot her through whatever they shot her through.

[5:22] Robert Horn: Yeah.

[5:23] Robert Horn: Which fine. That's except when Preston came onto the screen, he was also shot through that.

[5:29] Mark Peikert: Well.

[5:29] Robert Horn: And he was only in his 50s.

[5:32] Mark Peikert: Yeah, but he, but people aged differently back then.

[5:35] Robert Horn: They did. They did. Nobody aged in that movie. I mean, it was sort of, they, that was, it was a time capsule. It was Vaseline used as a time capsule. This is like that episode of The Twilight Zone with Anne Blythe, where she's the old Egyptian goddess who's a movie star.

[5:51] Mark Peikert: Wait, but wait, the Avalanche?

[5:54] Robert Horn: I mean, okay, in, in we haven't talked about this, no, we have nothing. So we have not talked about this movie. He yodels and falls off the thing, and it's hysterical. Trying to get a picture.

[6:05] Mark Peikert: Trying to get a picture.

[6:06] Robert Horn: In this movie, they do this really bad smash cut to an actual footage of an avalanche that it's shocking.

[6:16] Mark Peikert: It is tragic.

[6:17] Robert Horn: It's tragic. And then both dead. And we have that giant portrait of that. And then we come back on the portrait.

[6:22] Mark Peikert: And she, yes.

[6:23] Robert Horn: And she's not in black.

[6:26] Mark Peikert: The other one is.

[6:27] Robert Horn: Yes, she's in white.

[6:28] Mark Peikert: She's in white.

[6:29] Robert Horn: Well, because she's ready to move on.

[6:31] Mark Peikert: Yeah.

[6:32] Robert Horn: She has to live. You know, she's rich now.

[6:35] Mark Peikert: She's rich now. I mean, and I mean, how do you put Lucille Ball on roller skates in Macy's and not get a laugh? And nothing. Not even trying for a laugh.

[6:45] Robert Horn: Well, I think also roller skates related to that. She broke her leg in a skiing accident before the filming started. And that pushed filming. And so George Cukor was supposed to direct. And by the time she was recovered enough, he couldn't do it. So they got Gene Sachs to do it. So I think that that is one reason why she looks very, she moves very gingerly.

[7:05] Mark Peikert: She doesn't move well.

[7:07] Robert Horn: She moves gingerly. But I think how old was she? Do you know how old she was?

[7:11] Mark Peikert: She was in her 60s.

[7:12] Robert Horn: Yeah. She's in her 60s. So just she's, you know, an older woman. And the singing is the other big thing. Like people talk about she can't sing, she croaks. But, uh, that's fine. I don't like the singing.

[7:24] Robert Horn: Here's my other question. So in, because we haven't talked about this, in Auntie Mame, and in MAME in the musical. Um, do so Gooch comes back in this, she goes off in a cab and she comes back pregnant, and we never actually know who impregnated her.

[7:44] Mark Peikert: Yes.

[7:44] Robert Horn: But in the, in Auntie Mame, it's Brian O'Banion.

[7:47] Mark Peikert: Right. So was Brian O'Banion in the musical, or did they just do that for the movie?

[7:52] Robert Horn: Okay, so then now we're getting into deep waters because this movie chops out, they spent so much time putting air around the jokes. They've chopped out the, there is no ending. There's no ending. Patrick storms out, and then all of a sudden he's with Pigin and his child.

[8:08] Mark Peikert: And his child on TWA.

[8:14] Robert Horn: He's going to Ottawa.

[8:15] Mark Peikert: The water. But even like, so here's a perfect example of how literally there's no, he just, he's angry. So they all, she, you find out that she bought the house for the unwed mothers.

[8:27] Robert Horn: Yes.

[8:28] Mark Peikert: He's, they break up. He's few. Patrick is furious at her. Which also in Auntie Mame, she bought the house for Jewish refugees.

[8:35] Robert Horn: Thank you. Yes. And now it's unwed mothers.

[8:37] Mark Peikert: Now it's unwed mothers. But what was it in MAME?

[8:40] Robert Horn: Uh, I think it was unwed mothers in MAME.

[8:42] Mark Peikert: Okay. So I think they, they can't. I actually like the Jewish refugees only because it's my people.

[8:47] Robert Horn: Yes, of course. We're still looking for home. Oi.

[8:51] Mark Peikert: Oi. Well, I'm gonna live in Scottsdale.

[8:54] Robert Horn: So, but yes, but that's good. Yeah. Um, nicely. What does Scarsdale translate to?

[9:01] Mark Peikert: Shgasdale.

[9:02] Robert Horn: Oh, but it, um, yes, no. I mean, and it's so interesting along nicely. The movie spans like 20 years, which was also the running time. So, I mean, this is, it is the slow, long, slow movie. And it's, it's sad because it's so iconic. And it, it's one of my favorite scores. It really is one of my favorite. I think it's a lot of our favorite musical. I mean, the score is just absolutely sensational.

[9:29] Robert Horn: Well, it's interesting, is it's a lot of people's favorite Jerry Herman score that they've never seen. Because this isn't being, this has never been revived without Angela Lansbury on Broadway.

[9:37] Mark Peikert: No, Tyndale didn't, uh, not on Broadway.

[9:40] Robert Horn: Oh, really? Wait, who, uh, Betty Buckley did it?

[9:44] Mark Peikert: Oh, that was, are you thinking of Gypsy?

[9:46] Robert Horn: I'm thinking of Gypsy.

[9:47] Mark Peikert: That was, we're here to talk about MAME today.

[9:49] Robert Horn: Yeah, that's right. It was revived with never revived.

[9:54] Mark Peikert: You're right. No, it was just Angela in the 80s after a big national tour. At the Wintergarden.

[9:58] Robert Horn: But I remember that giant sign over the Wintergarden, right? With her with the, oh that's Gypsy.

[10:05] Mark Peikert: Well, this before, wow.

[10:06] Robert Horn: It's Gypsy. You're obsessed with Gypsy.

[10:08] Mark Peikert: I'm sorry, we've already done that episode. Julie Halston was here for the, I love my Julie Halston.

[10:13] Robert Horn: So here is, here's the best indication of all the things that are wrong with this movie. Okay. So in Auntie Mame, she serves pickled rattlesnake to the absence.

[10:23] Robert Horn: Yes. In the stage, in the musical MAME, in the stage musical MAME, she also serves, if not pickled rattlesnake, something along those lines. In this movie, she serves baked monkeys.

[10:35] Mark Peikert: Why monkeys? That's not even a funny job. Why, how, it's not even funny?

[10:38] Robert Horn: Because there was a K in it.

[10:39] Mark Peikert: Oh, let's do monkey. There's a K in it. Was it?

[10:41] Robert Horn: And it wasn't even delivered by, she deliver?

[10:44] Mark Peikert: Oh, what is it? Bake Monkey. First of all, she literally sounded like the entire movie was pre-recorded while she was smoking a cigar. There was, I mean, literally, it's Lucy at its another.

[10:56] Robert Horn: No, it's Lauren Bacall and the fan.

[10:59] Mark Peikert: It was, it was Lauren Bacall looking out her window.

[11:04] Robert Horn: No, I'm not gonna do that. Typical after a bender with Jason Robards. Yeah, that and so if you have not seen the movie, just know.

[11:15] Mark Peikert: Don't. But this, this is also not the Lucille Ball that is iconic. This is, this is Lucille Ball wanting to be a movie star again.

[11:24] Robert Horn: Yes, yes. And you could feel that. You felt that the minute, the minute the opening number starts and it's today happens, you're like, oh, this is not, this is not the Lucy we wanted.

[11:35] Mark Peikert: Also, the last time that Theodore Van Ronkel gave her a nice outfit to wear, that red pantsuit, everything else was, oh, I guess it's the 40s.

[11:44] Robert Horn: It was a fashion parade.

[11:45] Mark Peikert: It sort of was a fashion parade. But idiot, like she doesn't look good in black. She wore black so much that Christmas, the Santa mask that she wore during We Need a Little Christmas. I joked on Instagram that was like.

[11:57] Robert Horn: What was that? What was so Silence of the Lambs?

[12:00] Mark Peikert: I was like, what? Why is she wearing this? And but wait, they didn't, they didn't even make a joke out of it. She just turns around, takes it off, and then turns back around. And there's poor Robert Preston, who, who, and at least in MAME, in Auntie Mame, she loses everything, and the apartment is empty.

[12:20] Robert Horn: It stayed furnished. She comes out there taking out the rug, and then you go inside. And it's all the fun. She owned what the rug was gonna cover the debt. The one oriental rug. Also, and God blessed. I mean, in the movie, Ito was so, uh, Ito and, um, uh, uh, uh, what's that no the other the Oh Nora, Nora were hysterical?

[12:41] Robert Horn: I mean, they were Abbott and Costello, they were so this was this okay, they were so serious in this.

[12:49] Mark Peikert: There was no drama at all.

[12:51] Robert Horn: This is a musical drama, it was a musical drama, like watching Great Gardens.

[12:56] Mark Peikert: No, Great Gardens was funny.

[12:58] Robert Horn: Great Gardens had humor.

[13:00] Mark Peikert: They, you know, they had corn.

[13:02] Robert Horn: Lucy was a movie star in the 30s, and she was gonna be a movie star. She wanted to be, she wanted that last. She wanted to cap off a career with a giant great big movie hit where she is the lead. And it was coming off of being a huge hit on Broadway.

[13:15] Mark Peikert: So here's my question to you. Maybe you know the answer, because I don't. Why did they not cast Angela in the movie? Why did they cast Lucy?

[13:20] Robert Horn: Nobody knows because it's not just Angela. Think about all the people who did it on tour, all the replacements. Like Celeste Holm was not nobody. I mean, but nobody wants to see Celeste Holm be on. I mean, she's still painting in All About Eve. She's still doing the finishing the painting.

[13:37] Mark Peikert: Thomas D.

[13:37] Robert Horn: Karen, is it done?

[13:39] Mark Peikert: Tilma's done, darling.

[13:41] Robert Horn: Well, she got a lot to deal with.

[13:43] Mark Peikert: Okay.

[13:43] Robert Horn: It took her a while to go. I mean, I know, I know.

[13:47] Mark Peikert: She's still sitting in that car waiting for them to come with the gas.

[13:52] Robert Horn: She's still sharpening Lloyd's pencils.

[13:55] Mark Peikert: I've heard that before.

[13:57] Robert Horn: Nothing should have brought us closer than Roe E.

[13:59] Mark Peikert: Yeah.

[14:00] Robert Horn: But they didn't, they didn't same. But they didn't cast the case. They didn't cast Celeste, they didn't cast Ann Miller.

[14:05] Mark Peikert: They didn't cast. And where was Lucy in her career at that point?

[14:10] Robert Horn: I mean, she was doing Here's Lucy with her children.

[14:13] Mark Peikert: Uh-huh.

[14:13] Robert Horn: Because they had an entire episode dedicated to Mame, the movie release.

[14:18] Mark Peikert: Oh, did they?

[14:19] Robert Horn: Oh.

[14:19] Mark Peikert: Lucy, the Here's Lucy Lucy met Lucille Ball.

[14:24] Robert Horn: And so she did double duty.

[14:26] Mark Peikert: No.

[14:27] Robert Horn: Yes.

[14:28] Mark Peikert: Yes.

[14:28] Robert Horn: Yes.

[14:29] Mark Peikert: I mean, wow.

[14:30] Robert Horn: I mean, there was so, I mean, I was very upset about Ito and Nora.

[14:35] Mark Peikert: I mean, poor Ido. He was just, I mean, it was like he was auditioning for Allegiance.

[14:39] Robert Horn: I mean, this was not, this was not a, this was not like a comedy comedy.

[14:44] Mark Peikert: No, he didn't bring the laughs.

[14:46] Robert Horn: He didn't bring the laughs.

[14:47] Mark Peikert: And wait, there was no Nora.

[14:50] Robert Horn: No.

[14:50] Mark Peikert: In the stage version, in this in the Mame version of the story, Nora becomes folded in with Agnes.

[14:57] Robert Horn: Yeah, right.

[14:58] Mark Peikert: And because then Pagin becomes the housekeeper at the end instead of the...

[14:58] Robert Horn: Which also, so this is such such a small thing.

[15:06] Mark Peikert: And she's Irish.

[15:08] Robert Horn: And she's got an Irish accent.

[15:09] Mark Peikert: This is such a small thing.

[15:09] Robert Horn: Which, wait, disappears at the airplane.

[15:12] Mark Peikert: Well.

[15:13] Robert Horn: She has an Irish accent for the, and then when she was...

[15:16] Mark Peikert: She loses it when she gets nervous.

[15:18] Robert Horn: That's what it was. I mean, that's what happened. She loses it around propellers.

[15:23] Mark Peikert: But this is such a small thing.

[15:24] Robert Horn: But this is so indicative of how Lucy approached the character, how the movie approached the character of Mame. Because when you meet Peggy in Anti-Mame, she's casually dressed.

[15:33] Mark Peikert: She's hanging up the, uh, Yule's Oulu.

[15:38] Robert Horn: How do they do this without Yule Oulu?

[15:40] Mark Peikert: And here she is dressed like a French farce maid, where she's got a little cap, she's got a frilly apron, she's dressed in black.

[15:49] Robert Horn: It was just like somebody had, they had used that set to shoot a porn just the day before, and they just get the costume.

[15:55] Mark Peikert: And she came too in the corner.

[15:57] Robert Horn: They spent so much at costumes they had no money for retakes on this movie.

[16:01] Mark Peikert: I mean, they literally was it was everything was like it was a first take.

[16:05] Robert Horn: Yes, they just said that and they didn't move the camera.

[16:07] Mark Peikert: They didn't move the camera.

[16:09] Robert Horn: It was so it was a, yeah, and you know when Roz is just, when Roz is taking, when she's tasting that drink of it, and oh my.

[16:21] Mark Peikert: I mean, all that Lucy had no comedy.

[16:24] Robert Horn: God bless her.

[16:25] Mark Peikert: And okay.

[16:26] Robert Horn: But I actually, I actually think that the Lucy is at her best with the Upsons because all of a sudden she's not trying to have chemistry with a child because she's not a warm woman.

[16:26] Mark Peikert: She's not a warm, she's not a matronly come to auntie.

[16:41] Robert Horn: You can see the fear in that kid's face.

[16:44] Mark Peikert: Vera had more chemistry with those kids.

[16:46] Robert Horn: But wait, side note, how cute was Bruce Davidson?

[16:49] Mark Peikert: Well, I mean, oh yeah.

[16:51] Robert Horn: I mean, I don't remember that Bruce Davidson.

[16:54] Mark Peikert: I was like, oh yeah, okay, cute.

[16:56] Robert Horn: Yeah, when he's saying goodbye to Mame at the Upsons, I was like, oh yeah.

[16:59] Mark Peikert: Um, yeah, hello.

[17:01] Robert Horn: Gloria, get out of my way.

[17:04] Mark Peikert: Uh come on.

[17:06] Robert Horn: How do you not have the ping pong scene?

[17:09] Mark Peikert: How do you not have a stomped on the ping bong bong?

[17:12] Robert Horn: Well, I mean, look, I don't need an exact recreation of the thing that I love.

[17:16] Mark Peikert: I would, I would love a different version.

[17:18] Robert Horn: But here's the thing, because I went back and I read the libretto, and so I read the final scene because it didn't do homework.

[17:24] Mark Peikert: Well, I, I am the host.

[17:25] Robert Horn: Oh my god.

[17:26] Mark Peikert: Yes, better man than I.

[17:27] Robert Horn: I watched the last 12 minutes.

[17:29] Mark Peikert: Well, wonderful.

[17:30] Robert Horn: That's all you got three hours, but yes.

[17:32] Mark Peikert: So I went back and I read the scene because it ends so abruptly.

[17:36] Robert Horn: It felt like something, it felt like I lost a chapter of the DVD.

[17:38] Mark Peikert: Like I passed out.

[17:39] Robert Horn: Wait, what?

[17:40] Mark Peikert: I left my body.

[17:41] Robert Horn: Yeah.

[17:41] Mark Peikert: And in the stage version, it is like Anti-Mame.

[17:46] Robert Horn: She Babcock is there the entire time.

[17:48] Mark Peikert: Babcock is in Mame the entire time.

[17:50] Robert Horn: He disappears after he drags Peter, uh after he drags uh Patrick in this going to school.

[17:55] Mark Peikert: Yeah.

[17:55] Robert Horn: Gone.

[17:56] Mark Peikert: No recurring character.

[17:57] Robert Horn: He goes, and wait, and B.

[17:59] Mark Peikert: Arthur takes it, gets in the car with him, and takes him to the school.

[18:03] Robert Horn: No reason, takes him to the school for no reason.

[18:03] Mark Peikert: No reason.

[18:07] Robert Horn: And then she says, Ido get my car, drives to the school as if she knows where they're going.

[18:14] Mark Peikert: Yes, Mame follows them.

[18:16] Robert Horn: Follows them 20 minutes later.

[18:18] Mark Peikert: I mean, thank God at least when Vera's in the car, she gets off that line about Coco Chanel.

[18:23] Robert Horn: Yeah, she did.

[18:24] Mark Peikert: She made it for me.

[18:25] Robert Horn: Yeah, and she, oh yeah, she would tell them.

[18:27] Mark Peikert: She made this for me, you know.

[18:28] Robert Horn: She would sell it mom.

[18:29] Mark Peikert: Only no, B.

[18:31] Robert Horn: Arthur.

[18:31] Mark Peikert: I mean, listen, be careful.

[18:32] Robert Horn: All right, and can I just finish my thought?

[18:34] Mark Peikert: Yes.

[18:35] Robert Horn: My God.

[18:35] Mark Peikert: Mine too, and I'm atheist.

[18:38] Robert Horn: So wow.

[18:39] Mark Peikert: I'm acting like you're Jewish, you're an atheist.

[18:43] Robert Horn: This movie has really put you through it.

[18:45] Mark Peikert: I always say everything bad that happens is God punishing me for being an atheist.

[18:49] Robert Horn: That's my, that's my ideology.

[18:51] Mark Peikert: Now that's very smart.

[18:52] Robert Horn: That was smart.

[18:53] Mark Peikert: Mame had none of that.

[18:54] Robert Horn: No, Mame had no witty humor.

[18:56] Mark Peikert: Who wrote? Do we know who wrote this?

[18:57] Robert Horn: Go ahead, finish your thought.

[18:59] Mark Peikert: Yes, I do.

[18:59] Robert Horn: Uh Paul Zendell.

[19:01] Mark Peikert: We expect it.

[19:02] Robert Horn: Electric Miragle.

[19:04] Mark Peikert: Uh Man of the Moon Miracles.

[19:06] Robert Horn: Uh so the fine.

[19:07] Mark Peikert: So in Mame, the stage version, it is fairly similar to the ending of Anti-Mame.

[19:12] Robert Horn: There's the big embarrassing scene with the Upsins.

[19:16] Mark Peikert: Babcock uh is furious that she's ruined his relationship with Gloria, and she tells him off.

[19:21] Robert Horn: And then Patrick, she looks at Patrick because she can do all of this. But if Patrick isn't on her side, then it's all over.

[19:27] Mark Peikert: And he can run after Gloria.

[19:28] Robert Horn: And he looks at her and says, Thank you, Moon Lady.

[19:33] Mark Peikert: As a reference to the New Haven disastrous New Haven tryout of the Bea Arthur Vera Operetta.

[19:39] Robert Horn: She was the moon lady.

[19:40] Mark Peikert: Right.

[19:41] Robert Horn: And so then you have a touching reconciliation, and then you cut to the future, and he's got Pigin, he's got a son.

[19:46] Mark Peikert: And here she watches him walk away after Gloria, and that's it.

[19:50] Robert Horn: And there's no resolution.

[19:51] Mark Peikert: There's no Maine did the right thing.

[19:53] Robert Horn: There's no, there's no confirmation of her Joie de Viv and of her approach to life and her shooting down sacred cows.

[20:01] Mark Peikert: Right.

[20:02] Robert Horn: Nothing.

[20:03] Mark Peikert: You just have to assume that seven years has gone by.

[20:06] Robert Horn: The kid is seven years old now.

[20:07] Mark Peikert: They've gotten mad.

[20:09] Robert Horn: There's no, there's there's no some summation of what the theme at all.

[20:15] Mark Peikert: It's just, I think they just ran out of money.

[20:15] Robert Horn: They just ran out of money.

[20:20] Mark Peikert: Okay, look, we're done.

[20:21] Robert Horn: Well, you know what they didn't run out of money for?

[20:23] Mark Peikert: Uh when B.

[20:25] Robert Horn: Arthur insisted on secretly recording It's Today at the end, where she comes into the party with the Upsons and she's belting out it's today.

[20:34] Mark Peikert: That makes no sense.

[20:35] Robert Horn: With six dancers.

[20:37] Mark Peikert: Well, they frame her better.

[20:38] Robert Horn: And how does she, how is she doing a callback to that song?

[20:42] Mark Peikert: She wasn't there.

[20:42] Robert Horn: She was, she was passed out.

[20:44] Mark Peikert: I mean, she was there for a little bit, but also like what was that?

[20:47] Robert Horn: And what was Lucy putting the sh, putting the sh, we'll get the wrinkles out, putting the shower on.

[20:52] Mark Peikert: I mean, I get they were trying to do a bit with no, but at least that that was one of the few smash cuts that made me laugh.

[21:01] Robert Horn: Yeah, it was the only smash cut in the made.

[21:02] Mark Peikert: Well, actually, it made me think of that scene where Joan in Mommy Dearest, where Joan Crawford gets into her shower at the beginning, and she's got the three shower heads blasting down on her.

[21:10] Robert Horn: Funnier.

[21:11] Mark Peikert: That was funnier.

[21:12] Robert Horn: That was funnier.

[21:13] Mark Peikert: Mommy Dearest as a whole is funny.

[21:15] Robert Horn: It was funnier than Mame.

[21:16] Mark Peikert: Now, in all fairness, there was also Why start now?

[21:16] Robert Horn: Why start now?

[21:20] Mark Peikert: But there was also, you know, it's interesting because it did not get, it did not get exclusively panned.

[21:27] Robert Horn: There were some, there were people that, there were some critics that really did celebrate the joy of it being a musical.

[21:35] Mark Peikert: Yes.

[21:35] Robert Horn: And the story, I mean, Mame is always going to be this larger than life character that people are drawn to.

[21:40] Mark Peikert: As audience members.

[21:41] Robert Horn: As very true.

[21:43] Mark Peikert: And um, I mean, poor Robert Preston.

[21:48] Robert Horn: In over his head, but he actually made Beauregard likable.

[21:53] Mark Peikert: Yeah.

[21:53] Robert Horn: And and and uh what's her name?

[21:56] Mark Peikert: Um Jane Connell, who played who played uh his mother.

[22:00] Robert Horn: Uh no, no, no.

[22:01] Mark Peikert: Uh Jane Connell played Gooch.

[22:04] Robert Horn: Did she play Gooch?

[22:05] Mark Peikert: Wait, uh, who played?

[22:07] Robert Horn: Oh no, that was uh uh Lucille Benz, right?

[22:10] Mark Peikert: Mrs.

[22:10] Robert Horn: Burnside, yes, but she was anything but Southern.

[22:14] Mark Peikert: She was anything but Southern.

[22:15] Robert Horn: And what happened to the horse, the horse's name was supposed to be um it goes back and forth.

[22:21] Mark Peikert: Meditation.

[22:22] Robert Horn: Meditation, yes.

[22:23] Mark Peikert: What was it in the state?

[22:24] Robert Horn: That was really funny.

[22:24] Mark Peikert: No name.

[22:26] Robert Horn: They just, that's a wild horse.

[22:27] Mark Peikert: No, and they say the name.

[22:28] Robert Horn: No, they don't.

[22:29] Mark Peikert: Yeah, because I thought they put that whole sedam.

[22:31] Robert Horn: I thought that is that Thundercloud.

[22:33] Mark Peikert: What's it?

[22:34] Robert Horn: I mean, it's not Thundercloud.

[22:36] Mark Peikert: Also left over from the porn they shot the day before.

[22:39] Robert Horn: Thundercloud?

[22:40] Mark Peikert: Did they really have a few?

[22:40] Robert Horn: I thought he went home.

[22:42] Mark Peikert: Oh my god.

[22:43] Robert Horn: That um, and in in the movie, she in in Anti-Mame, she couldn't get the boots on, so she couldn't.

[22:51] Mark Peikert: There was a build-up to her inadequacy and how she was able to triumph over that.

[22:55] Robert Horn: Yes, and there was no, there was nothing to triumph over this other than some dirty looks.

[23:00] Mark Peikert: It was almost as if Lucy didn't want to see ever let a sea Mame struggle.

[23:06] Robert Horn: Or say or have any flaws.

[23:08] Mark Peikert: Or have any flaws.

[23:09] Robert Horn: That's very, that's a good idea.

[23:11] Mark Peikert: That's a good point.

[23:12] Robert Horn: It's insane to me that you have Lucille Ball in a movie where the original, like Rosalind Russell did nothing but physical comedy throughout Auntie Mame.

[23:24] Mark Peikert: And you have Lucille Ball, and she doesn't do any physical comedy.

[23:26] Robert Horn: I don't think she, you have to probably think she didn't want to.

[23:30] Mark Peikert: I mean she probably felt there was a pathos and a dramatic side to this woman.

[23:39] Robert Horn: I, I don't understand it.

[23:40] Mark Peikert: Because Lucy, throughout the entire history of her career, looked for any moment that she could to chew the scenery, to have to do, I mean, and you know, I love Lucy.

[23:53] Robert Horn: All her shows, all that comedy was rehearsed out to a millisecond.

[23:59] Mark Peikert: She famously said that she is not funny, she's brave.

[24:01] Robert Horn: And she stared at herself in a mirror and she trained with Buster Keaton and she figured out how to be funny.

[24:07] Mark Peikert: I mean, no to, I mean, everybody knows.

[24:08] Robert Horn: That's, that's her legacy.

[24:10] Mark Peikert: Yeah.

[24:10] Robert Horn: How is there nothing in this?

[24:12] Mark Peikert: Nothing.

[24:13] Robert Horn: There was nothing funny.

[24:14] Mark Peikert: I wanted so much, and this is the other thing.

[24:16] Robert Horn: I want to love this movie.

[24:18] Mark Peikert: I want to life to be so much easier.

[24:20] Robert Horn: It would be so much easier.

[24:22] Mark Peikert: We wouldn't have to sit here and do this for an hour.

[24:24] Robert Horn: No.

[24:24] Mark Peikert: I mean, I honestly, there's, there's a schmackeries waiting for me.

[24:28] Robert Horn: I could have had it an hour ago.

[24:30] Mark Peikert: I wanted to love it, and it's just, it's, it's, it's sad to me, Mark.

[24:37] Robert Horn: It's sad that they could have been great.

[24:39] Mark Peikert: They could have been great.

[24:41] Robert Horn: So I want to address two things.

[24:42] Mark Peikert: Okay.

[24:43] Robert Horn: One is Madeline Kahn was famously fired from this movie as Agnes Gooch.

[24:48] Mark Peikert: Is that so?

[24:49] Robert Horn: That is she was hired as Agnes.

[24:50] Mark Peikert: Was this pre-or post-Paper Moon?

[24:53] Robert Horn: Uh it was pre-Blazing Saddles because this being fired from this freed her up to do Blazing Saddles.

[24:58] Mark Peikert: Well, history has a purpose.

[25:00] Robert Horn: Apparently.

[25:01] Mark Peikert: Because I would have rather have seen Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles than Madeline Cotta's Gooch.

[25:05] Robert Horn: So apparently Lucy looked at her, they did a read through, and Lucy looked at her and said, Where's your Gooch?

[25:11] Robert Horn: She's like, excuse me. Lucy's like, aren't you gonna do a voice for Gooch? And Lucy's saying, Where's your Gooch means something very different, by the way? But yes. Bea Arthur knew. Bea, oh, Bea knew. Bea turned around to Madeline and said, leave now, honey. Just walk out now, honey. Trust me. Okay, so that's the other thing that I wanted to. Gene. Cut. Cut. Gene say cut. That's the other thing I wanted to talk about because no one has seen this movie ever. Ever. Us. I mean, we have. I mean, by the way, right now. Oh, third rail. Right. Okay, I'm not a lot. Um, right right now, there are because there are two sales on Apple Music that they're thrilled about, that they're thrilled. So I swear I read, and I cannot find this anywhere, so I cannot vouch for its accuracy.

But I am 90% certain that at one point someone wrote to Warner Brothers and said, When will you release MAME on DVD in the early 2000s? And Warner Brothers wrote back and said, We have no plans to ever release this on DVD. They knew, huh? Well, I mean, what, but okay, so here's the thing about MAME, that because no one's seen it, no one talks about their lyric changes. There's a whole extended coda in Bosom Buddies where Lucy in the restaurant? No. After when all of a sudden they've made over Agnes Gooch during Bosom Buddies. Oh, that's right. They're doing three. And they're doing a lot of great finding back and forth in the foyer. And Lucy has this really great line, like one of the funniest lines in Bosom Buddies.

Uh, like, oh, I hate it when they talk about smut that when they say that you're part of the world's first casting couch. And I love that. I love picturing Vera as a she was never in the chorus. No, never, I was never in the chorus. I was never in the chorus. But I mean, speaking of physical, so they finally. I had no chemistry. Oh, they had no chemistry. Although Bea Arthur has famously said she enjoyed working with Lucy. Yeah. She hated, she can't, you know, she publicly came out and said she was embarrassed that she did the movie, but said she liked working with Lucy. Now that could have been an NDA. I don't know. But it's very, it's very probably, you know, it's Bea. She's not gonna, you know, she's but they kind of had no chemistry, right?

No. Who who played Vera in the movie? Who what who was that actress do we know? Coral Brown. Was that was that was that her name, Coral Brown? I don't know. Vincent Price's wife. Really? She had her own house of wax. But uh, um, Ros and her, the chemistry was I wanted that was my sitcom. Yes. That I wanted to see that. I wanted to see that as a series. Maybe we should do Mame and Vera the series. Uh, this is writing itself. It is writing itself. But honestly, Robert, don't we do Mame and Vera the series just every day? This is we we are Mame and Business. I mean, yeah. And we know which one you are. I'll be Vera. That's fine. I'll be, we are we are, you know, and but when you've got truly you've got these comic legends.

Yes. And to not be able to find any humor in it, is that a product of the director? Is it a product of the actors? Did they was is there hilarity sitting on a cutting room floor somewhere? And or well, I think about how how does this happen? I think about I mean comedy, comedy is too difficult to figure out. I mean, that could be any number of things, but I think about the staging of the musical numbers and how inept that felt because Gooch has this song, this huge song that builds and builds and builds, and all he did was have her walk around a kitchen and then cut to Lucy's reactions occasionally. Because um, and who choreographed it? Do we know? That was the original stage choreographer. So obviously it's a directing of Broadway musical and directing a movie are two very, very different things.

And when you direct a Broadway musical Not for Bob Fosse. Not for Bob Fosse, but where is he now? Oh, he's dead. Dead. Uh I should have said, but it's a very different, you know, a director on a Broadway musical very much relies on the choreographer to bring that language to the piece because that's not a director's job, unless you know you're Casey or uh Bob Fosse or somebody who actually has that ability. But Gene Sachs did not. And so what Gene Sachs did was try, he should not, they should have let the choreographer direct those scenes. It really felt too staged for it felt too staged for a movie and not staged enough for a musical. Well, and I think about the extremely excruciatingly long open a new window sequence where they get arrested.

Yeah, there's a lot going on. They're at the nightclub and they're both looking over their popcorn. Yeah, it's a lot of cuts, and then they know the judge and everything's hunky jury, and it's just, and I did not care for that little Patrick. The baby Patrick? With his ball cut. Yeah, he did have a little flow. It was a flow be haircut, yes. I don't understand that reference. I'm a millennial. Well, let me tell you. The kid was okay. I mean, the kid that did it in Anti-Mame was fantastic. Yeah. He knew how to when he when he offers Babcock the Martini, that's a brilliant, brilliant moment for him. I mean, that is a young homo, a young Bergen homosexual. We know he was. He was all of us when we first discovered Auntie Mame.

Well, truthfully, he's sitting in industry every night waiting to be recognized. Let's be honest. But uh, this kid, yeah. This kid was he was just in over his head. You literally saw fear in his eyes. There were times I literally saw fear in this kid's eye. In this kid's eyes. I just I I mean, I feel like we could spend this entire hour talking about all the things that should have been hilarious. Oh, we're not gonna do a full hour, don't worry. Uh I mean, we're talking about Lucy doesn't have any any physical comedy, and I take that back because she has one bit of physical comedy when she falls off the moon. And it was excruciating to watch. It was not funny. It she yeah, she she well, she goes, and then what's the audience member screaming out the line?

Yes. Um that that's a desperate act of comedy. That's like we cannot get a laugh. I I haven't that that was a last minute on the set thing. I have a gene. Here's what we're gonna do. We are the uncredited comedy director for Mame. Gene have a uh, yeah, for and here, okay. So she gets stuck to Vera's dress. Yes, but watch it. All she's doing is clutching her fist on Vera's dress. There's no bracelets that are it's not like because if it was the brace that she would pull away and it would tug on the bracelet, all you see is Lucy clutching her fist around the fabric, and you don't understand why she's stuck. When she gets scared, she just takes a fist. That does. And that's sort of what happened.

I mean, there are so many. I mean, just to talk about her singing for just a moment. And I don't want to beat her up because she didn't have the voice for it. She did not have the voice. And she she one of my favorite quotes from her about this movie was Mame was up all night drinking champagne. What did you want her to sound like? I was like, I not that. Yeah, not that. Yeah. I mean, um. I I think, yeah. She was, it was, she wasn't known as, and you know, Lucy always wanted to be a musical actress. She did Wildcat on Broadway. And and what was that movie she did, that early MGM movie she did with the whip and the whole where she sang? Ziegfeld Follies. Was it she was one of the Follies? Was it one of the Ziegfeld Follies?

I think it was. Um, she wanted to be that. She always saw herself as um as a musical comedy actress. And she and poor thing couldn't say she sounded like, I mean, she sounded like me. She sat a little bit. She sounded a little bit like the A train when it's coming through and not stopping, and it's just like sort of what it, yeah. Oh, but she acts. She acts her way through if he walked into my life. Yeah, oh. Also, I was counting her drinks, and when she, when Patrick is walking her to her car and she says, What? You think that I'm too tinked to drive? And I was like, Lady, I have seen you put away at least four double scotches straight. Yeah. I don't think you should be driving. Well, we all even in 1974 we agreed on that.

But it this was set in the 40s, so there's a different time. We didn't know. But also, you know, that was the year that The Way We Were came out. So how are you gonna say I wouldn't singing anything that year? Barbara Streisand's first number one hit, the way we were. Was it? Are you a big Streisand fan? I do love a Streisand. Oh, I didn't know. Nice. Let me just say, okay, I can't say. There might be an adaption of a Streisand project in my future for this stage. I'm not gonna say what or where. Is she coming back in Gypsy? No, not her, literally. One of her something she was in. But we'll I'll tell you that after. Oh, I hope it's the main event. The mine of No, it's not the main event. Remember that wait, didn't I just send you a I just sent you a picture of that?

I don't know why you were fighting a cold. Mark told me he was fighting a cold. Or did I tell you I was fighting a cold? I was. And um, yeah, I took a picture from the main event. Oh, great. We have nobody wants to see art, our text history gets a little crazy. I think legally they're not allowed to. They're not allowed to. Um, it was also the year that the movie Carrie, that the book Carrie came out. So two horror movies, two hours in one year. I don't know what's scarier. I think actually you putting it in context like this is very helpful because this is a very old-fashioned movie for 1974. It it is, and it and but interesting, it was it it's old-fashioned in in the era, obviously took place in the depression era and around the depression area, but yeah, but um it also did nothing to um expand the artistry of filmed musicals.

It was very, very mundane, it was very average. There was not they didn't try anything new. It wasn't like Vincent Manelli came back and said, I have one more in me. And like suddenly not after on a clear day. All right, so here's my final question for you. Do you think that MAME works as a movie divorced from the from knowledge of the stage musical? I do not. I think if if you like the movie, it's because you have an affinity for the stage musical. Yeah. I don't think the movie stands on its own, just as a movie, a musical movie. I don't. I didn't think it did. And I want it to. I do too. But that ending, I mean the ending alone disqualifies it because it's insane. They're eating baked. It's a little bit like a premature ejaculation.

It's sort of like, it's got too live. And catch everyone. Never worked. Um was she there for the birth? What happened? I kind of want to know. I think there could be an entire movie about that time span. Everything that's those lost years. Those lost years. Yeah, where's she been traveling? Where's she been? Also, will you never find out that she married again? Did she didn't marry again? Did she well she did she married Lindsay Woolsey in Auntie Mame? Oh, that's right. That faithful publisher Lindsay. He was wonderful. He stood by. He just always showed up in that full-length coat. He never took the coat off. He never cost off drama. No, he was she that's who she needed. She needed somebody that would balance him like that.

Yeah. Yeah. Power Guard was a little dramatic. Wait, who played it in the movie? What's his name? From F Troop. Um uh uh I don't know that reference. I hate your cuts. We're gonna end on that. We're gonna end on that cruelty. Oh, Robert Horn, thank you so much for joining me today. I adore you and this apartment. Oh, thank you. I like it. I know you know it's Beekman Place. Deliver us to welcome. And thank you for tuning in. And be sure to tune in for another episode of Movie Musical Madness. This episode of Movie Musical Madness was edited by Kyle Moore with Theme Music by Sunshine Music. And thank you for listening to Movie Musical Madness, part of the Broadway Podcast Network. You can find out more about the podcast and me at BPN.fm slash movie musical madness.