Becoming Auntie Mame!

I'm your Auntie Mame!
 
Usually when people hear or see that statement they think of Mame the musical play and which was made into a movie staring Lucille Ball.  But that's not the Auntie Mame of which I speak.  No, no, my Auntie Mame always will be Rosalind Russell in the film Auntie Mame which also star Peggy Cass and a young Roger Smith.

For those who have never seen it, the movie focuses on Mame Dennis, a free spirit who becomes the guardian of her nephew, Patrick Dennis, son of her only brother.  The movie opens on an image of a Will with someone reading it aloud. It is Mame's brother, a staunch conservative, who is providing for his son and who expects to live quite a long time because he exercises everyday at his athletic club.  Then we see a newspaper headline a stating that Mr Dennis, prominent businessman, dropped dead at that same athletic club the day after signing his will.

Patrick and Norah Muldoon, his father's housekeeper, arrive at Mame's apartment in New York City as she is in the midst of a great big party with almost 100 people in attendance. It's October 1st in the year 1929. (History buffs may remember that October 29th of that year was the day of the Stock Market crash starting the Great Depression. But more on that later.)  After Mame flies (almost literally) down the stairs and sees Patrick and Norah she mistakes Norah for a maid come to help and Patrick for Norah's son, but Norah corrects her.  As Mame sets the facts right in her mind she turns to young Patrick and loudly declares, "I'm your Auntie Mame!"  For Mame it's love at first sight and she works to do whatever she can to help broaden Patrick's horizons beyond the narrow confines of the conservative life Patrick's father wanted him to follow.

Mame is a true character who fights to survive rather than letting life run roughshod over her. When the Great Depression hits Mame is suddenly penniless.  She tries a variety of jobs to make ends meet and fails miserably with every one.  At her last job is as a sales lady at Macy's during the Christmas rush she meets her future husband, a millionaire oil baron from Georgia named Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside, and it's love at first sight.  Beau opens even more doors for Mame.

After Beau dies suddenly Mame takes on another project.  Patrick arranges for her to have a secretary and a co-writer to help her write her memoirs.   It's at this time when when Patrick finally announces to her that he has found "The Girl" to marry and introduces her to Mame.  The girl, Gloria, is a vain, empty-headed snob who affects posh airs but is no better than the very people she snubs. After meeting Gloria, Mame decides to meet her parents who live in a restricted community in Connecticut.

Gloria's parents are among the nouveaux riches, the new money, those who through luck and happenstance find themselves very rich and who put on affectations of being rich which only serve to annoy the old rich.  Gloria's parents don't understand that those who have had money for several generations don't throw their money in people's faces.  Her parents don't realize that to act rich is to act no different than a person who has less money.  Acting rich is to act as if money doesn't matter.  The old rich know they have money, they just don't trumpet it around.  It's just a means to an end.  The newly rich think they have to flaunt their money to prove others they're rich.  When Mame meets Gloria's parents she realizes that Patrick's trustee has orchestrated the marriage and works to undermine and unravel the trustee's plans.

When Mame's secretary suddenly finds herself pregnant and alone in an era where the unwed mother is scorned and stigmatized, Mame takes her on as another project, encouraging her to take care of herself and her baby.

In the end everything works out and Patrick goes on to marry his true love instead of Gloria the empty-headed blond "with braces on her brains" and Mame goes on to mold a new generation of free thinkers when she takes Patrick's 10-year-old son with her to India for the summer.

I have often said that I wanted to be Auntie Mame; to be that free spirit that helped open doors for young people and help them see that there was more to life than just those things their parents told them.  My favourite line from Auntie Mame is this, "Live!  Live!  Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!"  I may be an aunt, but I'm no Auntie Mame.