Rating: NR
Genre:
Comedy
Release Date: 10/01/2002
SubTitles: English/French/Espanol
Dubbed: English/French
Sound: DD1
Run Time: 143 Minutes
Flags: Suitable for Children
Distributor/Studio: Warner Home Video
Auntie Mame began as a novel by
Patrick Dennis (aka
Ed Fitzgerald), then was adapted into a long-running Broadway play by
Jerome Lawrence and
Robert E. Lee. This 1958 film version permits
Rosalind Russell to recreate her stage role as Mame Dennis, the flamboyant, devil-may-care aunt of young, impressionable Patrick Dennis. Left in Mame's care when his millionaire father drops dead, young Patrick (
Jan Handzlik) is quickly indoctrinated into his aunt's philosophy that "Life is a banquet--and some poor suckers are starving to death." Social-climbing executor Dwight Babcock (
Fred Clark) does his best to raise Patrick as a stuffy American aristocrat, but Mame battles Babcock to allow the boy to be as free-spirited as she is. In 1974,
Auntie Mame was remade as the filmmusical
Mame with
Lucille Ball.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide