Review of Auntie Mame

A thoroughly enjoyable film about a butterfly minded socialite becoming the "mother" of her orphaned nephew. At first we are gravely concerned for the boy's wellbeing, Auntie Mame seems exactly the sort of person who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near children, with her scatterbrained ideas of what constitutes a reasonable education for a wealthy New York boy, shortly before the Wall Street Crash and the Depression. Luckily, the boy's father has a Trustee to his will who has the ability to curb the worst of Mame's ludicrous excesses. Rendered poor by the Crash, Mame tries a succession of menial jobs for which she has no aptitude or enthusiasm. Mame is humbled by the devotion of her housekeeper and servants who use their savings to pay the grocery bill. Mame meets a sugar daddy, in the guise of a Southern Oil Man (this wouldn't happen in real life, needless to say) and Mame sets her cap at him, and succeeds, seeing off her rival in a display of (accidentally) impressive horsemanship. They marry and spend the next few years on honeymoon. Hubby gets killed in a mountaineering mishap and Mame returns to write a book about herself, aided by a plain secretary and a pretentious work shy poet who is a con-man.

Mame's nephew gets involved with a snobbish girl and her family and Mame manages to scare these people off rather stylishly, after which, the nephew takes up with the secretary, replacement for the plain girl, impregnated by the runaway poet. Forward to 1946 and an elderly Mame manages to talk her nephew and his wife to allow their son to go with her to Karachi.

There are some great comedic turns in this film, but it never really steps out of the painted set and spotlight feeling of a stage play. It feels like a series of vignettes in effect. Good fun though