Lucy MAME where are you? (1 Viewer)

[RobertSiegel]

I love this score, but usually listen to the great remastered Columbia cd release with Angela Lansbury, though there are a few orchestrations in the movie I prefer, especially the opening number "It's Today." For the film, it was done very 20's flapper style, for the Broadway-very Broadway.

I am excited to hear of a possible 2006 release, and if this is going to be released, at the Warner Chat they answered my question on MAME (see my previous post here) that they would release it right and remaster it for stereo if they were going to do it. A RHINO cd came out of the soundtrack last year, and sadly it was the soundtrack album version and not from the music stems, so no underscore was included, the song MAME is shortened, and reprises are missing. Joe Caps, maybe you know more about why RHINO they didn't include the rest of it and go to the music stems instead of the LP masters as they have done on almost all other RHINO soundtracks?

I also remember when this came out, about a year later I was in this record store in Canada where every record was 50 cents. They must have had over 500 copies there, and most other records in the store were other close-outs and cutouts. I went to see this movie in Winnipeg and remember people walking out into 20 minutes of the film. Unfortunately Jerry Herman sold the rights to this musical to Warner Brothers and didn't keep any creative-control rights, or it would have been cast correctly. After this (and Dolly), he decided never again to sell film rights unless he had more control over what was being done.

He wanted Angela Lansbury to do this for tv, and she felt she was too old (darn it, she wasn't). Her husband even tried to push her into it, and everyone else felt she could still pull it off. Instead, Jerry wrote MRS SANTA CLAUSE for her, and that was shown on Hallmark Hall of Fame, and it's very very good with a full Herman score, available on dvd. If you like the scores of MAME and DOLLY, even La Cage Aux Folles (lots of talk about a movie musical of La Cage at "Broadway World"), check out Mrs. Santa Clause.

There has been extensive news of a new TV movie of this musical. Barbara Streisand owns the tv rights, and they have postponed several times now as Jerry Herman has wanted to do a revival once more on Broadway and a US tour, before it would be made. There was alot of talk about CHER doing it, and I just shrugged. She does not have the eleagance that MAME needs, just like Lucy didn't. She also has that low voice, just like Lucy does, but at least she sings on key. It will be interesting to see what happens. I believe LIZA could do it very well, possibly even Glen Close.

Dick, I know Lost Horizen was a fisasco, but it had some good music. I'd buy that dvd as well. Thank goodness we have Joe Caps' laserdisc in the meantime.

 

[Jefferson]

I got the record for christmas when i was 8.
I used to wonder why the sound of lucy's vocals was so odd.
Now i know it was a patch job.
Interesting thread.

 

[Will Krupp]

I KNOW that Warner's said in the chat that this was going to be remastered in stereo, but I always thought they were kidding. (Lucy's vocals cry out for 5.1?) I wouldn't be surprised if this release turns out to be mono (which is fine too)

 

[SteveGL]

Lisa Kirk recorded a full set of Mame's vocals at the insistence of Jack Warner, who wanted to use them instead of Ball's, but Lucy had enough clout, and as mentioned, her own money in the film, to veto any dubbing and forced them to use her own tracks. It would be wonderful to have those as additional material on a Mame disk. (Kirk also dubbed Roz Russell in Gypsy and Russell also fought to have her own voice used, but lost. There are a very few places on the soundtrack, most notably in Roses Turn, where you can hear the obvious switching between between Kirk and Russell.)

There is a fascinating book called "But Darling, I'm your Auntie Mame!" that traces the history of Mame through the novels, the stage play, the first film, the musical and then the film musical. Paul Zindel, who wrote the screenplay for the musical film, explains that he had to be personally approved by Lucy and spent long afternoons working on the script in her presence. It was made clear to him that his continuing on the film depended on her continuing approval of his work. Like someone mentioned above, almost all the great one liners from the previous versions are gone, along with almost all of Bea Arthur's best material. Officially, Lucy wanted a new script that "humanized" Mame but Zindel implies what is obvious to me -- Lucy had a lot of material taken out to make sure nobody stole the film from her.

 

[Conrad_SSS]

How could this be possible? MAME was filmed in 1973, released in 1974. Jack Warner left WB in 1968, and produced his last two films for release by Columbia before MAME even hit the screen....

 

[SteveGL]

I'm going to backpeddle a little on the Lisa Kirk tracks for Mame. Now that I'm home from work and have checked a few places, mainly some very heated discussions in the google archive of alt.rec.theater.musicals, it was reported at the time of Mame's release, by columnist Radie Harris among others, that Kirk had recorded a set of "insurance" tracks if Lucy's were unusable, or she was at least hired to do so. The stories were denied by both Warners and Ball and Harris was forced to print a retraction under threat of a lawsuit. Still, the rumors have persisted. I guess the two biggest arguments to be made against the story are that one, the tracks have never surfaced and, two Jerry Herman writes quite a bit in his autobiography (which I have here with me) about coaching Ball with the songs and how difficult it was but he makes no mention of alternate tracks or dubbing.

Lisa Kirk did dub most of Rosalind Russell's singing in Gypsy though, post dubbing to the already finished film, and that was at Jack Warner's insistence and over Russell's strong objections. She had recorded a complete soundtrack and in her autobiography she claimed her voice is used throughout the film, but the re-release of the soundtrack on Rhino a couple of years ago included both Kirk's and Russell's tracks and it's obviously Kirk in the film in all but Mr. Goldstone and bits of Rose's Turn. So I assume I was thinking about Gypsy when I wrote about Warner and Ball and Mame.

My apologies, next time I'll wait to get home and double-check my sources like I should have done today.

 

[TonyDale]

Anyone know if any footage of Madeline Kahn was shot? They would be a nice supplement.

 

[Will Krupp]

I know this is off topic, but all that talk about Rosalind Russell in Gypsy has me wondering something, and I'm hoping Joe Caps (who I KNOW will probably have the answers and I'm SURE will be enticed enough by the new post on the MAME thread to check in)can supply some answers.

"From Script to DVD" lists all of the 70mm presentations in New York and, according to that site, neither GYPSY nor THE MUSIC MAN played in 70mm in the New York area. Were the films roadshown in Technirama?? Are there overtures, entr'actes, and exit music that have simply been left off the dvd issues? Or where they simply released without them? I find the latter hard to believe, but was hoping for some solid confimation.

Sorry to hijack, now back to Lucy and Mame...

"What do you MEAN my shows don't RUN?!?!?!?"

 

[Joe Caps]

Overture and Intermission music was recorded for Music Man and not used. the Intemission was not put in. (at the end of Wells Fargo wagon, soft endibng in film for no intermission, Loud ending on record album for the intermission.
Gypsy had music for the end of Act One - this is now used as the finale of the film. There is also music for the intermission, but the intermission was never put in the film (it comes at the end of Everythings Coming Up Roses).

 

[Mark B]

Great info, as usual, Caps-man. Thanks.

 

[Joe Caps]

Looking back through this thread and talk of dubbers.
What has NOT surfaced over the years is the tracks of Eileen wilson for Gypsy.
Eileen was the original dubber for Roz russell and Roz filmed to Eileens Tracks. Eileen is one of my favorite dubbers and I would love to hear them.

 

[Will Krupp]

SO, if I understand you correctly Joe, both GYPSY and MUSIC MAN were planned as roadshows but never released that way, even in 35mm? I wonder why?

 

[Rob_Ray]

Mame was delayed for over a year because Lucy broke her leg. By the time Mame hit theatres, the roadshow era was long over. Films like Mame and That's Entertainment! ran in "exclusive engagements" in selected first-run theatres, but the screenings were scheduled throughout the day and seats were not reserved.

Still, That's Entertainment! was shown in 70mm and 6-track stereo and Mame was not. At least not in Houston. I thought it very strange at the time. But it took the success of Star Wars to really revive the concept of blowing all major releases up to 70mm and providing stereo sound. The early 70s, however classic the smaller films may have been, was not a golden era for quality presentation of big-budgeted films.

 

[Joe Caps]

Mame, of course, is awfully short to have an intermission (isn't it just over two hours?).
United Artists released Hawaii in 70mm MONO. At very few locations, but not Los Angeles, there was special presentation where four reels were in true stero. Reel One A including Overture and Main Title, Reels four AB which included the Storm at sea, and the final reel of the film.

 

[Porter Faulkner]

....however, in "Fallen Angel" all of my clothes were done by Chanel. She said to me 'Cherie', she always used to call me Cherie, 'clothes not only make the woman, clothes make the world!' Oh, she's brilliant!... sell her own mother; but brilliant!

 

[Muir Hewitt]

Another favourite camp movie of mine is Sextette Mae West's last stumble onto celluloid!! The American Region 1 Rhino DVD is AWFUL, with washed out colors and dreadful sound quality, but the now out of print British DVD (which often crops up on Ebay )is an incredibly good DVD of an incredibly bad movie!!

Mae could have pulled this movie off if she'd made it at the time of Myra Breckinridge, but she left it eight years too late!!