REC Saturday: Auntie Mame

Quite by accident, a reconnected with a dear lost friend and when I went to friend her on FaceBook, I realized that we both had the SAME Auntie Mame quote in our profile: “Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!” (We both took this a sign that great minds think great quotes alike!)

The first time I saw Auntie Mame – the original 1958 movie starring the marvelous Rosalind Russell – I was…I have no idea how old. Young, really young, like maybe six or eight or something. I’m sure it was on a TV rerun because “young” for me translates into “pre-VHS” (yes, the horror!) so it was not as if Mother picked it up at Blockbuster and brought it home.

She would have if she could have, and when it did eventually get released on VHS she snapped it up. It was one of her favorite movies, right up there with Singing in the Rain, and I would remember it fondly if only for that reason alone.

However, there are many other reasons to remember it, and rewatch it, and they all boil down to this: the whole film is a celebration of being vibrantly ALIVE. If I had a mascot for Dangerous Living, it would be Auntie Mame as portrayed by Russell, who gave the character a transcendent vitality and humor.

Importantly, there is an element of pathos to her story in the boom-bust cycles she lives through both financially and romantically. She’s nowhere near perfect and her failures are epic, and she’s not shy about her insecurities or her strengths of character. Despite being utterly over the top to the point of farce, Auntie Mame is likeable and real. She’s everything we both wish we were and are terrified of being: hero, lover, fool, naïf.

For what is billed as a comedy, this movie will make you cry at least once. It’s worth watching for the call to battle alone, though:

“Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!”

Don’t be that sucker.

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