Mame

Dismal !!!

Jack Warner and Warner Bros. had a history of ruining Broadway musicals with poor casting choices in transfering them to film. The list includes My Fair Lady (ignoring Julie Andrews for the non-singing Audrey Hepburn, though it's a terrific film, with Andrews it would have reached cinema perfection!), Roz Russell in place of Merman in Gypsy, Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero in Camelot, the entire cast of Paint Your Wagon,among others. Lucy in Mame was the worst mistake! Period. She was far too old, could not sing it, and didn't have the joi de vie that Mame must have. While it was a fairly faithful re-creation of the broadway show, thanks to Lucy it seems to just plod along. Only when Bea Arthur is around (or occasionally Jane Connell re-creating her role as Gooch) does it perk up. However, those scenes are too few and far between to keep the film compelling. And most of the score was retained and kept intact ( despite Lucy's harsh non-voice), there was a gorgeous addition in the song Loving You, written for the film and smartly given to Robert Preston. It's absolutely beautiful, though it does slow the movie down even more than it already is.

Perhaps someday there will be a full scale Broadway revival with a competent, appealing star, and filmed for PBS and televised. Too much to hope for I guess! November 16, 2008

Much maligned movie musical soundtrack now available on CD.

Before I go on, let's get the usual gripes out of the way. Yes, Lucille Ball was too old. Yes, she couldn't sing. Yes, she couldn't dance. Yes, her closeups were shot with an entire jar of Vaseline on the lens to hide her wrinkles. Yes, the incredible Angela Lansbury would have been far better for it, singing-wise, and it's very much a shame that she wasn't allowed to preserve her Tony-winning performance on film for all time. Now, let's get to the soundtrack CD review.

Mame was to be a grand big budget musical extravaganza in the vein of classics like My Fair Lady and The King And I. And because of this, Warner Bros. wanted some insurance, same as when they made Gypsy and My Fair Lady. Sadly, this insurance meant casting a big name star with little singinbg prowess in a major role, as opposed to casting the original Broadway star. In the case of Gypsy, this meant casting Rosalind Russell as Mama, a role Ethel Merman had become famous for on Broadway. (Coincidentally, Angela Lansbury would play Mama in a Broadway revival...and win a Tony for it.) For My Fair Lady, this meant passing up Julie Andrews in favor of Audrey Hepburn for the role of Eliza Doolittle. (Honestly, this worked out fine for Julie. It freed her up to later accept the title role in Mary Poppins, for which she won an Oscar. And when the producer of The Sound of Music saw a rough cut of Poppins, he decided that he needed Julie to play Maria.) However, both Roz and Audrey had something Lucy didn't - a professional singer to redub their vocals. Roz had a lady named Lisa Kirk (who has been said to have also been considered for dubbing Lucy in Mame), while Audrey had Marni Nixon, well known today for her work My Fair Lady as well as dubbing for Deborah Kerr in The King And I and An Affair To Remember and for Natalie Wood in West Side Story. After brief consideration, both Lucy and the producers decided it'd be more honest and in the best interests of the film to include Lucy's true singing vocals. Many are still shocked to know this isn't the first time Lucy had recorded her own vocals for a musical number in a film - due mostly in part to Lucy Ricardo's legendary inability to carry a tune. (Apparently, separating the actress from the character is a concept many people can't quite seem to grasp.) Although most of her singing in DuBarry Was A Lady was dubbed, that's Lucy's actual vocals in the song Friendship. And the song Breezin' Along With The Breeze from The Long Long Trailer also includes Lucy's real voice.

However, when she'd made those films, she wasn't over 60 and hadn't been smoking for as long. A lifelong smoker, by the time Lucy was 60, her singing ability was basically diminished by cigarette smoke and, frankly, being a post-menopausal woman. But she gave it her all, staying up late nights, recording her songs a few notes at a time so that they could be pieced together to create one good take. Although on the movie's video and DVD releases, as well as the original vinyl release, this is a bit less noticeable, this soundtrack CD makes it very clear that Lucy's vocals were not recorded in a single take, but in many many takes. When Rhino originally made this digital master, they chose not to use equalization in order to cover this up, but rather thought it'd be interesting to keep it like this in order to display the overdubbing and splicing processes required to get a "good" vocal take out of Lucy. The end result is pleasant enough. Lucy does a decent job on her songs. She's no Julie Andrews or Angela Lansbury, and when If He Walked Into My Life plays, no matter how much you love Lucy and love the film version of Mame and no matter how much of a guilty pleasure Lucy's recording of the song is, it's know that odd to find yourself praying for Angela Lansbury.

Lucy isn't the only presence on here, of course. There's also Kirby Furlong...who also wasn't really a great singer...as young Patrick. He sings on four of the album's tracks - Open A New Window, My Best Girl, We Need A Little Christmas, and The Letter. He does sound like a typical kid, though, so that's kind of a good thing in that it makes it a little more believable. (Like how Lucy's rough vocals are more believable to fit a woman who drinks and parties and smokes at all hours of the night.) Robert Preston, best known for his role in the Broadway and film versions of The Music Man, lends his vocals to the title song and Loving You, a song written by Jerry Herman specifically for the film. Original Broadway cast member Jane Connell returns as Agnes Gooch, lending her vocals to We Need A Little Christmas, St. Bridget during the film's main title, and Gooch's Song. Connell's voice is also odd on here, but in her case, it's supposed to be a little odd. And finally, Bea Arthur, best known for her Emmy-winning work on the classic TV sitcoms Maude and The Golden Girls, reprises her Tony-winning role as Vera Charles and provides vocals for The Man In The Moon and the classic Bosom Buddies. Frankly, Bea is the most impressive singer on this CD, which surprises a lot of people who wouldn't think that Bea could actually sing. *They must not watch enough Golden Girls. ;)*

As is usual with the movie versions of Broadway musicals, this soundtrack has its ways in which it's superior. Movie orchestration is always fuller and more grand than Broadway due to the simple fact that Broadway orchestras are limited to what can fit below the stage, while movie recording sessions can use bigger orchestras. The main title, which uses instrumental versions of Mame and Open A New Window mixed with a shortened version of St. Bridget, performed by Jane Connell, is an impressive overture for the film and a great example of the superiority of film orchestration over Broadway.

As was the order of the day for many soundtracks of the day, several of the tracks have been shortened by removing long instrumental portions. Specially recorded intros and outros were recorded for several tracks, small reprises were dropped altogether and very little instrumental score was included. However, one song on the CD is longer than its film counterpart - a few lines of Bosom Buddies were excised from the film, but are left intact on the soundtrack album. This CD basically transfers the original vinyl release to CD. Excised instrumental portions are not restored, reprises such as the Bosom Buddies reprise are not restored here, none of the instrumental score is restored, and neither are original intros and outros. My guess is that since Warner Bros. had been unable to recreate the film's audio in stereo due to the varying quality of Lucy's vocal tracks, Rhino figured they wouldn't be able to recreate the film's soundtrack to be more of a complete record of the music from the film, so the next best thing would be to simply take the original album masters and transfer them to a digital master. Although it's still a great listen, and sadly, the only source available to the public to hear the film's main musical numbers in stereo, a fan can't help but wish for something more complete. (Although if one wanted, they could simply record missing audio from their VHS or DVD and mix it in with the tracks from the CD to get a more complete soundtrack album. But that's another discussion entirely.)

I'm a fan of Mame the movie all the way. Despite major shortcomings involving its star, Lucille Ball does a fine acting job. And despite her frog vocals, the soundtrack is one of my favorites and a very nice listen. I'm very happy to finally own this CD in my all too small collection of movie soundtracks. Soundtrack aficionados will definitely want it just for the curiosity of hearing Lucy's obviously overdubbed and spliced vocals, as well as simply for the relative rarity - this was only released on CD in 2004, and still isn't to be found in most big chain stores. Definitely pick it up if you're a fan of Lucy, film musicals, and film soundtracks.

NOTE: The Collector's Choice CD is the same as the extremely limited edition Rhino Handmade release. CCM even says "Manufactured by Rhino Entertainment Company" on the back. After Rhino's limited edition of 2,500 sold out quickly, they made the decision to license their digital master out to Collector's Choice Music, a label devoted to re-issuing out of print titles, many quite obscure, on CD. The Rhino release has more extravagant packaging - the liner notes suppsedly contain an incredible essay and a ton of photos from the film. However, it gets quite expensive now when people sell their copies on the internet. This CD is less extravagant - the insert is only two pages inside, which contain a different essay from the Rhino one on the making of the film. The front and back of the insert faithfully recreate the original vinyl album artwork, with the only change being the addition of the Collector's Choice Music logo on front. While Rhino probably had access to all the original artwork, meaning their cover was probably clearer, this looks like a really good scan-and-printjob of the album art. A really good high quality printjob, but a printjob nonetheless. It's not really a gripe, and most people probably won't notice it. Frankly, I think it's wonderful they wanted to preserve the original artwork. The back of the case also looks fairly cheap - like a custom cover I whipped up in Photoshop. But it does use the logo from the front cover on there as well, which is a nice touch. Again, not really a gripe - this is an independent company. They're more focused, as they should be, on getting rare titles like Mame out there on CD, not in making amazingly mind-blowing packaging. It's a satisfying package and does great justice to this soundtrack. May 23, 2008

Horrid!

This is even worse than the other Jerry Herman broadway show transfered to film-Streisand's Hello Dolly! Lucy was too old (and couldn't sing OR dance) and Barbra was too young. (at least she could SING!) The sound quality on this CD is pretty bad. I'll stick with the OBC album, thank you! May 16, 2008

Producers slipped some on this one...

I love the movie from which this soundtrack comes from. I also love the music of Jerry Herman. That being said, I think the producers kind of dropped the ball on this album.

Lucille Ball never claimed to be a singer, and as such, her vocals had to be recorded in sections, and sometimes had to be spliced on top of one another. This is barely noticeable in the film, which is a monaural mix of the music. The soundtrack, however, is in stereo.

The stereo mix is glorious, but the equalization used on Lucy's vocals are less than pleasing to the ear, making it painfully obvious where the splices and overlaps are. But the technology in 1974 was there to make this less obvious. I'm a singer who's done studio work, I know how these splices are done, and if the engineer is fast-fingered, it's near seemless. Also, when the mix down happens, if you turn the treble all the way down, as they did on Miss Ball's vocals, you can hear the splices.

In short, I love the soundtrack because I love the movie, I just dislike how in was put together. That is not to say that there aren't some wonderful moments on these recordings, the best of all being Beatrice Arthur. What a singer! And the rest of the cast turn in stellar vocal performances, especially Robert Preston, who is a gem as Beau.

So, would I recommend buying this? Depends. If you're a fan of the musical Mame, a fan of Lucille Ball, sure. If you could care less, don't bother. January 14, 2008

Lucy Is Mame!

I have the CD version of Mame and the original LP that came out in 1974, in addition to a special promotional LP of Mame that was supposed to be released during Christmas 1973 but the release date was later changed to March 1974. Lucy might not be the best singer, but these songs don't require a Barbara Streisand voice. Lucy did a very good job in getting the songs across. There was a genuine love in the way she sang the songs. I prefer this to the broadway version album/CD w/Angela Lansbury's shrill voice. Lucy is the best Mame and that's why the DVD release is selling great. January 7, 2008

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