Auntie Mame: Lucille Ball, Iconic Quotes, and the Legacy of the Classic Story

I love the timeless charm of Auntie Mame—a novel, stage play, film, and musical, starring Lucille Ball. Explore Mame's quotes and legacy.

"Mame, original Broadway production". Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library. The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1966.

One of my favorite works of fiction is Auntie Mame—which has the distinction of first being a novel, then a fabulous stage play, then a film adaptation, and then a musical—which in turn was adapted into a musical, starring Lucille Ball, as Mame. One of the best lines in the entire oeurve is "Life's a banquet and most poor sons of bitches are starving to death." Here's the full clip for context for those of you who are starving for a little bit of Mame in your life.

   

Use this clip in your High School English Language Arts classroom with one of my "Quote Posters"! 

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Movies That Love The Written Word

In this post, I talk about movies that have a loving relationship to books and to reading.

Pulp Fiction's title is certainly a love letter to a certain kind of book — the dime novel.

Movies That Praise the Power of the Written Word     A teacher friend posted on Facebook that she was looking for movies that praise literature and the power of the written word. Movies based on books that extoll literature — what a nice pairing, and a possible name of a course.

People Suggested a Few Titles 
     People suggested Beauty and the Beast, The Neverending Story, The Hours, Henry Fool, and the Book Thief. A good start. But the post got me thinking. 

Movies based on books are many. 

     I cannot stomach another cinematic example of Great Expectations. Oh, maybe just one more. I love a good Miss Havisham. There is a decent sampling of biopics about writers. Kill Your Darlings is a recent example about the student days of Allen Ginsburg and William Burroughs (and murder to boot). 

Dead Poets' Society

     The casebook example for the movies I am looking for is Dead Poets Society. It's not based on a novel, nor is it fantasy or sci-fi — it is a veritable love song to the merits of reading and the power of poetry. However, I do find beef with its ending (no spoilers). Its original screenplay was written by Tom Schulman and was directed by Peter Weir. 

      Are there any others out there? I am too lazy to compile a list.

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