Auntie Mame (DVD)

this full movie version of the stage play, with Rosalind Russell again at the center of it all, does sure enough generate gales of laughter as it sweeps across the screen.Like the stage play before it and, indeed, like the character of Auntie Mame, its Beekman Place maharance, it is largely

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inflated with hot air—or a sort of intoxicating vapor or theatrical laughing-gas. There is little or no solid substance to its heroine and her milieu of cafe society jokers, free-loaders, phonies and freaks.Most of its whirling, swirling action is in a succession of virtual skits, strung together in a loose chronological order that extends from the Prohibition era until the present. And it scatters anachronisms as freely as a cloud scatters rain.But for all its absurd exaggerations and bland inconsistencies, this picture of a tireless party-giver is a highly entertaining thing to see. And, because of the gags that gush from it, it is a constantly amusing thing to hear.What's more, in its superficial racing across several strata of rich society, it does catch some glimpses of behavior that flash a few glints of irony. The picture is every bit as potent, if not a good deal more so, than the play.

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