Mame

Album Review

The idea of turning Mame, which had already been a successful novel, straight play, and film (the last two under the title Auntie Mame), into a musical comedy was a great one, since it provided the opportunity to do what the musical theater does so well: showcase the talents of a major female actress/singer. The choice of composer/lyricist Jerry Herman to do the score was obvious; Herman had just scored a hit with Hello, Dolly!, another period story of an eccentric, larger than life female character. And everything else went well, too, including the felicitous casting of Angela Lansbury and a smooth out-of-town tryout period. By opening night, May 24, 1966, Bobby Darin and Louis Armstrong had reached the charts with single recordings of the title song (which is self-consciously similar to the Hello, Dolly! title song), and Eydie Gormé has covered the torchy ballad "If He Walked into My Life," which works equally well as a romantic lament as it does, in the show, as Mame's self-recrimination over the loss of her adopted son. Herman's score hasn't a weak song, and it has some very strong ones, not only those already mentioned, but also "We Need a Little Christmas," soon to be a seasonal standard. Add a cast headed by Lansbury, Frankie Michaels, and Beatrice Arthur, and you have the makings of a terrific cast album, which this is.