Lucille Ball
stars in this film version of the hit
Jerry Herman
Broadway musical
Mame,
which featured an electrifying performance by
Angela Lansbury
. As
Patrick Dennis
's plucky and resilient Auntie Mame, Ball's low-pitched, growling moan of a voice (a spine-chilling reminder of the sound of
Linda Blair
's demon-possession in
The Exorcist
) and her gaudy and lumbering fashion-horse gait turns Mame into an elderly cross-dresser. In this guise,
Mame
rehashes the plot from Dennis's novel and the previous non-musical
Rosalind Russell
film. During the Depression era 1930s, she enrolls her nephew into a liberal private school, tries a turn in show business (with the help of her friend Vera (
Beatrice Arthur
), and marries a well-to-do Southern planter (
Robert Preston
). After her husband's death, Mame concerns herself with her now grown-up nephew, his girlfriend, and the girlfriend's intolerant parents.