Director's Note

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Who is Mame? Some of Mame's wild, adventurous spirit bubbles in every person who truly believes that "life is a banquet!" Auntie Mame is well-to-do, lives in New York at the height of the Twenties, and is surprised by a "wonderful present"--an orphan nephew named Patrick. Ten-year-old Patrick needs his aunt, and to be needed is something new for Mame. It changes her life and brings her into sharp conflict with her best friend, Vera Charles, who can't stand children. Mame's fiance is willing to take on the boy as a bonus, but Mame doesn't think she'll have time for marriage--"I'll be too busy being a mother!" Agnes Gooch, Patrick's nanny, doesn't approve of the wild and irrepressible things which go on in Mame's penthouse, yet she inevitably falls under Mame's spell.

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With the onslaught of the Depression, Mame loses all her money and goes through jobs as quickly as she finds them. In a brief adventure as a manicurist, she meets Beau, a wealthy scion of the South. Beau takes Mame to meet his family, all of whom are captivated by her exploits, and Beau proposes--Mame. Patrick fears he has lost his Best Girl.

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Act Two rushes headlong into the Thirties. Vera stands by her Bosom Buddy when Mame returns to New York after Beau's sudden death. The newly-liberated Gooch agrees to help Mame write her memoirs, and the maturing Patrick seems to be slipping away from Mame's ideal of freedom. When Patrick proposes to a blonde "with the IQ of a dead flashlight battery," Mame is in despair. The indefatigable Mame manages to save the boy from a life of drabness and snobbery. Soon Mame is introducing her brand of living to hte next generation of youngsters. Mame defies any and all generation gaps! Life is a banquet! Live it.