LUCY'S "MAME"

The 1974 musical "Mame," Lucille Ball's final theatrical film, has been released on DVD as part of a Lucy box set. That brings me back to the time my whole family went to see the film when it first came out. I remember two things vividly: (1) the lens looked like it was smeared with Vaseline during every closeup of Lucy, and (2) my father hated it so much, he walked out of the theater, leaving his family at the mercy of this awful movie.

On the way to the theater, my parents were having a discussion in the front seat. Dad: "I'm NOT going to this movie." Mom: "This is a family outing."

Us three kids in the back were getting a bit stressed. I whispered to my little brother, "I know what Dad's doing. He's setting us up. He's pretending he's going to hate it, but then he'll love it, and then we'll ALL love it."

Dad relented. We arrived at the theater, paid for our tickets and took our seats. The movie began.

A few minutes into the movie, you see Lucy for the first time. She's dancing on a table in a '20s "flapper" costume. (In my memory, she's got a black feather boa around her neck and she's clutching a glass of champagne.) At that moment, my dad says very audibly, "That's IT!" and tells my mom, "I'll be back to pick you up." He then marched out of the theater.

People sometimes have a hard time understanding that story. You just had to know my dad.