MCBASTARD'S MAUSOLEUM

AUNTIE MAME (1958)

4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray

Label: Warner Archive

Region Code: Region Free

Rating: Unrated

Duration: 143 Minutes 27 Seconds
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono, 51. Surround with Optional English Subtitles

Video: Dolby Vision HDR10 2160p 4K Ultra HD Widescreen (2.35:1), 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)

Director: Morton DaCosta

Cast: Rosalind Russell, Forrest Tucker, Peggy Cass, Jan Hadzlik, Coral Browne

The Technicolor comedy Auntie Mame (1958) is directed by Morton DaCosta (Island of Love), who also directed the 1956-1958 run of the Broadway stage play, which itself was was based on the 1955 novel of the same name. The fantastically witty tale tells the story of a young orphaned boy Patrick Dennis (Jan Handzlik, from The Twilight Zone ep. "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street"), who is orphaned in 1928 when his father dies, his father's will stipulating that should anything happen to him that his son go to live with the boy's auntie Mame, who even in the will it is said he disapproves of. Mame (Rosalind Russell, The Trouble with Angels) is a flamboyant Manhattan heiress who is quite a free-spirited woman who lives by the mantra "life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!", and she is not going to starve to death, she wants to live a delicious life indeed. They hit it off immediately, but the boy's inherited fortune is administered by a trustee from the Knickerbocker Bank, by way of the ultra-conservative Dwight Babcock (Fred Clark, Zotz!), a real stick-in-the-mud type who almost immediately disagrees with Mame's lifestyle, and at odd's with her over the boy's schooling. While she prefers Patrick attend an experimental progressive Manhattan academy run by Acacius Page (Henry Brandon, Assault on Precinct 13), but after experiencing the school's extreme freedoms Babcock pulls the boy from the school and enrolls him in his alma mater, a more conservative private boarding school.

The film follows Patrick and Mame's exploits through the years, playing in episodic vignette style that despite the over two hour duration, flies by at a pleasurable pace. Other characters included in the delightful and frothy affair are Mame's houseboy and housekeepers Ito (Yuki Shimoda, The Octagon) and Norah (Connie Gilchrist, Two on a Guillotine), stage actress Vera Charles (Coral Browne, Theater of Blood), publisher Lindsay Woolsey (Patric Knowles, Terror in the Wax Museum), who is always making unrequited romantic proposals to Mame, and later we get the addition of a frumpy wallflower secretary Agnes Gooch (Peggy Cass, Age of Consent) and a gold-digging writer named Brian O'Bannion (Robin Hughes, The Thing That Couldn't Die), who both ostensibly arrive to help Mame write her memoirs.

Patrick going off to a stuffy private boarding school coincides with Mame losing her fortune in the stock market crash of 1929, which leads to a fun montage of Mame attempting to find employment for the first time ever, we see her take a swing at being a switchboard operator, a Macy's sales girl, and even acting on stage with Vera in a doomed production of Missummer Madness, which goes horribly and hilariously wrong. The disastrous turn as a sales clerk at least introduces her to a new suitor by way of Southern oil baron Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside (Forrest Tucker, The Crawling Eye), who rescues her from her failed attempt as a working girl, marrying her after his current fiancé, the fiery ginger Sally Cato MacDougall (Demla Byron, Lady After Dark), attempts to rid herself of Mame by wrangling her onto an unruly and potentially deadly horse during a foxhunt.

Year later Mame is a widow and Patrick, now played by Roger Smith (TV's 77 Sunset Strip), has graduated from college. Mame is somewhat disappointed to learn that Patrick's conservative schooling has seemingly turned her adventurous nephew into a straight-laced conservative. She is even more distressed when he announces his engagement to Gloria Upson (Joanna Barnes, I Wonder Who's Killing Her Now?), a vapid blonde from a "restricted" community in Connecticut, which sets off all the alarms for dear ol' Auntie Mame, leading to her hosting a party for the Patrick, among the invited guests are Gloria's antisemitic parents, Doris (Lee Patrick, Caged) and Claude (Willard Waterman, The Apartment), with Mame setting out to sabotage the engagement, while also introducing Patrick to her new secretary, the quite lovely Pegeen Ryan (Pippa Scott, Bad Ronald).

This gorgeous technicolor comedy is delightfully madcap and wonderful, an absolute feast for the eyes in 4K UHD, and chock full of Rosalind Russell sharp-witted dialogue and over-the-top turn as the free-spirited heiress who inherits a nephew, and wins our hearts in the process.

Audio/Video: Auntie Mame (2018) gets a 4k Ultra HD upgrade from Warner Archive sourced from 2026 4K restoration sourced from a 12K scan of the original Technirama camera negative, with Dolby Vision HDR10 color-grade, framed in the CinemaSccope 2.35:1 widescreen, having been gorgeously shot by cinematographer Harry Stradlin (A Streetcar named Desire). How's it look? Simply stunning, the image is crisp and clear with tight-knit film grain, textures leap off the screen in the close-ups, and the WCG color-grade looks absolutely wonderful, the Technicolor colors are gorgeously recreated, rich and vibrantly hued, but dialed-in more than amped-up artificially, with deep blacks and crisp whites throughout. I detected no encoding issues like compression or artificing, it's a well-authored disc. The accompanying Blu-ray is a recycled disc from Warner Archive's previous 2017 Blu-ray, which offered a 4K scan from the interoceptive, which was excellent for it's time, but pales when compared to the gorgeous new restoration on the 4K UHD.

Audio on the UHD comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 dual-mono and a newly remixed 5.1 surround track, with optional English subtitles. Both tracks are clean with nice separation, the oft times speedy verbal barrage and Southern accents fare well, and the orchestral score by Bronislau Kaper (A Day at the Races) comes through sounding full and robust, especially on the surround tracks, it has some nice weight to the bottom ends and the sweeping strings sound heavenly. The Blu-ray only has the 2.0 dual-mono track. I've said before than I am a mono-man, I love restored mono audio tracks, but watching this a second time with the surround option I have to say, it's quite a treat!

As with all of their somewhat rare 4K Ultra HD release Warner Archive offer a little extra as far as extras for this release. We do get all the archival extras from the 2017 Blu-ray, which is easy as the Blu-ray disc is recycles, including the 3-min Original Theatrical Trailer, the Lucile Ball starring later version Mame (1974) Theatrical Trailer, plus the uncompressed Music Only Track (DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono) highlighting the terrific orchestral score.

The UHD disc offers a blend of new and old, starting off with the new, we get the 11-min Dave Karger interviews actor Jan Handzlik at the 2026 TCM Classic Film Festival. This is a wonderful little interview from the only surviving cast member to still be with us. He talks about acting in the Broadway play and then getting cast in the film, wonderful memories of working with Rosalind Russell, but has little to say about any of the other cast members. We also get a 2-min Restoration Before and After featurette highlighting the painstaking restoration process with before and after images.

The 2-disc UHD/Blu-ray arrives in a dual-hubbed black keepcase with a single-sided wrap featuring the original movie poster artwork plus a Limited Edition Slipcover, and tucked away inside is a 16-Page Press Booklet Reproduction, which is a wonderful little curio for vintage film fans.

Special Features:

- NEW! Dave Karger interviews actor Jan Handzlik at the 2026 TCM Classic Film Festival (11:17)

- NEW! Restoration Before and After (2:07)

- Original Theatrical Trailer (3:09)

- Mame (1974) Theatrical Trailer (3:43)

- Music Only Track (DTS-HD MA 2.0)

- Slipcover

- 16-Page Press Booklet Reproduction

Screenshots from the 2017 Warner Archive Blu-ray Repackaged with this release: