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Today’s Holiday Tune: Lucille Ball’s version of “We Need A Little Christmas” from the film “Mame”
Okay, we all know that Angela Lansbury should have starred in the 1974 movie version of the musical Mame, a show for which she won a Tony Award on Broadway.But the role went to our beloved Lucille Ball who by then was in her early 60s and never had much of a singing voice (although it was not as bad as Lucy Ricardo’s!).
In light of last night’s much-maligned but highly-rated live presentation of The Sound of Music on NBC, I wonder if it is better to have a great actress who isn’t much of a singer headline a musical or a great singer (like Carrie Underwood) who isn’t much of an actress do so.
Well, the great pro Lucy gave it her best shot and had her moments in the film – especially in her scenes with Bea Arthur who reprised her role of Vera Charles from the Broadway show.
So here is Miss Ball singing one of the movie’s more touching musical numbers: We Need a Little Christmas.
Enjoy!
FILE UNDER: Musicals
Comments
(All comments are reviewed before being published, and I review submissions several times per day.)
babbitty lil' snob says:
While we all love “Lucy”…but this is very much “Lucille Ball”. The film is poorly done and by 1974, looked dated. Not even Lansbury could have escaped that. But, you must be able to SING those songs! Hearing Miss Ball’s cigarette and whiskey soaked croak, is painful. It was also Desi who tried to dissuade her from doing the role, telling her the Mame character was very much different from the “Lucy” character that she brought so vividly to life. As Robert Osbourne has commented “At that point of her life, Lucy wasn’t really listening to anybody.”
jj says:
She is so damn animated. Where was the director ?
2201 East says:
Not her best work.
Barbara says:
I’ll always love Lucy. This song just adds to the joy
of the season. Thank you for sharing!
Barbara says:
Critics are good to a point, but sometimes they struggle
to find just one thing to criticize out of a body of work
that filled a lifetime, such as was Lucy’s work, which
gave us workers a relief with
laughter from the grind of the day.
Lucy did that for us.
Leslie says:
I’ll take Lucy’s warm and touching rendition of this song over Lansbury’s any day. I grew up listening to this soundtrack without ever hearing the fabled Tony winning Broadcast cast album… and when I finally did hear it? It’s not all that. It’s okay to love Lucy Mame – no need to apologize. It’s a fabulous, glamorous, unforgettable film.