Can anyone out there tell me where this came from? The line was used in much the same form, in Trading Places, but I know it comes from some earlier movie. I’ve actually seen the movie but can’t remember what it is, or why that line was supposed to be particularly funny.
Auntie Mame 1958
It’s said by the pretentious fiance, Gloria Upson, of Mame’s nephew.
The humor is because it’s not funny. Gloria’s a totally vapid airhead deb in a room filled with avante garde and dissipated but interesting people and she tries to steal from Mame by telling a go-nowhere story that only she thinks is funny. You have to see the scene to really get it.
Hey, how is an elevator man’s job like my place in Mountebank?
(I loved the use of the word mountebank for the restricted subdivision’s name, incidentally.)
Because it has it’s UPSON DOWNS – get it! Haw haw haw!
Gah! An immedaite eye-gouge to save my sanity…
How curious I never heard it in TRADING PLACES before. I assume it’s in the scene where Louis tries to get help from his fiancee at the country club.
I loved that movie, wish I could see the play someday. 
I would probably be as disappointed seeing any play of Mame as I was seeing the Lucille Ball version of the movie. There’s just no substitute for Rosiland’s Russell’s infectious personality. Not every actress can pull off the line, “Life is a banquet – and most poor suckers are starving to death!” Even the actress playing Glora Upson would be missed.
I saw the movie with Rosiland Russell in it…
I was just thinking the other day (because it was in an episode of Friends, which I never watch, but I was waiting for something else to come on) that Lisa Kudrow would be great as Gloria. She delivered the “top drawer” line in that lockjaw accent and it was dead on.
There was talk over the last year or so of remaking the musical for TV with Cher as Mame. I can’t even begin to fathom that train wreck.
I was trying to think who else would be good in a remake of either the musical or the movie. Whataya think?
Zabali_Clawbane: I was commenting that I personally couldn’t watch a play of Mame because I’d be unconsciously (or consciously) comparing it to the Rosalind Russell movie the whole time. At least this Cher project they’re talking about will be on TV.
Good in a remake…? Hmmmm… a dowdy Fran Drescher as Agnes Gooch.
I don’t dare cast Mame herself.
Ignore last post. Remembered Fran Drescher can’t act.
It was ghastly! I mean, just ghastly!
I just watched this this past weekend. I adore Auntie Mame and Vera cracks me up.
“That moon is bright…”
Of course considering the Asian lobby got the Charlie Chan film festival shut down, the role of Ito will most likely be cut.
Ooh! Or maybe they could cast Margaret Cho in the role! In drag!
My favorite lines are by Vera:
“I’ve been to so many great parties . . . now I’m going to find out how they all ended!”
[while Gloria’s uptight parents are around]“Patrick, I have no idea how many times you unzipped me and put me to bed.”
And the all-time favorite, understandable to anyone who’s had a bad hangover: [looking at the sun through the blinds] “Oooh, that moon’s bright!”
My brother (who’s 11) used that last line at the dentist (when they turned on the overhead light) and the hygenist was surprised he’d seen the movie.
Upon preview, I see Arden Ranger beat me to it.
And it was the VERY semi-finals, and we were playing WAY over our heads…
And we got there, the door was locked!
What was the name of the woman who “stepped back to make this really TERRIFIC shot” who actually stepped on the Ping-Pong ball?
Regards,
Shodan
Shodan: Gloria Upson, played by Joanna Barnes.
“Well, that’s a pretty picture, I must say.”
Is there a NAME for that accent? Seems like she and the Howells on Gilligan’s Island must be related.
And her opponent was Bunny Bicksford.
My recast: Glenn Close as Mame, Jean Smart as Vera, Alicia Silverstone as Gloria, Robert Duvall as Beau, Jillian Armenante (the clerk on Judging Amy) as Gooch, Kelsey Grammer as Babcock, Richard Karn & Joanna Kern as the Uptons, and Jane Connell (Gooch from B’way) in a cameo as Beau’s Mama.
The name of that accent is the Park Avenue Lockjaw, I believe.
Isn’t the actress who played Pegeen a dead ringer for Captain Janeway? For a bit I thought they might be the same woman, until I realized how old that earlier actress must be by now.