Miss Mama

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Movie
German title Miss Mama
Original title The Lady Is Willing
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1942
length 92 minutes
Rod
Director Mitchell Leisen
script James Edward Grant
Albert McCleery
production Mitchell Leisen
music W. Franke Harling
camera Ted Tetzlaff
cut Eda Warren
occupation

Miss Mama is an American comedy film directed in 1941 by Mitchell Leisen starring Marlene Dietrich and Fred MacMurray .

action

Elizabeth "Liza" Madden is a celebrated and somewhat eccentric Broadway actress, her world is full of glamor and partying. But she is approaching 40 and the long-lost maternal instinct awakens in Liza. However, a man for the necessary reproduction is not in sight. One day she comes home with a baby she found abandoned in her apartment complex, surprising her friends and employees at home in her luxurious apartment. Although it doesn't actually fit into her life planning, Liza wants to keep and raise the tiny worm. She phoned the well-known pediatrician Dr. Corey McBain, a divorced pediatrician, to give the child a thorough check-up while also learning about basic child-rearing issues. He shocks Liza with the sentence that he really can't stand children, but thank God the baby is very healthy. The "Miss Mama" quickly developed deep affection for the tiny creature and gave the boy the name Corey - based on the doctor she consulted, who she liked as a man. McBain, Liza later learns, only became a pediatrician because he needed the money. His real passion is medical research.

As expected, Liza's "taking possession" of the abandoned baby is not tolerated by the police, and so the actress not only gets into a real mess, but of course they want to take the child away from her right away. That being said, Elizabeth Madden, neither married nor wealthy, absolutely cannot meet the basic requirements for eventual adoption: she is neither married nor wealthy. So a husband is essential! And there, Liza thinks, there is only one option: Doc McBain. He's not even particularly shocked by this strange idea. Rather, he has his own plans. He would rather give up his pediatric practice today than tomorrow and dedicate himself from now on to researching a new lung healing method. And so it happens: Elizabeth Madden becomes Mrs. Corey McBain by name. Because more than one alliance of the unequal spouses is not planned. McBain moves to the adjoining apartment, where he is initially involved in breeding rabbits for experimental purposes.

One day a lawyer appears at the McBains with a couple who claim to be the real parents of the child and who finally agree to leave Liza to little Corey for good for a large sum of money. But Dr. McBain mistrusts the two because he thinks they are fraudsters and, as a medical professional, can refute their parenting. The couple will soon have something to celebrate: McBain's research found widespread acceptance in front of a prominent medical committee. A donation of $ 8,000 is made available to him. The next morning, in Corey's apartment, Liza runs into Frances, her husband's first wife, who is in Corey's marriage bed. Lita (incorrectly) assumes that her husband must have cheated on her. In a fit of jealousy, Liza then wants to separate from her husband and breaks her Broadway engagement in order to do another one in Boston. Baby Corey takes her with him, even though he recently had a high fever. A few days later, the child is diagnosed with a rather threatening otitis media. When Dr. When Corey McBain finds out, he flies to Boston immediately and performs a successful operation on "his" and Liza's child. Meanwhile, Liza stands on stage, fearful for her child, and belts out a wistful song. On the side of the stage, Dr. Corey up and signals to his wife that the operation was successful and that Little Corey is fine again. The performance is over and Lita and her doctor embrace coram publico.

Production notes

The film was made between August 11 and October 24, 1941 and premiered on February 12, 1942. In Austria, The Lady is Willing was launched on January 6, 1950 under the title Fräulein Mama . There was only a German premiere on television, on July 2, 2006.

Lionel Banks and Rudolph Sternad created the film structures, Irene Marlene Dietrich created the costumes. Morris Stoloff was musical director.

A song will be played: "I Find Love", music and lyrics by Jack King and Gordon Clifford.

synchronization

role actor Voice actor
Elizabeth "Liza" Madden Marlene Dietrich Joseline Gassen
Kenneth Hanline Stanley Ridges Lothar Blumhagen
Mary Lou Marietta Canty Regina Lemnitz
Mrs. Cummings Elizabeth Risdon Marianne Lutz

Reviews

Bosley Crowther wrote in the New York Times : “The sight of the graceful Marlene Dietrich rocking a baby on her knees deliberately moved into the picture and cooing full of motherly love is a strange contradiction in terms. And in fact, under certain conditions, this situation could develop into a wonderful fluctuation. But this (...) is just a piece of smear theater of rather outrageous taste and only one of several similarly cheap scenes in which a small child is used to help a boring story on the jumps. How do these great minds get the idea that glamor women sometimes have to tremble with motherly love? (...) Miss Dietrich got along quite well as an emphatically unmotherly femme fatale. Why should she get sentimental about a baby she finds on Eighth Avenue? Why should she, the woman in velvet and silk, drag it to her luxury apartment and then, in order to adopt it, enter into a marriage of convenience with Fred MacMurray, a highly successful doctor who specializes in pediatrics? We know the answers, but they are not enough for us. The same goes for the way the story is told. Where sensitivity and simplicity are needed, it is tearful and overloaded. And where the romantic affair should be treated with delicacy, it is clumsy and lustful. Marlene Dietrich is an unbelievable mom; she has more eyes for the camera than for the child. "

The Movie & Video Guide wrote: "Acceptable comedy (...) Dramatic segment towards the end of the film spoils the lively mood."

Halliwell's Film Guide characterized the film as follows: "Boring mixture of lightweight drama and cumbersome comedy with everyone involved in it being uncomfortable."

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Miss Mama in the German dubbing files .
  2. ^ The New York Times, April 24, 1942.
  3. ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 717.
  4. ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 574.

Web links