"Hurricanes may be out of season, but one blew into the Music Hall yesterday, along with the Christmas stage show. The name of it is Auntie Mame and it should be causing much turbulence in this area until well after the Christmas holidays. For this full movie version of the stage play, with Rosalind Russell again at the center of it all, does sure enough generate gales of laughter as it sweeps across the screen... Auntie Mame is unrestrainedly a wild and innocent spoof, but it manages to make it apparent that it has a heart and that it's in the right place." - The New York Times
"Auntie Mame...is a relative delight-part inlaw, part outlaw-who came slinking onto the American scene in Patrick Dennis' 1955 bestseller...Now she has been preserved on celluloid, and Actress Russell has done the job with such invincible Rozmatazz that as a comic cliché Charley's Aunt bids fair to be replaced in the public mind by Patrick's." - Time magazine
"Episodic but highly entertaining, sparked by Russell's tour-de-force performance." - “Leonard Maltin's Classic Movie Guide”
Additionally, this film has received the following awards and/or honors:
Auntie Mame was nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress (Peggy Cass), Best Art Direction-Set Direction (Malcolm C. Bert and George James Hopkins), Best Cinematography, Color (Harry Stradling, Sr.) and Best Editing (William H. Ziegler).
Auntie Mame won two Golden Globe Awards for Best Motion Picture - Comedy and Best Actress (Rosalind Russell). Peggy Cass was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress but lost to the great Hermione Gingold in Gigi.
Rosalind Russell received a BAFTA Film Award nomination for Best Foreign Actress.
The Auntie Mame soundtrack was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Soundtrack Album, Dramatic Picture Score or Original Cast.
Rosalind Russell received a Golden Laurel Award for the Top Female Comedy Performance for her work in Auntie Mame. The film won the Golden Laurel for Top General Entertainment of the year. Supporting Actress Peggy Cass and Cinematographer Harry Stradling Sr. both came in 3rd place in their categories.
In 2000, the American Film Institute named Auntie Mame number 94 on its list "100 Years...100 Laughs."
In 2005, the American Film Institute named the line from Auntie Mame, "Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!" number 93 on its list "100 Years...100 Movie Quotes."
