I loved seeing her work opposite Judi Dench — The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel , A Room with a View.
And yeah, she made a great Professor McGonagall!
Does anyone else remember Smith as Desdemona in the 1965 film of Othello? It’s practically unwatchable now because Laurence Olivier played the lead role in blackface, but it was her first Academy Award nomination. One reviewer said “Maggie Smith’s red-haired Desdemona is a beautifully vibrant, sensitive lass who accepts the realization of her doom with pathetic submissiveness.”
Maggie Smith (imdb.com)
othello.jpg (462×327) (wordpress.com)
A Room with a View is my all-time favorite movie. And she completely makes it. All the actors are wonderful, but as ever, she was a standout. (Closely followed by Daniel Day Lewis!)
That’s the one I came to the thread to mention. As you note, it’s considered “unwatchable” due to Olivier’s blackface and consequently is rarely shown, which is a shame. She truly was vivid in it. And for those who know her only from her middle-aged (and older) roles, she’s quite the revelation.
Desdemona is a tough role to pull off precisely because of the submissiveness (to being murdered!) she must convey. It’s hard to make that sympathetic. But Smith made her three-dimensional.
I watched The Prime of Jean Brodie a long time back as well as A Room with a View though I admit I remember very little of either. Probably worth re-watching both some time.
Of her more recent films Gosford Park is probably my favorite though on thinking about it I don’t remember much of the specifics of that either; it’s hard to believe it’s been more than 20 years now.
Wikipedia says her first film credit was all the way back in 1958 and her last was in 2023. That makes a 65 year career which has to be among the very longest of those which have ended recently.
Evil Under the Sun is one of my favorites of hers – she gets to drawl and purr insults at Diana Rigg’s character, all with perfectly plausible deniability. She makes that movie, one way and another. And she looks great in it, considering she was 48 or so.
Sir Ian McKellen does a wicked impression of her, you can find it on YouTube tapes of Graham Norton’s chat show.
I suppose I should have taken the time to post a link to this film.
Tea With the Dames (2018) - IMDb
Dames Judi Dench, Eileen Atkins, Joan Plowright, and Maggie Smith get together for tea to reminisce and discuss their acting careers.
For quite a long time, that movie and her appearances on The Carol Burnett show were the only things I knew Maggie Smith from. It wasn’t until much later in my life that I got around to seeing any of her other work.
She was consistently wonderful in everything that I’ve seen her do. Even the silly little comedy skits on the Burnett show. Not many people can be equally convincing playing opposite Laurence Olivier and Tim Conway, but Dame Maggie managed it.
I’m quite the opposite, in that mostly I picture the later, older Maggie Smith so watching that video posted upthread of her singing with Carol Burnett is different.
I’m late to the game for recognizing her in Downton Abbey and Harry Potter but she is the queen of one liners. She will be missed.
Years ago I saw her on stage in the Peter Shaffer play Lettice and Lovage. The role was specifically written for her, and she was fantastic.
For those who don’t know this movie, an eccentric millionaire invites five great detectives to his mansion to challenge them to solve a crime which is going to take place. David Niven and Maggie Smith play Dick and Dora Charleston, clearly modeled on Nick and Nora Charles from the Thin Man movies.
It has some un-PC elements that are quite dated, but the good parts, Smith included, are still worth seeing.
I had the good fortune to see her on stage in Congreve’s The Way of the World with Michael Jayston as her suitor (“I may, by degrees, dwindle into a wife”).
In one TV programme I saw, she said Olivier had said something in rehearsal about needing to work on her vowels, and when she saw him slapping on the make-up she said “How now, brown cow”: “He didn’t get it”.
I haven’t seen much of her stuff outside of Downton Abbey. Maybe I should seek out the version of David Copperfield with her and Daniel Radcliffe; I think she must have been an amazing Betsey Trotwood.
Find something when she was younger, like “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.” Don’t just watch her “old lady” roles.
So she not only had the skill of delivering witty one-liners—she could actually think them up herself!
Yes, even though she’s done brilliant work since her screen debut in Brodie it’s her most memorable role for me.
It’s one of my favorites as well, and her performance is a much more acidic (and three dimensional) protrayal than her Downton Abbey role. I’ve probably seen it ten times or more, and I can nearly recite all the dialog
Yes. She’s a bit more direct in an interview with the BFI. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=detAlTL9sbM
I always think of her Jean Brodie movie alongside of this song: