Welcome to 5 Favorites. Each week, I will put together a list of my 5 favorites (films, performances, whatever strikes my fancy) along with commentary on a given topic each week, usually in relation to a specific film releasing that week.
With such a large cast, Downton Abbey: A New Era provides me with plenty of opportunities to select my five favorites this week. However, one opportunity can’t be ignored: Maggie Smith. Of all the cast members, she’s the only one with such an extensive film career that choosing five films wasn’t terribly difficult. She’s one of our finest actresses with two Oscars, one of which is for a film in this week’s list. The other one, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, is a terrific film with a wonderful performance, but I thought it might be more interesting to look at a different film from that year.
Oh! What a Lovely War (1969)
That film is Oh! What a Lovely War. Smith doesn’t have a significant part in the film, she appears in only one segment of it, but it’s a picture that not many people talk about and that should change. The film is an anti-war look at World War I through the lens of history. Making his directorial debut, Richard Attenborough adapts this 1963 musical stage show that takes popular songs of the 1910s and turns them into show numbers that explore the horrors of war through symbolism, most notably the red poppy.
A number of prominent actors of that period, including Smith, Dirk Bogarde, Jean-Pierre Cassel, John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Michael Redgrave, Vanessa Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, Susannah York, and John Mills make appearances in the film. It’s a musical unlike almost any other you’ve ever seen, taking a conscientious look at war and the attempts by society to encourage young men to lay down their lives in service to a seemingly unnecessary cause. It’s a mesmerizing and magnificent film that everyone should see at least once. It doesn’t paint a positive portrayal of life at wartime, but it’s symbolically astute nonetheless.
Murder by Death (1976)
Playwright Neil Simon was equally at home on the big screen where he turned his sharp wit into clever dialogue and situations in a number of big screen comedies. My personal favorite of these is this original film that lampoons literary detectives in the most outlandish and humorous ways. The film stars Peter Sellers, David Niven, Smith, James Coco, Peter Falk, and Elsa Lanchester as the world’s greatest detectives brought together by a mysterious host who hopes to create a crime that none of them can solve.
Based on fictional detectives created by the likes of Earl Derr Biggers, Dashiell Hammett, and Agatha Christie, these six brilliant actors are joined by Alec Guinness and Nancy Walker as household servants, Truman Capote as their host, and Richard Narita, James Cromwell, Eileen Brennan, and Estelle Winwood as the detectives’ seemingly blundering companions. It’s a hilarious film and may be one of the greatest mystery comedies ever written.
Death on the Nile (1978)
When discussing the 1978 film adaptation of Agatha Christie’s celebrated novel Death on the Nile, it’s impossible not to touch on Angela Lansbury’s outlandish and wonderful turn. Yet, the entire cast is superb, including Smith, who plays Bette Davis’ traveling companion. She doesn’t have a lot to do, much like her mistress, but she does so with the kind of stoic grace she often brought to her roles.
The film is directed by John Guillermin and is the second best of the Hercule Poirot novel adaptations, the first being Murder on the Orient Express. This time out, Peter Ustinov plays the role of the observant Belgian detective that was Christie’s most popular creation. The likes of George Kennedy, David Niven, Mia Farrow, and Jack Warden makeup the more famous names in the cast list. If you love murder mysteries, this is a cracking good one.
California Suite (1978)
Smith was once again brought into the Neil Simon fold co-starring in this comedy of happenstance. California Suite follows the likes of Jane Fonda, Smith, Alan Alda, Michael Caine, Bill Cosby, Walter Matthau, Elaine May, and Richard Pryor in seemingly unrelated narratives as visitors to Los Angeles from other places around the world whose stories eventually intertwine. Unlike Murder by Death, Simon didn’t write this particular work for the big screen, instead adapting his celebrated play Plaza Suite.
Smith’s portion of the film involves her traveling from London with her husband Michael Caine who is becoming increasingly lax in hiding his sexuality. She’s in L.A. to attend the Academy Awards. She loses, but in real life, it would deliver to Smith her second Academy Award and she would be forever entered into the esoterica of the Oscars as the only person to win an Oscar for losing an Oscar. The rest of the cast is stellar in a film that’s biting, witty, and hilarious.
A Room with a View (1985)
For many of us, Helena Bonham Carter has been an intriguing and potent presence on the big screen so long that we forget she came to prominence less than 40 years ago. Her feature film debut is as Lucy Honeychurch in James Ivory’s film A Room with a View, written for the screen by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and produced by Ivory’s longtime partner Ismail Merchant.
The film co-stars Smith, Denholm Elliott, Judi Dench, Simon Callow, Julian Sands, and Daniel Day-Lewis. It’s about an Englishwoman (Bonham Carter) on holiday in Florence, Italy with her chaperone (Smith) when she meets a young Englishman (Sands) and becomes smitten with him. Although their trip is cut short, she eventually reconnects with him back home where she’s become involved with someone from a higher social class (Day-Lewis). The film is a slow, passionately-charged period drama with stellar performances from all involved.
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