Saturday, October 19, 2024

Missing Professor McGonagall

 HALLIE EPHRON: I was so sad to hear that one of my all-time favorite actresses has died. From her roles as Jean Brodie to the dowager Countess of Grantham to Professor Minerva McGonagall, I have adored Dame Maggie Smith's dry wit and tartan vulnerability. She could vanquish with a pursed lip and a well directed gaze.

And she wore her age brilliantly.

My favorite Dame Maggie Smith movies are, of course, the Harry Potter series. I can hear her rolling her R’s – “Mr. Po-tter…”

But she had so many star turns, even when she wasn’t the “star” of the show.

My favorite is “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie." She was only 35 when she played the imperious teacher with unorthodox methods and a special hold over her “gels.”

That role won her the best actress Oscar.


There are so many roles she would have aced… which got me wondering, what fictional detective could she have played. Certainly NOT Miss Marple. She’d have been horribly miscast.

But what if… Miss Marple had an acerbic cousin, living in Glasgow…?

What are your favorite Maggie Smith roles, and what kind of sleuth do you think she could have played, adding to it her own special panache???

39 comments:

  1. Favorite Maggie Smith roles? There are so many, but Daphne Castle in "Evil Under the Sun" is one of my favorites . . . .

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  2. I'm right there with you, Hallie, mourning Maggie Smith's passing. She was brilliant in Downton Abbey, and we got to see her year after year, which was such a treat. Not sure about which fictional detective she could have played.

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  3. Ooh, I liked her in so many that have been mentioned, although (shocking, I know) I never saw the Potter series. But one little gem of a movie I liked her in was "Quartet," directed by Dustin Hoffman. It was about retired opera singers (and I love opera.) She was a retired Diva.

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    1. Quartet a total joy.
      But the Lady in the Van is very special too.

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  4. Hallie, she was so brilliant, so perfectly cast for the Potter movies, I gasped when I saw that character come to life! She wore her age as a badge. I am going to look up the name of the fairly recent movie I am thinking of where she is part of an ensemble, as she is in both the Potter and the Downton Abbey series. She totally holds her own. I saw The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie when I was a teacher in my twenties. I bet that would be one of the films from the '60's that still holds up artistically today.

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  5. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

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  6. The Lady in the Van. Maggie played a homeless woman who seeks shelter in a van parked in a driveway. A friendship of sorts ensues. Based on a true story. Maggie played the homeless woman to perfection. She also could have played an amateur sleuth homeless woman assisting the police.

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  7. First movie that came to mind was Gosford Park. She foreshadowed Violet Crowley. My favorite is Tea with the Dames. Documentary so was unscripted, but who needs a writer when they are so completely brilliant.

    If we could time travel and bring a younger Maggie to roles, how about Debs Gemma? So much of Gemma's character is not necessarily show by dialogue, more by her inner musings. Smith could share an entire page of dialogue with one raised eyebrow.

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    1. What a lovely idea, Coralee. Now I have to watch The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, when she was 35, just the right age to play Gemma now. I'm embarrassed to admit I've never seen it!

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  8. What about Ruth in Louise Penny's books. She is the right shape, the right age, could befriend a duck, and her acerbic wit, curmudgenliness (apparently not a word), and ability to be awkwardly kind and empathetic, would I think work.

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    1. That would've been brilliant casting, Margo!

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    2. Oh yes, Margo! She would be so much better than the two actresses who have already played Ruth in the TV versions that have been done. — Pat S

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  9. I can't pick a favorite, she wailed.... Everything she did was outstanding!

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  10. Besides the Harry Potter movies, I haven't really seen a lot of the stuff that Maggie Smith was in. I'm not sure what detective she could play either.

    Otherwise, the movies I've seen her in: The Secret Garden, both Sister Act movies (though only the first one was good) and Death on the Nile (1978). However, I think the one other movie I've seen her in might be the one I enjoyed the most. And that was The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It's a movie totally outside what I would normally consider my preferred range of movie preferences but I absolutely loved that whole movie and Maggie Smith's character was certainly a highlight, cranky bitter racist witch that she was for most of it.

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  11. And I read somewhere, didn’t I? That she was shy and nervous, and always apprehensive about her work. And was never sure of herself. And agreed, wow, she could play imperious like no one else!

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  12. I think my favorite was Downton Abbey. She had so many subtle zinger lines that she delivered with perfection. Anything she is in would be great. Mrs. Pollifax comes to my mind for the sleuth role.

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  13. I join the rest here in mourning this wonderful talent. I loved so many of her more recent works, but I am awed at how clearly I still remember her performance in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie when it has been decades since I saw it! One other more recent work no one has mentioned that I was fond of was Grandma Wendy in Hook.

    Even though Brenda Blethyn's Vera is impeccable, I feel like I could imagine a different Vera if a younger Maggie Smith brought her to the screen. Strangely enough, I could also imagine a much younger Smith as the leader of the UCOS team on New Tricks -- bawdy enough to bond with the guys but able to icily stare down senior officers when needed.

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    1. I think one of the obits also mentioned her performance in Hook as a fave.

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    2. One meme simply said “Hello Boy”. My eyes leaked at that one.
      I agree that Maggie Smith would have been an interesting Vera, although with a different acidic twist. And I love Brenda Blethyn’s Vera. (Heather S)

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  14. Maggie Smith did wonderful salt-of-the earth characters (well, honestly, she did wonderful all sorts characters) but I loved her upper crust turn, and my ideal production would have been a Tommy and Tuppence series, with the titular characters having grown old, but not at all tired, together. Christie did have the couple grow in real time in their books, with the last one having them in their seventies! Imagine Smith as Tuppence, Bill Nighy as Tommy! Heaven!

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    1. That is indeed dream casting, Julia. T & T were my favorite Christie sleuths, and Smith and Nighy would have been brilliant.

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    2. Agree about Smith and Nighy - I'd watch anything those two were in.

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  15. Sorry I missed yesterday's fun topic--was out all day!

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  16. One of my favorite Dame Maggie Smith films is the British Dark Comedy "Keeping Mum" (2006). As a housekeeper named Grace Hawkins to a vicar and his family in the village of Little Wallop, England, Maggie Smith's character has a rather dark and peculiar way of eliminating issues and problems that affect that family. As a sidebar, Rowan Atkinson is brilliant as the oblivious Vicar Walter Goodfellow who is clueless to the fact that his marriage is crumbling, his wife is having an affair, his teenage daughter is out of control and his young son is being bullied at school. He's too busy trying to write the ideal speech for an upcoming convention. Enter Dame Maggie Smith as the family's new housekeeper whose main goal is to put the pieces back together for this fractured family. Think Mary Poppins goes rogue...just a bit...whose well-intentioned though skewed ways of dealing with the issues made perfect sense to the character Grace Hawkins. Plus there's a great little twist at the end of the movie. Since Dame Maggie Smith's thoroughly develops every character she's ever played on film her often dry and not so subtle sarcastic way of delivery would suit any private detective role she would choose to play. She was the best of the best in the world of acting.

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  17. Wonderful movies mentioned! I loved Tea with Mussolini and Ladies in Lavender but I was absolutely captivated by her role as Caro in Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood - she nailed the southern accent! (Heather S)

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  18. It’s very sad when an artist passes away. But they’ve left the legacy of acting, music or art that you can view or hear it anytime..

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  19. This may be a bit far out, but I loved her as the Mother Superior in Sister Act, a hilarious and truly underrated film and performance by her.

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  20. I loved Maggie Smith in all the Harry Potter movies, in Downtown Abbey, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and many more. But like Evelyn, I am particularly fond of Keeping Mum (see summary above), which is a small masterpiece of black humor!

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  21. We've lost another treasure, but aren't we lucky to still have her best work forever?

    The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was great, and so was The Second Best, the sequel. A wonderful ensemble cast. I also loved her in Quartet, and Gosford Park, before Downton Abbey.

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  22. She was wonderful in everything she did Everything. I saw her on stage twice in parts that could not be more different. Was she great in both? What do you think? Noel Cowards Private Lives in NY .sometime in the 70's. She was a Coward heroine - clever, sophisticated, witty, dazzling. In London The Lady in the Van (n the 90s) elderly, mentally ill, somewhat of a health hazard who lived in a van in the driveway of the author. Unforgettable I felt so lucky

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    1. i wrote the note about seeing Maggie Smith on stage

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  23. I've loved Maggie Smith in any movie I've seen she's in. As you stated, Hallie, "she could vanquish with a pursed lip and a well directed gaze." She was, of course, the best of actresses with her voice and presentation of her lines, but her facial expressions were the best of any actress/actor. I have to pick the Harry Potter movies as my favorite Maggie Smith movies, as Kevin and I went to every one of them together (and read all the books together). I adored her in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisters and was always delighted when she had scenes on Downton Abbey.

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  24. Loved her in Hook and loved her line, "So Peter, You've become a pirate."

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