re: And the Maggie Smith films TCM is showing are...
Posted by: portenopete 11:31 am EST 12/08/24
In reply to: And the Maggie Smith films TCM is showing are... - TheOtherOne 07:37 am EST 12/08/24

Nowhere To Go is a crime suspense film that I find interesting in that it shows her in the the kind of ingénue role that might have become a whole career. She is good in it but it's a role that any attractive young actress of the day could have played effectively. If I've got my dates right, she had already done New Faces in NYC and Share My Lettuce in London so her revue/comedy career was already notable. I imagine it's in Michael Coveney's biography- which I should really read- but I would think that if she had it in her mind that she'd like to be a movie star Nowhere to Go seemed like a good way to start the ball rolling. It seems fitting that the path that eventually unfurled for her movie stardom was playing Shakespeare at the National onstage and having it filmed, and then increasingly playing older, odder character parts (with the odd glamour girl thrown in).

I remember sitting in the front row watching her in David Hare's The Breath of Life in the early 2000's and marvelling at how f***ing glamorous she still was at 68. It makes me think of the incredible alchemy that goes into a long career and the infinite number of "what ifs" that create one like Maggie Smith's, and what would the careers of glamour girls like Joan Collins, Honour Blackman, Joanna Lumley might have been like if they'd veered a slightly different direction sixty years ago? (No diss on any of them, two of whom are still happily active and Dame'd.)
reply

Previous: re: And the Maggie Smith films TCM is showing are... - TheOtherOne 03:39 pm EST 12/08/24
Next: Paul Mescal is the host of "SNL" tonight. nm - kieran 09:34 pm EST 12/07/24
Thread:


    Time to render: 0.014557 seconds.