Dame Maggie died this morning aged 89. I'm glad we'd seen two of her earlier films - The Pumpkin Eater and Young Cassidy - not too long ago but we made a mistake with Travels With My Aunt as though she's fine as always - in her mid-thirties playing seventies and twenties - the film doesn't really work. I suppose where it does come off is that it's a coming-of-age story of a stuffy middle-aged banker, played by Alec McGowan, but the story and situations are bland. We couldn't even finish it.
It looks great thanks to Douglas Slocombe and John Box, though Dougie's efforts to de-age mid-thirties Maggie using filters are quite transparent. There's no camera operator credited, unusually.
Our next choice though was fried solid gold. Maggie is Aunt Charlotte, on the one hand an overly prim and proper guardian ("I'm sorry to take the larger room, but the young man was using it") but conversely gossipy and at heart romantic.
E.M. Forster's story is a wonderfully observed critique of Edwardian manners and morals, adapted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.
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| The film was 'Not Rated' in the USA |
It was also Helena Bonham Carter's feature debut (and that of Rufus Sewell), and she's wonderful. Beautifully photographed by Tony Pierce-Roberts.
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