DVD/150: MAGGIE SMITH AT THE BBC - THE MERCHANT OF VENICE / THE MILLIONAIRESS / A BED AMONG THE LENTILS / SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER (various. tv)

An uneven quartet of BBC productions starring Maggie Smith.

Cedric Messina produced the PLAY OF THE MONTH series but also directed their 1972 version of THE MERCHANT OF VENICE; Portia's mix of humour and drama was perfect for Maggie but she struggles with a leaden studio-based production and a subdued Frank Finlay as Shylock.

She starred in another 1972 POTM, Shaw's THE MILLIONAIRESS where she is pure Smith: her fur stole wealded like a weapon, imperiously all wrists, cheekbones and shoulders but it's another underwhelming production.

Also included is her unforgettable Susan, the depressive vicar's wife whose secret drinking leads to the arms of an Asian shopkeeper in TALKING HEADS, written and directed by Alan Bennett.

Last is Richard Eyre's adaptation of Tennesee Williams' Southern Gothic SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER.  Maggie was ill during the filming but her subdued Mrs Venable exudes a patrician power rather than all-out madness.

Shelf or charity shop?  Half of the productions might be underwhelming but Maggie's performances make it onto the shelf. Interestingly, the extras make it more of a keeper: there is her episode from the 1967 series ACTING IN THE 60S where she is interviewed by Clive Goodwin and they are later joined by her longtime friend Kenneth Williams to discuss playing comedy.  A 1973 apperance on PARKINSON is a great addition when, again joined by Kenneth Williams, they read John Betjemin's "Death In Leamington" to the obvious pleasure of Betjemin.

 

Dvd/150: SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER (Joseph L Mankiewicz, 1959)

Tennessee Williams' one-act play is expanded by screenwriter Gore Vidal into a fevered Southern Gothic horror classic (Williams recieved a co-writing credit but did no work on it).

Mankiewicz's overwrought film doesn't do the play justice but it's worth it when you have Elizabeth Taylor and Katharine Hepburn going at each other, leaving Montgomery Clift's doctor a mere onlooker.

Hepburn is fantastic as the possessive Mrs Venable, offering to bankroll Clift's hospital providing he lobotomize hysterical niece Taylor, the only witness to her son's death "suddenly last summer..."

Taylor looks magnificent and gives us full 'star' acting, but it's in her quieter moments that she really delivers; her manic scenes show off her vocal limitations too much.

Taylor demanded Clift play the doctor but only three years after his near-fatal car crash, he is a hesitant, stumbling shadow of his former self.

For all it's flaws, unmissable!

Shelf or charity shop?  Katharine Hepburn was so disgusted with Mankiewicz's on-set bullying of shaky Montgomery Clift that when he yelled 'cut' on her very last scene, she asked him if that was definitely her last moment on the film, when Mankiewicz said it was she spat in his face.  One to keep but living in the limbo of my plastic DVD box.  It's worth keeping for the crazed cameo of comedy harridan Rita Webb as a knitting asylum inmate!