When Dame Maggie Smith passed away last week, I was reviewing some of her old films to see if there was anything that looked particularly fun to cover for this blog, and Travels with My Aunt (1972) popped up as promising. It co-stars her then-husband Robert Stephens, as well as Louis Gossett Jr., and was directed by legendary director George Cukor.  All very good things to recommend it!
The end result was a movie that really does not stand up well to the test of time, and though Dame Maggie did her best with the material, it was sometimes a hard 1 hour and 40 minutes to sit through. That said, the costumes, by Anthony Powell were excellent, as should be expected from a film that won the Academy Award for Best Costume in 1972. The film is set in the “present day” (presumably early 1970s London and its surrounding environs) but the story contains numerous flashback scenes in the 1910s through the 1930s.
Augusta (Smith) is the mysterious aunt in the title of the film (which was based on a novel of the same name), who suddenly appears at Henry Pulling’s mother’s funeral, claiming that she has knowledge of Henry’s true parentage. She then manages to convince him to go with her on a trip to Paris and then to Venice, using the unwitting Henry as a mule to smuggle a large sum of money across several borders in order to pay the ransom of one Ercole Visconti, whom she claims is the love of her life. Hijinks ensue. I’ll spare you the rest of the often tedious story and get down to the costumes.
All in all, I wouldn’t necessarily say you should run right out and rent this film for $3.99 on Amazon (also the film quality sucks, unfortunately), but I wouldn’t dissuade you from watching it if it happened to fall into your lap. Like I said in the intro, there’s a lot of this film that didn’t age well, from the wink-and-a-nod racism towards Louis Gossett Jr.’s character (among other non-white characters) to the overall acting and directorial style. But the costumes are beautifully designed, and Maggie Smith takes a film that is pretty “eh” and manages to take us somewhere with it, so that’s always worth it in my book.
Have you seen Travels with My Aunt (1972)? Tell us about it in the comments!
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I was waiting for someone to acknowledge the existence of this film! The film is creaky but, as you show, the costumes are great!
Dame Maggie was indeed quite the looker, not a conventional beauty but loads of personality.