Miss MacTaggart Won't Lie Down (1966) User Reviews

Sweet, charming and funny.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 7/10 · 22 August 2023]

Jeannie MacTaggart returns home from a visit to Glasgow to discover that everyone thinks she's a ghost, turns out her sister died at her home, and was falsely identified as Jeannie. Jeannie discovers that being declared dead has major problems.

One of the most curious, strangest things I've ever seen, how on Earth could such an innocent and sweet, old lady go on such an alarming crime spree. Her crimes escalate as her frustrations grow.

Plenty of gentle laughs from start to finish, I'm afraid my knowledgeable of the law isn't as good as it should be, so I'm not sure whether the troublesome law was actually in place or not, it seems so curious.

Barbara Mullen is an absolute delight as Jeannie, what a lovely, sweet actress, you can only imagine the poor lady's frustrations.

Lovely.

7/10.

Delightful short

[malcolmgsw · 7/10 · 12 May 2019]

Barbara Mullen gets the opportunity to star in this amusing short.Interesting to see how easy it was to access Parliament,and that a bomb hoax was treated in such a comical way.

At the Eleventh Hour

[richardchatten · 6/10 · 28 September 2020]

Francis Searle's first film in colour reflects the struggle to disinter the buried union card in the same year's 'Death of a Bureaucrat'.

Because exaggerated reports of her death mean she can no longer withdraw money from her local post office, Jeannie MacPherson is forced to prove she's still alive by committing antisocial acts like breaking windows, playing bagpipes in the small hours and planting an unexploded haggis under the Houses of Parliament in this gentle satire on bureaucracy reminiscent of the refusal of the rest of the company in 'Catch-22' to accept that Doc Daneeka isn't dead despite his protestations to the contrary.

half hour of delight

[david.clarke · 15 September 2002]

I have not seen this for many years, but remember this short film fondly. A spinster who has been proclaimed dead when it is her sister who has died, has to reclaim her identity by committing crimes. A lot of humour comes from sweet old Barbara Mullen doing unnatural acts to get a criminal record and regain her name.

Genteel Scottish comedy short

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 13 November 2016]

MISS MACTAGGART WON'T LIE DOWN is a short comic effort from prolific director Francis Searle, here working at the tail-end of his career. It's a genteel effort with a Scottish setting about a kindly old woman who arrives in her home town to find that she's technically dead (her twin sister died and was mistaken for her).

The old lady becomes increasingly frustrated by the lack of recognition and turns to crime to regain her identity. Although the running time is just 30 minutes, there's a lot of incident packed into the length of this short feature and it's quite amusing too. The cast are obviously enjoying themselves and who are we to criticise them? This picture tends to be a lot funnier than Searle's other short efforts from the period.

Not a very satisfying ending

[imdb-14359 · 4/10 · 18 December 2021]

A dead person can't be sentenced for a crime.

She commits a load of crimes including planting a haggis bomb The Prime Minister agrees to the the law changed She tells the authorities where the "bomb" is The end!

WHAT?!?!?!?!

What was the point of the bomb?

Was the law changed?

Was she charged with the various crimes?

Why wasn't she charged as an unnamed living person?

I really expected more of an ending. :(

Very quirky.

[plan99 · 10/10 · 17 May 2024]

I enjoyed this short and is was indeed possible to walk up to the front door of 10 Downing Street as I did about 1973, there were no barriers back then. A charming wee Scottish film shown on TPTV in the UK where many older and unusual films can be found but which are probably of little interest to anyone under the age of 50 or so.

Watch this to see a slice of Scottish life which in some small villages it has probably not changed much since 1966, except that there are a lot more cars about of course.

She became a one woman crime wave to get what she wanted. Not the best of endings but we can presume that it was a happy one.