"The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" is on the surface the story of a woman who is too romantic for her own good. And unfortunately she is a teacher at a girl's school in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1936, and she does not realize how popular and dangerous she is.
Maggie Smith (who won her first of two Oscars for this performance) plays the part with a verve and style a real Jean Brodie would appreciate, and though Smith was a young woman at the time she also carries an additional burden of the character - not only is Jean a beautiful and enticing woman, but she is getting older and is worried about losing that critical edge in matters of sex that such types fear.
She is having affairs with the school's art teacher (Robert Stephens) and another teacher (Gordon Jackson - later "Hudson" in "Upstairs, Downstairs"). Both men want her to marry them, but she is too flirty (she'd say independent) to do so. None of this sits well with the prim head of the school (Celia Johnson - the sad heroine in the classic "Brief Encounter"). It also does not sit well with Ms Johnson that Brodie has developed a minor cult of personality with those girls who have her as a teacher. She constantly refers to the students as "her gails", and boasts she transforms them into young women by opening up their minds.
Actually she does open them (to appreciating art, life, love - she encourages them to "experiment" with men), but she is closing them to modern realities. Like many people in Great Britain in the 1930s (like George Bernard Shaw for awhile) she appreciates the firm "let's get things done" attitudes of Fascists on the continent like Mussolini and Franco (she does not mention Hitler, however). She believes them far more superior than the seemingly drab upholders of constitutional government like Stanley Baldwin (the current Prime Minister in 1936) or Ramsay MacDonald (the previous one). That the latter two, in the long run, did less harm than her heroes did is something she never gets a chance to talk about.*
[*In the novel and in a longer television version on Masterpiece Theater back in the 1980s, Jean does get her view thrown into her face - a refugee from the continent is invited to tell about how wonderful the Fascist "revival" is there, and the young woman gives Jean and her students an angry earful about how wonderful these leaders really are!]
She does have a bad affect on one chubby, somewhat slow girl named Mary MacGregor. Mary is convinced to run off to Spain to fight with her brother. But Mary happens to join Franco's side and is killed. Her brother was fighting Franco.
Johnson, in the end, is assisted by her school spies (one is a silent, wormy little woman whose brother is a local Presbyterian church elder), and by one of the girls who seems to come to her senses. In the end Jean is forced to leave the school, and confronts the girl who turned on her, whom she labels an assassin.
Actually the event are a little complicated here. The girl is having an affair with Robert Stephens, and sees he still carries his torch for Brodie. Fed up she is determined to get her vengeance on Brodie, and she tells Stephens why he will always be a third-rate painter. She is triumphant over Brodie, but she is aware that her character has been shown to be selfish and sneaky, and will never change. Johnson does get rid of Brodie, but has to be truly under-handed to do so. And Brodie, for all the shame of being forced out by these two still has her own sense of self-worth, comparing herself at the end to her ancestor Deacon William Brodie, the Edinburgh carpenter, cleric, and town councilor who was also a burglar at night, and was hung publicly on a gallows he had constructed.** Brodie might be down for the count as the film ends, but she will survive. Possibly better than her assassin will.
[**Deacon Brodie's story is better known to most people than we think. Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Tale of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde" was based on this tale.]
Maggie Smith (who won her first of two Oscars for this performance) plays the part with a verve and style a real Jean Brodie would appreciate, and though Smith was a young woman at the time she also carries an additional burden of the character - not only is Jean a beautiful and enticing woman, but she is getting older and is worried about losing that critical edge in matters of sex that such types fear.
She is having affairs with the school's art teacher (Robert Stephens) and another teacher (Gordon Jackson - later "Hudson" in "Upstairs, Downstairs"). Both men want her to marry them, but she is too flirty (she'd say independent) to do so. None of this sits well with the prim head of the school (Celia Johnson - the sad heroine in the classic "Brief Encounter"). It also does not sit well with Ms Johnson that Brodie has developed a minor cult of personality with those girls who have her as a teacher. She constantly refers to the students as "her gails", and boasts she transforms them into young women by opening up their minds.
Actually she does open them (to appreciating art, life, love - she encourages them to "experiment" with men), but she is closing them to modern realities. Like many people in Great Britain in the 1930s (like George Bernard Shaw for awhile) she appreciates the firm "let's get things done" attitudes of Fascists on the continent like Mussolini and Franco (she does not mention Hitler, however). She believes them far more superior than the seemingly drab upholders of constitutional government like Stanley Baldwin (the current Prime Minister in 1936) or Ramsay MacDonald (the previous one). That the latter two, in the long run, did less harm than her heroes did is something she never gets a chance to talk about.*
[*In the novel and in a longer television version on Masterpiece Theater back in the 1980s, Jean does get her view thrown into her face - a refugee from the continent is invited to tell about how wonderful the Fascist "revival" is there, and the young woman gives Jean and her students an angry earful about how wonderful these leaders really are!]
She does have a bad affect on one chubby, somewhat slow girl named Mary MacGregor. Mary is convinced to run off to Spain to fight with her brother. But Mary happens to join Franco's side and is killed. Her brother was fighting Franco.
Johnson, in the end, is assisted by her school spies (one is a silent, wormy little woman whose brother is a local Presbyterian church elder), and by one of the girls who seems to come to her senses. In the end Jean is forced to leave the school, and confronts the girl who turned on her, whom she labels an assassin.
Actually the event are a little complicated here. The girl is having an affair with Robert Stephens, and sees he still carries his torch for Brodie. Fed up she is determined to get her vengeance on Brodie, and she tells Stephens why he will always be a third-rate painter. She is triumphant over Brodie, but she is aware that her character has been shown to be selfish and sneaky, and will never change. Johnson does get rid of Brodie, but has to be truly under-handed to do so. And Brodie, for all the shame of being forced out by these two still has her own sense of self-worth, comparing herself at the end to her ancestor Deacon William Brodie, the Edinburgh carpenter, cleric, and town councilor who was also a burglar at night, and was hung publicly on a gallows he had constructed.** Brodie might be down for the count as the film ends, but she will survive. Possibly better than her assassin will.
[**Deacon Brodie's story is better known to most people than we think. Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Tale of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde" was based on this tale.]