The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) - Maggie Smith / Muriel Spark

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a 1969 drama film, based on the novel of the same name by Muriel Spark.

The novel was turned into a play by Jay Presson Allen, which opened on Broadway in 1968, with Zoe Caldwell in the title role, a performance for which she won a Tony Award. This production was a moderate success, running for just less than a year, but it has often been staged by both professional and amateur companies since then.

Allen adapted her play into a film in 1969, which was directed by Ronald Neame. It is remembered for Maggie Smith's performance in the title role, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.

There was also a notable performance from Pamela Franklin as Sandy, for which she won the National Board of Review award for Best Supporting Actress. It was entered into the 1969 Cannes Film Festival. Rod McKuen was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song for "Jean", which became a huge hit for the singer Oliver in Autumn 1969.

Plot:

Jean Brodie is a teacher at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls in Edinburgh, Scotland in the 1930s. Known for her tendency to romanticize fascist leaders like Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco, she devotes her time and energy to her four special girls, called the Brodie set: Sandy, Monica, Jenny and Mary McGregor. Mary, a new girl with a stutter, first had troubles with the other three, but eventually all four became close.

The set often go to art museums, theatre, concerts, have picnics on the school lawn, among other things, which rather upsets the school's austere headmistress, Emmeline Mackay, who dislikes the fact that the girls are cultured to the exclusion of hard knowledge, and the Brodie girls seem precocious for their age.

1978 Television Version:

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was adapted by Scottish Television into a seven episode television serial in 1978, also written by Jay Presson Allen, and starring Geraldine McEwan. Rather than recapitulate the plot of the novel, the series imagined episodes in the lives of the characters in the novel, such as conflict between Jean Brodie and the father of an Italian refugee student, who fled Mussolini's Italy because the father was persecuted as a Communist.
~ Wiki

Category:

Film & Animation

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• Jenny
• Mary
• McGregor

[TheFiown]

I am Scottish and a fan of Maggie ,,,, many thanks ,, she is part of my culture ,,,xx

[jamminerva]

I love this film. I now know why Maggie said that Professor Minerva McGonagall was just Miss Jean Brodie in a witch's hat.

[yourtreat2]

Nobody could play this role as well as Maggie Smith. It was if it was written for her. IMO it showed her at her very best, and was quite possibly the best role she ever played, at least as far as the general public was concerned. She became household name after this movie, despite her having done greet work before and since.

One of the more popularly memorable movies of the 'late 60's , and deservedly so.

[GwendolynChristine]

@GwendolynChristine Ms. Miss Jean Brodie is a metaphor.

[GwendolynChristine]

this film is nothing like i expected. It was compelling and challenging to everything i believe in about society. both views were right but one went against the practice of student well being; having greatly to do with ignorance.

[bullwinkle1989]

This is one of my favorite films of all time!

[brtrauff]

Great film! Thank you very much.

[4Topwood]

There is no better example of screen magnetism, star quality or just plain charisma than Maggie Smith playing Jean Brodie.

Of course, I'm also delighted to see one of the far too rare film appearance of the marvelous Celia Johnson.