The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (film) The novel was turned into a play by Jay Presson Allen that opened in London in 1966 with Vanessa Redgrave and 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. The film was released on DVD in the UK by Acorn Media in July 2010. Jean Brodie (Maggie Smith) is a teacher in the junior-aged section of the Marcia Blaine School for Girls in Edinburgh, Scotland in the 1930s. Brodie is known for her tendency to stray from the hard knowledge of the school's curriculum, to romanticize fascist leaders like Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco, and to believe herself to be in the prime of life. Miss Brodie tries to manoeuvre Jenny and Mr. Lloyd into having an affair, and Sandy into spying on them for her. There is a complex relationship between the novel, the play and the film.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969. A headstrong young teacher in a private school ignores the curriculum and influences her impressionable charges with her world view. In 1932 Miss Jean Brodie, a middle-aged spinster, teaches at Edinburgh's exclusive Marcia Blaine School. A romantic devoted to art and music, as well as a fascist sympathizer, Miss Brodie belittles those who do not share her enthusiasms. From her students she recruits a coterie, including the attractive Jenny; the impressionable Mary McGregor, a wealthy orphan; and the subtle Sandy, who proves to be her nemesis.
Courted by Lowther, a retiring music instructor at whose ancestral home she spends the weekends, Miss Brodie carries on an affair with Lloyd, an earthy art teacher and the father of a large Catholic family. Miss Brodie's antagonist is the humorless headmistress, Miss MacKay, who repeatedly attempts to dismiss her. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. All Critics (16) | Top Critics (3) | Fresh (14) | Rotten (2) | DVD (8) Maggie Smith's tour-de-force performance as a school-teacher slipping into spinsterhood is one of several notable achievements in this sentimental and macabre personal tragedy. Maggie Smith is handed a part in the eccentric, trite, purposeful and finally pathetic Jean Brodie which allows her to play to all her considerable strengths. Maggie Smith in one of those technically stunning, emotionally distant performances that the British are so damn good at.
As is so often the case, you can't help thinking that Oscar voters are easily impressed. Watching the film today, Maggie Smith's flamboyant acting looks awfully hammy, Maggie Smith deservedly won the 1969 Best Actress Oscar for playing a charismatic, authoritarian teacher in a Scottish girls school in the early 1930s. ...stripped of [star Maggie Smith's] presence, there's no doubt that the film would be a complete bore. Muriel Spark - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961) 100 Best Scottish Books of all Time Jean Brodie is one of the most complex characters in modern literature. As a teacher, she is passionate about her pupils, even if her methods are frowned upon by the authorities. This makes her a rebel, and we should love her for that. But her influence is malign; she attempts to cajole one of her girls into an affair with the art master, as a surrogate for herself, and another of her wards races to her doom in the Spanish Civil War, fighting on Franco’s side.
Brodie is a great supporter of Hitler and Mussolini, and this is one of her most shocking characteristics. But The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie isn’t just about its protean, Jekyll-and-Hyde hero/villain. The schoolgirls are also beautifully drawn, intriguing personalities in their own right, and the book has a complex narrative structure, flowing backwards and forwards in time. If all this makes the book seem worthy and literary, think again. View the complete list of the 100 Best Scottish Books. Muriel Spark. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Digested classics: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark. The girls formed the Brodie set. That was what they had been called by the headmistress when they arrived at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls at the age of 12.
At that time they had been instantly recognisable as Miss Brodie's pupils, being well informed on Mussolini and Renaissance art, but unaware of the rudiments of the curriculum. Now aged 16, the girls were all hastily sketched out by a single identifying feature. Monica was famous for mathematics; Rose was famous for sex; Eunice was famous for gymnastics; Sandy was famous for her piggy eyes and Mary for being a silent lump.
In truth, none of them was particularly interesting and it was only their arbitrary relationship with Miss Brodie that kept anyone awake for very long. "Miss Lockhart has suggested I apply for another post," Miss Brodie said, goose-stepping her way into the classroom. The Brodie set smiled. "Indeed," agreed Sandy, who was famous for her piggy eyes and would become Sister Helena of the Transfiguration. Maggie Smith. Dame Margaret Natalie "Maggie" Smith, DBE (born 28 December 1934) is an English actress. She made her stage debut in 1952 and has had an extensive, varied career in stage, film and television spanning over sixty years.
Smith has appeared in over 50 films and is one of Britain's most recognisable actresses. In 1990, she was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the performing arts.[1] She has won numerous awards for her acting in theatre, film and television; including seven BAFTA Awards (five competitive awards and two special awards including the BAFTA Fellowship in 1996), two Academy Awards, three Golden Globes, three Emmy Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Tony Award and an Honorary Olivier Award.
Early life[edit] Career[edit] Smith as Jean Brodie Smith appeared in Sister Act in 1992 and had a major role in the 1999 film Tea with Mussolini, where she appeared as the formidable Lady Hester. Smith was author J.