Several months ago - September 27th 2024 to be exact - we lost the incomparable Maggie Smith. One of the all-time great actresses of stage and screen, Ms. Smith died in London at the age of 89. The very day she passed, as my way of commemorating her long and distinguished career, I watched (for the first time) the movie that netted Dame Maggie her very first Academy Award, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
And she was phenomenal in it!
It’s the early 1930s, and Jean Brodie (Smith) is a teacher at the Marcia Bline School for Girls in Edinburgh, Scotland. Though her assigned subject is history, Jean Brodie often discusses art and poetry with her students, which puts her at odds with stuffy headmistress Miss Mackay (Celia Johnson). A free spirit, Jane also has an active love life, and is avoiding the amorous advances of married art teacher Teddy Lloyd (Robert Stephens), with whom she recently had an affair, to instead forge a relationship with the dull but kindly music teacher, Gordon Lowther (Gordon Jackson).
More than anything, though, Jean Brodie is dedicated to her pupils, four of whom: Sandy (Pamela Franklin), Jenny (Diane Grayson), Monica (Shirley Steedman), and newest student Mary McGregor (Jane Carr), have formed a group known around the school as the “Brodie Girls”. Taking them on weekend field trips and tours of the city, Jean Brodie is especially fond of her Brodie Girls, and believes she is preparing them for very bright futures.
But when Jean, who is no stranger to controversy, crosses a line by extolling the virtues of fascism to her students, it may spell the end of her academic career.
Everything about Ronald Neame’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, from the costumes, sets, and locations to the music (“Jean”, written and performed by Rod McKeun, won that year’s Golden Globe for Best Original Song), impressed the hell out of me.
Across the board, the performances are solid. Robert Stephens, who at the time was married to Maggie Smith, is cocky as the oversexed Teddy Lloyd, yet has genuine feelings for Jean Brodie, to the point that he believes she may be the only woman he has ever loved. Also good are Gordon Jackson as Jean’s other romantic entanglement, a man who is dependable yet not near her league, and Celia Jackson as the uptight headmistress whose attitude towards Jane may be driven as much by envy as a genuine distaste for the outspoken teacher’s methods.
The finest of the supporting turns, however, is delivered by Pamela Franklin as Sandy, the most gifted of the “Brodie Girls”. At the start, Sandy and the others idolize Jean Brodie, and want to spend as much time with her as possible. But as the girls mature, (the film’s events span several years), Sandy takes special notice of the failings of Jean Brodie, some genuinely observed, others brought on by Sandy’s own jealousy (she, too, has an affair with Teddy Lloyd). Playing a character whose age ranges from 12 to 17 over the course of the movie, Miss Franklin perfectly conveys the wide-eyed innocence of youth as well as a budding, independent young woman.
At the center of it all, though, is Maggie Smith as Jean Brodie. Talking at times as if she were a character in an Oscar Wilde play (especially in her opening scenes, addressing her class on the first day back at school), Jean Brodie is a force of nature in this movie. She is outgoing, energetic, dedicated, and flamboyant, and we see almost immediately why both men and her students are drawn to her. Jean is fiercely independent, refusing to adhere to a curriculum so that she can broaden the horizons of her pupils, and a scene in which she stands up to Miss Mackay, who is demanding that Jean resign, is one of the film’s high points.
But as The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie reveals, Jean is far from perfect, and it’s a credit to Maggie Smith that, even in those scenes in which her character is crossing a line, or allowing her own selfish plans to get in the way of what’s best for her girls, she does not hold back. Perhaps most controversial, for both the story and the film’s potential audience, is Jean’s insistence that Fascism is the wave of the future, and should be embraced. On holiday, Jean spends her free time in Italy, and expresses admiration for “Il Duce”, Bentio Mussolini. Even when her support for Franco’s efforts in Spain results in a tragedy that rocks the Brodie girls, Jean does not waver. From start to finish of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, the title character oozes charisma, and has a magnetic personality. Our opinions of her may change over the course of the film, but Jane herself does not change.
My favorite Maggie Smith performance is in Robert Altman’s Gosford Park, where she plays the witty but snobbish Aunt Constance. Part of an amazing ensemble, Smith still managed to steal every scene, and though she didn’t play the most likable character in Gosford Park, I couldn’t help but admire her. The same can be said of her Jean in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Whether we love her or detest her, Jean Brodie is the film’s most fascinating individual, and we are as drawn to her as the film’s characters.
And the late, great Maggie Smith is the reason why.
Rating: 9 out of 10
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