Hitchcoc When Miss Brodie talks to her girls, she has an agenda. That is to recreate herself. She has established what she feels are the necessities to succeed in the world. There is one student in particular who exhibits that which she is preaching. The kicker, of course, is that if she is another Jean Brodie, she doesn't need anyone else. And this begins to happen. Unfortunately, the other girls don't have the where-with-all to be what she wishes. They begin gravitating toward the girl and away from their teacher. But this is about the wonderful performers, Maggie Smith in particular. Like my favorite, Anthony Hopkins, her performances are stellar and this, for some, is her best. Another star of the movie is the school and the 1930's setting. Her ideas predate what we believe today.

stjohn1253 This treasure nearly derailed at its finale. The confrontation of Miss Brodie with her former pupil, Sandy, equals the thrill of the sword fight between Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham in the original "Robin Hood"--up to a point (no pun). Had Robin somehow clocked the sheriff on the head with a frying pan at the end, it would have rivaled the break in continuity that Jean made when she rushed out to yell, "Assassin! Assassin!" to the departing Sandy. It didn't fit Jean's character. Add in the echo chamber effect, and the scene really annoys.That said, the acting and writing more than compensate for that one stumble. Maggie Smith mesmerizes not only the heads on the young shoulders in her classroom but those on all shoulders in the audience. The dialog crackles with wit and poignancy, such that you don't want to miss a word. It rates a 10. This may be some of the best time in front of the TV that you'll spend, as long as your appreciate the creme d' la creme of cinematic drama.

wes-connors In 1932 Edinburgh, exacting "Marcia Blaine School for Girls" teacher Maggie Smith (as Jean Brodie) arrives for work. Stylishly outfitted and attractively approaching spinster-hood, Miss Brodie enjoys sharing personal love stories with her students. Brodie does not adhere to the school's curriculum. She teaches an admiration of Benito Mussolini, the Fascist dictator. Brodie is available for sexual affairs with fellow teachers. She loves art teachers, like Robert Stephens (as Teddy Lloyd). She loves music teachers, like Gordon Jackson (as Gordon Lowther). Understandably, this irks headmistress Celia Johnson (as Emmaline Mackay)...Brodie selects a group of girls for special attention, taking them to lunch and the opera. She also encourages a sexual relationship between an ex-lover and one of - as she calls them - "My girls." In this film, the four singled out as Brodie favorites are: spectacled Pamela Franklin (as Sandy), stuttering Jane Carr (as Mary McGregor), pretty Diane Grayson (as Jenny) and histrionic Shirley Steedman (as Monica). While Brodie is polite, cultured and engaging, she is a truly wretched teacher...This film received some unfair criticism for its depiction of the lead character. Although the "Jean Brodie" character is toned-down from the original novel by Muriel Spark, her behavior is not celebrated. The admiration for Fascism was not uncommon in the 1930s. That this political system led to monstrous evil was unknown to Brodie; furthermore, it seduced entire nations of people. Within the four walls of a classroom, teachers are dictators. This fits Brodie's character perfectly. Her nature is part of the drama...And we are captivated...The story of "Jean Brodie" is a warning. Most important to the its success is a bewitching lead performance - and Maggie Smith delivers marvelously. She won a much-deserved "Academy Award" as "Best Actress" for her impersonation. Also extraordinary is the supporting role played by Ms. Franklin. That Franklin was not even recognized with an "Oscar" nomination is one of the organization's many glaring errors. While not looking quite 12-years old, Franklin received her well-earned "Supporting Actress" honor from the "National Board of Review". Although Smith is the driving force behind the film's success, all other personnel are excellent.********* The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (2/24/69) Robert Neame ~ Maggie Smith, Robert Stephens, Pamela Franklin, Celia Johnson

David Allen "The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie" (1968) is the best stage play ever to be presented in movie form..a great movie.The charge that most modern day movies (and possibly all movies throughout history) are air-headed, no-content exercises in providing viewers with a clever light show along with interesting sound of different flavors is true enough.The best stage plays over history made us think, appealed to our mentality and education, and needed good actors to get the play writer's point off the stage and into the audience.Good set decoration and other visuals are nice to have, but not absolutely needed. The Globe Theater in Shakespeare's day had almost no "set decoration" of the type seen in modern times. The "groundlings" (many of whom were well educated and worthy audience members, the noble sort who used to buy "stand up in the back of the theater" 50 cent tickets for Broadway Theater NYC shows 60 years ago) sat on the dirt floor in front of the open air play presented in daylight hours outside before the age of electricity and artificial light, when plays could not be presented lit by candles, the only night-time illumination before Thomas Edison (and others) changed things at the end of the 19th century."The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie" (1968) is a very high quality play written in play form by Jay Presson Allen, based on a book by Muriel Sparks, and was a big stage hit both on Broadway in NYC, and in London in England before it came to the screen in 1968."A Man For All Seasons" (1966) was another play made into a movie which came to movie houses at roughly the same time. Both movies starred gifted stage actors in lead roles, both movies resulted in Best Actor Academy Awards for the main stars."Plays which became movies, and were left mostly untouched" account for some of the very best movies in all movie history."The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie" (1968), which got Maggie Smith a well deserved Best Actress Academy Award, is perhaps the very best play ever filmed with the very best results in terms of technical and artistic movie making.It is a treasure.The subject of "movies based on plays" needs much more study and publicizing than it ever gets.The big money from movies never depended on delivering the quality available in movies like "The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie"(1968).The movie "business" always was (still is, mostly) all about mass taste and appeal to the mostly unwashed, uneducated hordes willing to spend money in return for a light and sound show which they (the hordes) find agreeable, stimulating, and distracting....a brief escape from their hard, unattractive lives, or at least the hard, unattractive parts of their lives.The percentage of truly "high quality" movies like "The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie" (1968) with great writing, great actor and technical movie work, great music, great direction, all blended wonderfully....the percentage of such movies made over history and still available to be got in the marketplace is tiny.....less than 5% of all movies available, and probably less than that....less than 1%.It is important to know about the "best of the best" in movies, just as it is regarding stage plays (e.g. important to know that the plays of Shakespeare are "the best of the best," and have never been equaled, or probably ever will be)."The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie" (1968) is a breathtaking movie based on a great stage play about a brilliant early middle aged female schoolteacher in a private school for girls in Scotland in 1932 who is fired from her job in disgrace, thanks to the head administrator of the school "Miss Brodie" (Maggie Smith) works for, and thanks to help provided Miss Brodie's main enemy, the "Headmistress," by one of Miss Brodie's most "loyal" students and protégés, "Sandy" played by Pamela Franklin (perfectly cast as the ugly duckling intellectual favorite student always described as "reliable," yet never sexually interesting or attractive, even though Franklin appears in almost full frontal nudity poses during a scene with her studio art teacher, "Teddy Lloyd," played wonderfully by Robert Stephens, who is not really aroused by naked "Sandy" and is rebuked in the same scene for thinking only of "Sandy's" teacher, "Jean Brodie," played by Maggie Smith....It's a movie so good, it should be ranked with "Citizen Kane" (1941) in importance for any who care for great movies over history....one of a handful of movies to take away to an island where the best movies of all are gathered to keep exiles company.A "Special Features" commentary by director Ronald Neame (1911 - 2010) and actress Pamela Franklin (1950 - ) was added to the 20th Century Fox "Studio Classics" DVD issue of this movie.The commentary provided by Ronald Neame was produced roughly 40 years after the movie was made, and Mr. Neame was about 85 years old. It is, by far, the very best "add on" commentary to be provided for any video I have ever seen. Mr. Neame is intelligent, complete, and insightful as he guides viewers through the movie and his direction of it. I've never witnessed a better job of "commentary" than this one.Pamela Franklin's contribution in assisting the commentary is also very well done, and notable. She stopped movie and TV actor work after 1981....and discusses what happened in a straightforward and poignant way during her commentary, compares her good treatment in the UK (England) to bad treatment she got in the USA toward the end of her 56 credit list of movie and TV actor jobs.-------------- Written by David "Tex" Allen, SAG Actor.Email Tex Allen at [email protected] Visit WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen for movie credits and biography.