Maggie Smith died last year, leading TCM to run a programming tribute to her in December. One of the movies that I had never gotten around to reviewing was the movie that won Smith her first Oscar, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. So I made certain to record it so that I could watch it and write up this review.
The movie opens up in 1932, at the Marcia Blaine Girls' School in Edinburgh, Scotland. Girls are making their way to school for the opening bell, as are various faculty members, including Jean Brodie (Maggie Smith). When Brodie arrives at the school, she's buttonhole by the music teacher, Gordon Lowther (Gordon Jackson), who has been trying to get her to see him, even though he's married if unhappily. In fact, Jean is also the art teacher, Teddy Lloyd (Robert Stephens), making her personal life rather complicated.
Miss Brodie's personal life isn't the only thing that's complicated, as her professional life is, too. Jean is a bit of a free spirit, which gets her in conflict with the headmistress, Miss Mackay (Celia Johnson). She's also taken a couple of her students, notably Sandy (Pamela Franklin), and made them a sort of clique who Jean suggests are going to become a sort of higher-class group of girls. Added to this group is young Mary McGregor (Jane Carr), a Catholic orphan with an elder brother and enough of a trust fund to be able to pay for the schooling.
The other thing that makes Jean controversial is her political views. She visited Italy at some point in the past and shows her students slides from her vacation. But partly as a result of that vacation she developed an admiration for Benito Mussolini's governance. That's not a massive deal in 1932; remember that Cole Porter included a positive reference to Mussolini in the original lyrics to "You're the Tops" and one of Marie Dressler's dogs in Dinner at Eight was originally called "Mussolini". But the movie opens before 1933, and once Hitler comes to power, supporting Mussolini is much more questionable. Worse is that the Spanish Civil War starts and Jean takes the side of Franco even though pretty much everyone else in the UK doesn't like them. Mary's brother runs off to Spain, and Jean naturally believes that he's gone to join Franco's forces, and tries to convince Mary to run off to Spain to follow her brother.
Sandy is the one person who, despite being one of "Miss Brodie's girls", has a mind of her own as well, and doesn't always do what Jean thinks she should. So when Jean starts sleeping with Lowther despite still seemingly want to have a relationsihp with Lloyd, Sandy starts seeing Lloyd herself, even posing nude for a portrait. Except that Lloyd is also less than fully honest, as we learn that the portrait is in fact one of Jean. Tensions continue to rise, until there's the possibility for Miss Mackay of finally being able to get rid of Jean.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie isn't quite as complicated as my synopsis might make it sound, although you'll have to pay attention because of the high number of young girl characters. The movie, however, is much more Jean Brodie's story, and Maggie Smith is magnificent as Brodie, a woman who thinks she's much more hot stuff than she really is. The rest of the cast is quite good in support of Smith as well.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is another of those movies where, if you haven't seen it before, you really should.
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