Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

SnoopyStyle It's 1932 Edinburgh. Jean Brodie (Maggie Smith) is a single teacher in the Marcia Blaine School for Girls. She considers herself to be in her Prime teaching her precocious girls love, politics and art. She admires Mussolini as a "man of action" and raises funds for Franco. Two teachers take a fancy to her. Gordon Lowther is the nice music teacher. Teddy Lloyd is the edgy art teacher who asks to paint her. Brodie and Lloyd kiss. Stuttering Mary catches them. The other girls Monica, "dependable" smart Sandy and pretty Jenny force it out of her. After Lloyd paints Jenny, the girls leave his studio with Sandy staying behind. Lloyd makes a pass at her. Sandy starts to wonder about their unquestioned admiration for Brodie. A romantic letter written by two of the girls is found and the headmistress demands Brodie resign.This starts off like a nice coming-of-age movie. Sure there is the fascist support from Brodie but that could be an easy learning experience for everybody later on. It just keeps taking a darker and darker turn. It would be less jarring if it foreshadow the dark turns with some ominous scenes early on. It would also help to make Sandy the protagonist instead of Brodie. The darkness is compelling and Maggie Smith is amazing. This is an interesting take on the coming-of-age story.

MARIO GAUCI Dame Maggie Smith is one of the most formidable of British actresses; however, she has a penchant to star in films which hold little appeal to me on paper – from Merchant/Ivory costume pieces to the HARRY POTTER franchise. This is one of the reasons why it has taken me this long to watch her Oscar-winning turn in the film under review (despite having been shown on local TV several years ago), or her other Best Actress nod in George Cukor's TRAVELS WITH MY AUNT (1972; which is a staple of the TCM UK channel); conversely, I am familiar with the film for which she won her second Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, i.e. the star-studded Neil Simon comedy California SUITE (1978) or, for that matter, movies in which her work was similarly shortlisted for recognition like OTHELLO (1965) and Robert Altman's GOSFORD PARK (2001). Incidentally, I was lucky to attend the London Film Festival premiere of Dustin Hoffman's directorial debut QUARTET (2012) which starred Smith, Tom Courtenay, Michael Gambon and Billy Connolly where all four stars were in attendance. Anyway, Smith here plays the titular character of a liberated schoolteacher in an Edinburgh girls' school in 1932 who, while ostensibly teaching her pupils the boring subject of History, instills in them an unconditional appreciation for Art, Life, Love and Politics. The excessive zeal with which Brodie goes about her business has all-round tragic consequences: from her butting heads with (and eventually getting the sack from) headmistress Celia Johnson; her star pupils (including "dependable" Pamela Franklin) being looked down upon by both peers and fellow teachers – especially when it is learnt that Smith is taking them to her boyfriend/music teacher Gordon Jackson's farm on Sundays; a new addition to the fold, a stuttering girl in pigtails, is sufficiently impressed by Brodie's singing of Generalissimo Franco's praises (and Benito Mussolini beforehand) to fatally follow her brother (currently involved in the Spanish Civil War) on the battlefield; Franklin poses in the nude for Art teacher Robert Stephens (although he is a Catholic, married and a father of six children, he carries on a torrid affair with Smith herself) and becomes his lover, etc. Although the smooth running of Brodie's iconoclastic curriculum had already hit a snag when Franklin and Diana Grayson (playing Brodie's favourite pupil Jenny) decide to play a prank on ill-matched lovers Smith and Jackson by penning a sordid love letter that ends on Johnson's desk, it completely deteriorates with the death of innocent Mary McGregor… THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE, adapted by Jay Presson Allen from Muriel Spark's novel, was somewhat surprisingly released on DVD as part of the "Fox Studio Classics" where it included an Audio Commentary with the film's late director (then a 93-year old) and long-retired actress Franklin; however, as with similar entries in the series that I watched recently – namely TITANIC (1953) and AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER (1957) – I have not had time to listen to it due to time constraints. Although the acting is generally of a high calibre, I know where film critic Leslie Halliwell is coming from when he says it is "maddeningly acted" since the level of histrionics on display – particularly Smith herself – is sometimes hard to take; still, the film's highlights are the two confrontations between Smith and Johnson (with a dumbfounded Jackson looking on) and the climactic one between Smith and Franklin (whose shocking nude scene might well have cost her an Oscar nomination!) where their tense relationship throughout reaches its final meltdown. For the record, that same year Peter O'Toole was among the year's Oscar nominees for Best Actor for the similarly-set GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS! and actor Stephens was currently wed to Smith in real life. When it comes to awards the film received, it was up for another Oscar – albeit an unaccountable one for Best Song (since the very short tune is only heard once over the closing credits which, incredibly enough, did manage to emerge victorious at the Golden Globes…but not Smith or the film itself!); both Franklin and Johnson, then, were also recognized at the BAFTAs. The film also competed, albeit unsuccessfully, at that year's Cannes Film Festival where, yet another film set in a British school – Lindsay Anderson's IF…. (1968), was crowned the overall winner.

Neil Welch This is the film which put Maggie Smith on the map (as far as movies are concerned).Set in Edinburgh between the wars, jean Brodie is a teacher at a girls' school. She is a free thinking free spirit who is in her prime, as she is fond of telling "her girls." And the ideas she offers, and the way in which she offers them, are so seductive that her girls drink them in readily becoming, in the process, not so much free thinkers as good little clones. And we, the audience, gradually come to the understanding that this woman's narcissism is so all-pervading that the flattery of imitation is what she craves rather than the opening of young minds. And, in the end, when it becomes clear what she has done to these girls...This film is gentle but powerful. And although Maggie Smith is mesmerising as this unlikely monster, the ensemble playing is wonderful, with Pamela Franklin a standout as the girl for whom the programming did not work.It has been a long time since I watched this, but I think it is about time for another viewing.

mark.waltz So says Miss Jean Brodie (Maggie Smith), the effervescent teacher at an Edinborough, Scotland girl's school in 1932. Miss Brodie isn't making this remark because she is pompous, opinionated, or domineering---she's simply warning her charges not to take everything she says so literally, or basically warn them, like some cartoons do, "Do not try this at home". Miss Brodie's personality is obvious the moment she tells one of her new charges, "For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like." Yes, you could call her eccentric, and she'd probably agree. She's also very progressive, and that really bothers the imperious head mistress (veteran British actress Celia Johnson). At first, Miss Brodie seems well loved, and that she is, by her pupils, but it's very apparent that some teachers would like to see her go. Try not to laugh at the bird-like assistant to Johnson that delivers a message with such a lemon-puckered smirk, or the very butch gym teacher. This is a film filled with such wonderful little touches that more than a single viewing of this film is needed to devour everything.The wonderful Maggie Smith, with her delightful voice echoing in your ears like a symphony, is radiant. There is almost a glow about her, and it is easy to see why her performance won the Best Actress award, and why more than 40 years later, she is still as beloved as she was during her own prime. She gives her character an authentic Scottish accent, and makes her believable and human even with her eccentricities and faults which are slowly revealed throughout the story. But these faults do not make her unlikable, more controversial for such a conservative (and ultimately dangerous) time. Her speeches on Mussolini are eye-raising for sure, and the outcome of her advice to one student is the tragic misstep that will bring her past her prime in a very surprising way.All of the actresses in the student roles are excellent, particularly Pamela Franklin as the girl who changes the most. The final scene of Franklin walking out of the school with Miss Brodie's words from years before echoing in her mind is unforgettable.