.gif)
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (film)
Encyclopedia
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a 1969 drama film
, based on the novel of the same name by Muriel Spark
.
The novel was turned into a play by Jay Presson Allen
, which opened 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.
Allen adapted her play into a film in 1969
, which was directed by Ronald Neame
. It is remembered for Maggie Smith
's performance in the title role, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress
. There was also a notable performance from Pamela Franklin
as Sandy, for which she won the National Board of Review award for Best Supporting Actress. It was entered into the 1969 Cannes Film Festival
. Rod McKuen
was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song for "Jean
", which became a huge hit for the singer Oliver in autumn 1969.
The film was released on DVD in the UK by Acorn Media in July 2010
There were two married couples in the cast: Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens, and Gordon Jackson and Rona Anderson.
, Scotland in the 1930s. Known for her tendency to romanticize fascist leaders like Benito Mussolini
and Francisco Franco
, she devotes her time and energy to her four special girls, called the Brodie set: Sandy, Monica, Jenny and Mary McGregor. Mary, a new girl with a stutter, first had troubles with the other three, but eventually all four became close.
The set often go to art museums, theatre, concerts, have picnics on the school lawn, among other things, which rather upsets the school's austere headmistress, Emmeline Mackay, who dislikes the fact that the girls are cultured to the exclusion of hard knowledge, and the Brodie girls seem precocious for their age. She also seems to have a running grudge against Brodie, who has tenure
.
Besides working with her girls, Jean catches the eye of music teacher Gordon Lowther, who she and her girls spend a lot of time with at his home in Cramond
, a seaside village on the outskirts of Edinburgh. (She sometimes spends the night with Mr. Lowther, although she tries to conceal this from the girls.) Mr. Lowther wants them to get married, but Brodie drags her feet. She still has feelings for her married ex-lover, Teddy Lloyd, who is the art teacher in the senior section of the school.
Also working with Brodie (and all somewhat disapproving of her unorthodox teaching methods and her influence on the girls) were Miss Campbell the gym teacher, the sewing mistresses Miss Ellen and Miss Allison Kerr, Miss McKenzie the strict librarian, and Miss Gaunt the headmistress's mouselike, non-talking secretary. Miss Gaunt's brother is a deacon
at Mr. Lowther's church who eventually asks for his resignation as organist and elder
because of his relationship with Miss Brodie.
Between the years, Miss Brodie rises to her apex, and also falls, given that Miss Mackay and most of the other teachers and staff at the very conservative school want her to no longer teach there. During the downfall, she loses Mr. Lowther, who gets engaged to Miss Lockhart the chemistry teacher, one of the only teachers at Marcia Blaine who was sympathetic towards Miss Brodie as a person and to her teaching style.
As the Brodie Set grow older and become students in the Senior School, she tries to manoeuvre Jenny and Mr. Lloyd into having an affair, and Sandy into spying on them for her. However it is actually Sandy (who grows resentful of Miss Brodie's praise of Jenny's beauty) who has an affair with Mr. Lloyd. Sandy ends the affair because of Mr. Lloyd's overwhelming obsession with Miss Brodie.
Mary McGregor, influenced by Brodie, sets out to Spain to join her brother who she believes is fighting for Franco
, but she is killed when her train is attacked shortly after crossing the frontier. This finally leads Sandy into betraying Miss Brodie to Miss Mackay and the school's board of governors, who finally decide to have Miss Brodie's job terminated.
At the end, Sandy confronts Miss Brodie on her crimes, most especially her manipulation of Mary; her part in her senseless death, for which she is unapologetic; and the harmful influence she exerted on other girls; and adds that Mary's brother is actually fighting for the Spanish Republicans
. She then walks out of her classroom, with a frantic Miss Brodie screaming "Assassin!!" at Sandy. Sandy, however, doesn't look back.
After the confrontation, Sandy, Monica, and Jenny graduate along with the other girls. Despite knowing full well that she had betrayed Brodie to Mackay and the board of governors, Sandy did so out of concern for any other girl who could have been a target of Miss Brodie and her fanatical ways, and, perhaps too, resentment over Miss Brodie's preference for Jenny and Teddy Lloyd's unending obsession with Miss Brodie.
At the end of the film as Sandy leaves the school for the last time, her face streaked with angry and bitter tears Miss Brodie (in voiceover) stated her usual motto: "Little girls, I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders, and all my pupils are the crème de la crème. Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life."
Although Allen did manage to create a successful play out of what may not have been the easiest of novels to adapt, some have questioned whether it is a particularly faithful adaptation. It turned an experimental work into a realistic one, and removed some theological issues, turning it into a story of failed love.
The play reduced the number of girls in the Brodie Set from six to four (and discarded another girl not in the set) and some of them are composites of girls in the novel. Mary is a composite of the original Mary and Joyce Emily; although mainly based on the original Mary, in the novel it was Joyce Emily who died in the Spanish Civil War, and rather more is made of this incident in the play than the novel. Jenny is a composite of the original Jenny and Rose; in spite of her name she has more in common with Rose, since in the novel it was she who Miss Brodie tried to manoeuvre into having an affair with Mr Lloyd.
The novel made extensive use of flash forward
. The play largely abandoned this, although it did include a few scenes showing Sandy as a nun
in later life. The film also made a few changes from the play, the biggest being that it discarded these scenes and was entirely linear narrative.
into a seven episode television serial in 1978, also written by Jay Presson Allen, and starring Geraldine McEwan
. Rather than recapitulate the plot of the novel, the series imagined episodes in the lives of the characters in the novel, such as conflict between Jean Brodie and the father of an Italian refugee student, who fled Mussolini's Italy because the father was persecuted as a Communist.
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
, based on the novel of the same name by Muriel Spark
Muriel Spark
Dame Muriel Spark, DBE was an award-winning Scottish novelist. In 2008 The Times newspaper named Spark in its list of "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945".-Early life:...
.
The novel was turned into a play by Jay Presson Allen
Jay Presson Allen
Jay Presson Allen was an American screenwriter, playwright, stage director, television producer and novelist. Known for her withering wit and sometimes-off-color wisecracks, she was one of the few women making a living as a screenwriter at a time when women were a rarity in the profession...
, which opened on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in 1968, with Zoe Caldwell
Zoe Caldwell
Zoe Caldwell, OBE is an Australian-born actress.-Early life:She was born as Ada Caldwell in Melbourne, Australia and was raised in the suburb of Balwyn in Yongala Street. Her father, Edgar, was a plumber and her mother, Zoe, was a taxi dancer. Caldwell's mother, Zoe, had a Peugeot of 1950 vintage...
in the title role, a performance for which she won a Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
. 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.
Allen adapted her play into a film in 1969
1969 in film
The year 1969 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Last year for prize giving at the Venice Film Festival until it is revived in 1980...
, which was directed by Ronald Neame
Ronald Neame
Ronald Elwin Neame CBE, BSC was an English film cinematographer, producer, screenwriter and director.-Early career:...
. It is remembered for Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith
Dame Margaret Natalie Smith, DBE , better known as Maggie Smith, is an English film, stage, and television actress who made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 59 years...
's performance in the title role, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
. There was also a notable performance from Pamela Franklin
Pamela Franklin
Pamela Franklin is a British actress who appeared in feature films from 1961 until 1976, and on American television throughout the 1970s.-Early life and career as a child actress:...
as Sandy, for which she won the National Board of Review award for Best Supporting Actress. It was entered into the 1969 Cannes Film Festival
1969 Cannes Film Festival
The 22nd Cannes Film Festival was held on May 8 - 23, 1969. At this festival a new non-competitive section called "Directors' Fortnight" is added, in response to the cancellation of the 1968 festival.-Jury:*Luchino Visconti...
. Rod McKuen
Rod McKuen
Rod McKuen is an American poet, songwriter, composer, and singer. He was one of the best-selling poets in the United States during the late 1960s. Throughout his career, McKuen produced a wide range of recordings, which included popular music, spoken word poetry, film soundtracks, and classical music...
was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song for "Jean
Jean (song)
"Jean" is the title of a popular song from 1969 . It was written by the American poet and composer Rod McKuen, who also recorded a version of the song....
", which became a huge hit for the singer Oliver in autumn 1969.
The film was released on DVD in the UK by Acorn Media in July 2010
Cast
- Maggie SmithMaggie SmithDame Margaret Natalie Smith, DBE , better known as Maggie Smith, is an English film, stage, and television actress who made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 59 years...
as Jean Brodie - Robert StephensRobert StephensSir Robert Stephens was a leading English actor in the early years of England's Royal National Theatre.-Early life and career:...
as Teddy Lloyd - Pamela FranklinPamela FranklinPamela Franklin is a British actress who appeared in feature films from 1961 until 1976, and on American television throughout the 1970s.-Early life and career as a child actress:...
as Sandy - Gordon JacksonGordon Jackson (actor)Gordon Cameron Jackson, OBE was a Scottish Emmy Award-winning actor best remembered for his roles as the butler Angus Hudson in Upstairs, Downstairs and George Cowley, the head of CI5, in The Professionals....
as Gordon Lowther - Celia JohnsonCelia JohnsonDame Celia Elizabeth Johnson DBE was an English actress.She began her stage acting career in 1928, and subsequently achieved success in West End and Broadway productions. She also appeared in several films, including the romantic drama Brief Encounter , for which she received a nomination for the...
as Miss Mackay - Diane GraysonDiane GraysonDiane Grayson is an English actress.She played Jenny in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie , and Janie Harker in Emmerdale.- External links :*...
as Jenny - Jane CarrJane CarrEllen Jane Carr is an English actress. She is well known for the voice role of "Pud'n" on the animated The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy . She also played a character called "Pudding" in one of her earliest TV appearances, the Jilly Cooper-penned BBC sitcom It's Awfully Bad For Your Eyes,...
as Mary McGregor - Shirley SteedmanShirley SteedmanShirley Steedman is a British actress.Possibly her best known role is Monica in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. She also played Princess Alice in Edward the Seventh, and her mother Queen Victoria in a 1976 television adaptation of East Lynne, and other plays and comodies.-External links:...
as Monica - Lavinia Lang as Emily Carstairs
- Antoinette Biggerstaff as Helen McPhee
- Margo Cunningham as Miss Campbell
- Isla CameronIsla CameronIsla Cameron was a Scottish actress and singer.Isla was born in Scotland but was brought up in Dorset and Somerset. While trying to become an actress she joined Joan Littlewood who had co-founded the Theatre Workshop in 1945. Joan’s husband at the time, Ewan MacColl was to become Isla’s singing...
as Miss McKenzie - Rona AndersonRona AndersonRona Anderson is a Scottish stage, film, and television actress. Her first stage appearance took place at the Garrison Theatre in April 1945. She also appeared in the original production of Whose Life Is It Anyway?. Anderson's first major film was the 1948 drama Sleeping Car to Trieste...
as Miss Lockhart - Ann WayAnn WayAnn Way was an English character actress in film and television. Born in Wiveliscombe, she began her career in repertory in Dundee in the 1960s....
as Miss Gaunt - Molly WeirMolly WeirMary Weir, better known as Molly Weir, was a Scottish stage actress, most notable for her role as the long-running character Hazel the McWitch in the BBC TV series Rentaghost. She was the sister of naturalist and broadcaster Tom Weir.Born in Glasgow and brought up in the Springburn area of the...
as Miss Allison Kerr - Helena Gloag as Miss Kerr
- Heather Seymour as Clara
There were two married couples in the cast: Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens, and Gordon Jackson and Rona Anderson.
Plot
Jean Brodie is a teacher at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls in EdinburghEdinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, Scotland in the 1930s. Known for her tendency to romanticize fascist leaders like Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
and Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
, she devotes her time and energy to her four special girls, called the Brodie set: Sandy, Monica, Jenny and Mary McGregor. Mary, a new girl with a stutter, first had troubles with the other three, but eventually all four became close.
The set often go to art museums, theatre, concerts, have picnics on the school lawn, among other things, which rather upsets the school's austere headmistress, Emmeline Mackay, who dislikes the fact that the girls are cultured to the exclusion of hard knowledge, and the Brodie girls seem precocious for their age. She also seems to have a running grudge against Brodie, who has tenure
Tenure
Tenure commonly refers to life tenure in a job and specifically to a senior academic's contractual right not to have his or her position terminated without just cause.-19th century:...
.
Besides working with her girls, Jean catches the eye of music teacher Gordon Lowther, who she and her girls spend a lot of time with at his home in Cramond
Cramond
Cramond is a seaside village now part of suburban Edinburgh, Scotland, located in the north-west corner of the city at the mouth of the River Almond where it enters the Firth of Forth....
, a seaside village on the outskirts of Edinburgh. (She sometimes spends the night with Mr. Lowther, although she tries to conceal this from the girls.) Mr. Lowther wants them to get married, but Brodie drags her feet. She still has feelings for her married ex-lover, Teddy Lloyd, who is the art teacher in the senior section of the school.
Also working with Brodie (and all somewhat disapproving of her unorthodox teaching methods and her influence on the girls) were Miss Campbell the gym teacher, the sewing mistresses Miss Ellen and Miss Allison Kerr, Miss McKenzie the strict librarian, and Miss Gaunt the headmistress's mouselike, non-talking secretary. Miss Gaunt's brother is a deacon
Deacon
Deacon is a ministry in the Christian Church that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions...
at Mr. Lowther's church who eventually asks for his resignation as organist and elder
Elder (Christianity)
An elder in Christianity is a person valued for his wisdom who accordingly holds a particular position of responsibility in a Christian group. In some Christian traditions an elder is a clergy person who usually serves a local church or churches and who has been ordained to a ministry of Word,...
because of his relationship with Miss Brodie.
Between the years, Miss Brodie rises to her apex, and also falls, given that Miss Mackay and most of the other teachers and staff at the very conservative school want her to no longer teach there. During the downfall, she loses Mr. Lowther, who gets engaged to Miss Lockhart the chemistry teacher, one of the only teachers at Marcia Blaine who was sympathetic towards Miss Brodie as a person and to her teaching style.
As the Brodie Set grow older and become students in the Senior School, she tries to manoeuvre Jenny and Mr. Lloyd into having an affair, and Sandy into spying on them for her. However it is actually Sandy (who grows resentful of Miss Brodie's praise of Jenny's beauty) who has an affair with Mr. Lloyd. Sandy ends the affair because of Mr. Lloyd's overwhelming obsession with Miss Brodie.
Mary McGregor, influenced by Brodie, sets out to Spain to join her brother who she believes is fighting for Franco
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, but she is killed when her train is attacked shortly after crossing the frontier. This finally leads Sandy into betraying Miss Brodie to Miss Mackay and the school's board of governors, who finally decide to have Miss Brodie's job terminated.
At the end, Sandy confronts Miss Brodie on her crimes, most especially her manipulation of Mary; her part in her senseless death, for which she is unapologetic; and the harmful influence she exerted on other girls; and adds that Mary's brother is actually fighting for the Spanish Republicans
Republican Faction (Spanish Civil War)
The Republican faction also known as the Republicans was the side in the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939 that supported the Second Spanish Republic against the National faction.-Popular Front:-CNT/FAI:-People's Republican Army:...
. She then walks out of her classroom, with a frantic Miss Brodie screaming "Assassin!!" at Sandy. Sandy, however, doesn't look back.
After the confrontation, Sandy, Monica, and Jenny graduate along with the other girls. Despite knowing full well that she had betrayed Brodie to Mackay and the board of governors, Sandy did so out of concern for any other girl who could have been a target of Miss Brodie and her fanatical ways, and, perhaps too, resentment over Miss Brodie's preference for Jenny and Teddy Lloyd's unending obsession with Miss Brodie.
At the end of the film as Sandy leaves the school for the last time, her face streaked with angry and bitter tears Miss Brodie (in voiceover) stated her usual motto: "Little girls, I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders, and all my pupils are the crème de la crème. Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life."
Relationship to novel and play
There is a complex relationship between the novel, the play and the film.Although Allen did manage to create a successful play out of what may not have been the easiest of novels to adapt, some have questioned whether it is a particularly faithful adaptation. It turned an experimental work into a realistic one, and removed some theological issues, turning it into a story of failed love.
The play reduced the number of girls in the Brodie Set from six to four (and discarded another girl not in the set) and some of them are composites of girls in the novel. Mary is a composite of the original Mary and Joyce Emily; although mainly based on the original Mary, in the novel it was Joyce Emily who died in the Spanish Civil War, and rather more is made of this incident in the play than the novel. Jenny is a composite of the original Jenny and Rose; in spite of her name she has more in common with Rose, since in the novel it was she who Miss Brodie tried to manoeuvre into having an affair with Mr Lloyd.
The novel made extensive use of flash forward
Flashforward
A flashforward is an interjected scene that takes the narrative forward in time from the current point of the story in literature, film, television and other media. Flashforwards are often used to represent events expected, projected, or imagined to occur in the future...
. The play largely abandoned this, although it did include a few scenes showing Sandy as a nun
Nun
A nun is a woman who has taken vows committing her to live a spiritual life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent...
in later life. The film also made a few changes from the play, the biggest being that it discarded these scenes and was entirely linear narrative.
1978 Television version
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was adapted by Scottish TelevisionScottish Television
Scottish Television is Scotland's largest ITV franchisee, and has held the ITV franchise for Central Scotland since 31 August 1957. It is the second oldest ITV franchisee still active...
into a seven episode television serial in 1978, also written by Jay Presson Allen, and starring Geraldine McEwan
Geraldine McEwan
Geraldine McEwan is an English actor with a diverse history in theatre, film, and television. From 2004 to 2009 she appeared as Miss Marple, the Agatha Christie sleuth, for the series Marple.-Background:...
. Rather than recapitulate the plot of the novel, the series imagined episodes in the lives of the characters in the novel, such as conflict between Jean Brodie and the father of an Italian refugee student, who fled Mussolini's Italy because the father was persecuted as a Communist.