The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Director:

Ronald Neame

Writers:

Muriel Spark (novel)
Jay Presson Allen (play)

Release Date:

January 1969 (UK)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Music | Romance

Tagline:

In the surprising world of Jean Brodie, there were two men and four girls.

Plot:

A headstrong young teacher in a private school in 1930s Edinburgh ignores the curriculum and influences her impressionable 12 year old charges with her over-romanticized world view.

Plot Keywords:

Teacher | School | Influence | Schoolteacher | 1930s

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 4 wins & 7 nominations

Cast

Maggie Smith	...	Jean Brodie
Robert Stephens	...	Teddy Lloyd
Pamela Franklin	...	Sandy
Gordon Jackson	...	Gordon Lowther
Celia Johnson	...	Miss Mackay
Diane Grayson	...	Jenny
Jane Carr	...	Mary McGregor
Shirley Steedman	...	Monica
Lavinia Lang	...	Emily Carstairs
Antoinette Biggerstaff	...	Helen McPhee
Margo Cunningham	...	Miss Campbell
Isla Cameron	...	Miss McKenzie
Rona Anderson	...	Miss Lockhart
Ann Way	...	Miss Gaunt
Molly Weir	...	Miss Allison Kerr

Runtime:

116 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

UK:15 (video rating) | UK:AA (original rating) | Canada:PG (video rating) | Finland:K-12 | Sweden:15 | USA:M (original rating) | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Barnbougle Castle, Dalmeny, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Productions

Trivia:

Last cinema film of Celia Johnson.

Goofs:

Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Miss Brody presents a slide show to the class. She tells a tale of how Dante Alighieri fell in love with Beatrice Portinari when they met at the old bridge (Ponte Veccio) in Florence. Miss Brody changes some of the facts of the Dante and Beatrice story, but in doing so she is relating the story (consciously or unconsciously) of her own failed romance with an older man.

Quotes:

Jean Brodie: For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Hollywood Screen Tests: Take 2 (1999) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Jean

My personal favorite

It is clearly not the greatest movie of all time, but it is my personal favorite, in part because I am a teacher and--well i almost said anglophile, but are we supposed to call it ecosophile (lover of Scotland)?

I hardly know where to begin. Making those girls look like little girls and then later like grown-up girls. Jean Brodie's incredibly eccentric persona as a teacher until in the end one "girl" figures her out. The complexity of her personality. How perfectly she is played by Maggie Smith in her greatest role. The fact that the movie dares, for its time, portray an illicit affair between a teacher and a student (the French would have had no such qualms). Jean's insouciant insistance that she can teach any way she wants without any fundamental concern for her students. The art teacher's remark that "Mary McGrogan couldn't navigate her way across Edinburgh" after she has been killed in the Spanish civil war (Edinburgh is a famously compact city).

I go on too long. One drawback? That asinine theme song.