The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Time Out says
Muriel Spark's wonderful slip-sliding novella is narrowed down and heightened in Jay Presson Allen's adaptation for Fox of her own stage play (drawn from Spark's book), which omits much sense of the wider, crueller world of the '30s outside the Marcia Blaine School for Girls in Edinburgh, where Miss Brodie imparts her own rarefied, romantic view of life to her chosen 'set'. Nevertheless, Maggie Smith is handed a part in the eccentric, trite, purposeful and finally pathetic Jean Brodie which allows her to play to all her considerable strengths. Her performance is ably counterpointed by Stephens as the knowing, married art teacher Teddy Lloyd (to whose bed she attempts to send one of her girls, in her own place), and Celia Johnson as the pursed headmistress determined to sack her. Good support, too, from the girls, notably Jane Carr, as Mary McGregor, the new girl who dies on her way to fight against Miss Brodie's hero Franco, and Pamela Franklin, as Sandy, who finally puts paid to her teacher by denouncing her fascism.
Details
Release details
Duration:
116 mins
Cast and crew
Director:
Ronald Neame
Screenwriter:
Jay Presson Allen
Cast:
Maggie Smith
Robert Stephens
Pamela Franklin
Gordon Jackson
Celia Johnson
Diane Grayson
Jane Carr
Shirley Steedman
Helena Gloag
Robert Stephens
Pamela Franklin
Gordon Jackson
Celia Johnson
Diane Grayson
Jane Carr
Shirley Steedman
Helena Gloag