Die besten Jahre der Miss Jean Brodie

I saw this film thirty years ago and Maggie Smith's performance still rates as one of the finest on screen. The storyline is already well known. I just want to crow about her presence in the movie. This woman even managed to blush when she and Mr Lloyd were caught in a clinch by Mary MacGregor! All these years later I still recall the line she delivered so witheringly when she heard that the music teacher she had once been linked with was finally going the marry the science teacher "Do you not think that with one snap of my fingers I couldn't send Miss (beat) Lockhart back to her gaseous domain!" Rent the video and whoop with delight at the sheer brilliance of this woman.

Robert Stephens was the least convincing of the lead performers, beside his then wife he was positively wooden. I saw them together on the London Stage in Hedda Gabler and they electrified the place! This film though was all about her. Her scenes with the Head Teacher were astonishing " I didn't want to be late - or early!"

A joy!

Beautifully filmed and acted by all the performers, this is a knock-out film. Maggie Smith is incredible right down to her Morningside accent. The other players hold their own against her powerhouse performance. The Edinburgh locations are great and the film has a remarkably nostalgic quality that reflects Brodie's romanticism. A beautiful Rod McKuen score as well! A must see film. An interesting comparison can be made with Dead Poet's Society, which has a male teacher in an all male school (compared to a female teacher in an all girl's school). In Brodie, unorthodox irresponsible teaching is condemned while in Dead Poet's Society it is valorized. In both the teaching methods bring about the death of a student and the school's reaction is similar. The film makers, however, come down on opposite sides in their attitudes toward the teachers

See it for Maggie Smith who was much deserving of her Best Actress Oscar in 1969. I'd rank this performance among the best ever preserved on film. Her character is unlike any you've ever seen and ranks up there with Sandy Dennis in "Up the Down Staircase" and Sidney Poitier in "To Sir, With Love" as one of the most memorable teachers on screen.

Ronald Neame does a nice job of moving the film along so the adapted play doesn't seem stagy. The focus is the wonderful adapted screenplay and the great cast.

The triumph of "Jean Brodie" is the final confrontation scene with Smith and young actress Pamela Franklin.

Don't miss it.

This movie is often billed as a 'one-woman show', a study of an extraordinary character, Miss Jean Brodie, played by an excellent actress. However, the movie is much more than that. It is a study of charisma and influence, of teachers and students, and presents a complex and fascinating coming-of-age story. This study takes place through the movie's double-focus on both Jean Brodie and her most precocious student, Sandy. Sandy is the strongest and most independent of Miss Brodie's students, and eventually she rebels and rejects her teaching completely. However, she is also truest to her teacher's expressed goals. Miss Brodie supposedly wants to teach 'her girls' to be like herself: powerful, independent individuals, free from the shackles of authority and group-think, beyond conventional sexual morality. In fact, she preys on the weakness and insecurity of her students, punishes independence and rewards slavish loyalty to her and to her personal plans and ideals. (The film's more subtle concern with fascism and authoritarianism echoes this theme: fascism elevates great individuals and praises their strength, just as it demands total obedience and slavishness from the rest.) Sandy, by recognizing and rejecting Miss Brodies's actions and plans, becomes her truest student: not only sexually adventurous, but bold, independent, and confrontational. The final scenes illustrate this beautifully. Miss Brodie has truly put "an old head" on Sandy's "young shoulders", and she truly is "hers for life"--though not in the way originally intended. In this way the movie presents a profound, sophisticated and realistic account of the way powerful individuals influence one another.

Maggie Smith is mesmerizing. She paints the blind monstrosity of Miss Jean Brodie in the most recognizable human tones. Robin William's character in "Dead Poet Society" is as irresponsible but doesn't go near as far as this repressed masterpiece of a creature. Her romantic slant towards "Il Duce" and what he represents is at the core of the simple complexity of the character. Maggie's mannerism, now a precious trade mark, belong to Miss Brodie, totally. Her arms, her chin, the turning of her face. Pamela Franlklin is also superb. What a powerful young actress -- Where is she now? -- and Celia Johnson's performance is the icing on the cake of this feast of a movie.