The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

According to movies, 99% of teachers are untouchable visions of perfection. How many movies exist about "inspirational" teachers leading their students in rebellion and teaching them "individuality"? There's the sentimental pap of Goodbye Mr. Chips, the cloying Mr. Holland's Opus and the feature-length cliche Dead Poets Society. One sympathizes with Harry Flashman's turning from Rugby School to a life of lechery.

Ronald Neame's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) provides a welcome corrective. Maggie Smith's title character embodies the same attributes as Charles Chipping or John Keaton, the flighty free spirit encouraging kids at a repressive school to seek "truth and beauty." Here, however, such pedagogic eccentricity has tragic consequences.

Edinburgh 1932. Jean Brodie (Maggie Smith) returns to the Marcia Blaine School For Girls invigorated after a summer in Italy. She provides a curriculum averse to the school's conservative standards, encouraging her students to rebel against authority. Her teachings take on a disturbing turn when she upholds Mussolini as the ideal man and begins "planning" her charges lives, resulting in a terrible tragedy. Artist/ex-lover Teddy Lloyd (Robert Stephens) sees through Jean's scheming but it takes precocious pupil Sandy (Pamela Franklin) to unravel them. Waiting to pounce is Miss McKay (Celia Johnson), the strict headmistress looking to boot Brodie out.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie paints a chilling portrait of teacher as fascist. Brodie's teachings don't turn the girls into freethinkers but cliquish, bullying brats. Certainly Brodie's actions amount to brainwashing, convincing her charges to worship her, disobey parents and teachers, and shape them into extensions of herself. She plans to turn pretty Pamela (Diane Grayson) into Teddy's lover and convinces nebbish Mary McGregor (Jane Carr) to join Franco's Fascists in Spain. Only the headstrong Sandy won't go along with her plans. It's a disturbing twist on a familiar archetype, recasting the free spirit as dangerous demagogue.

Maggie Smith handles her challenging role beautifully, growing more repugnant as the plot unspools. Smith gives Jean the right mixture of charm, impertinence and arrogant unreality. Groggy favorite Celia Johnson (Brief Encounter) makes a formidable opponent. Pamela Franklin gives a striking turn as a girl Brodie turns too mature much too fast. Robert Stephens (The Duellists) and Gordon Jackson (Tunes of Glory) have marginal roles. As McKay's secretary, saucer-eyed Ann Way makes a disturbing impression without saying a word.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a disturbing piece of work. A great teacher is a wonderful, inspiring thing, but there are plenty of films about them. It's more interesting (and disquieting) to ponder a pedagogue less beneficially benevolent. If nothing else, you shant look at Dead Poets Society the same way again!