University of Virginia Library

Run —Don't Walk— To See 'Miss Brodie'

By Jere Real

One of the more successful cinema interpretations of a
novel (and a subsequent Broadway play) continues its run
at the University Theatre this week through Wednesday.
And if you haven't already seen "The Prime of Miss Jean
Brodie" with Maggie Smith, run — don't walk — to the
theatre and see it.

Miss Smith's performance as the indefatigably dizzy —
and thoroughly outrageous — Miss Brodie is one of the
acting delights of recent years.

Set in an Edinburg girl's school in the early
thirties, "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" is the story of a
charming, albeit a sometimes dangerous, eccentric whose
romantic notions and teaching responsibilities ultimately
come into conflict with each other.

"I am Miss Jean Brodie and I am in my prime," she
announces annually to her schoolgirl charges; she then
launches into her business of "putting old heads on young
shoulders", a process that includes exposing the
impressionable students to everything from "art, beauty,
truth," to opera, sex, and Fascism (about which Miss
Brodie has a romantic view).

Miss Brodie — as brilliantly portrayed by Maggie Smith
— is that difficulty quantity to assess, the person who is
disarming in her idiosyncrasies, exasperating in her
"poses," and who has the capacity to be simultaneously
an influence for as much bad as good.

She builds among her students a devoted following;
she is — for most — a memorable teacher, but she is at the
same time, as are her students, a victim of her own
attitudes. "Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and
she is mine for life," she declares, and the more
precocious products of the school are, indeed, Brodie
girls.

But the Brodie influence too often is wrought without
a regard for consequences. Miss Brodie's fascination with
Mussolini's Fascism is irrevocably linked (in her mind)
with Italian art and her own summers in Italy. Her blithe
endorsement of Mussolini and Franco as "modern day
heroes" without a thought of the ultimate effects of the
men and their movements is somewhat similar to the
present-day sophomoric enthusiasm for Che Guevara as a
modern Robin Hood. Miss Brodie simply ignores reality.

Ultimately, she is a victim of her own excess. Her fall
is justified, certainly, but a viewer cannot help but have
mixed emotions about her fate. After all, Miss Brodie is a
person of style, flair, indeed, individualism. Rampant
individualism, to be sure, but individualism none the less.

And the people that topple Miss Brodie have none of
her better attributes; they are motivated as much by envy
as by true concern. In the final analysis, that ambiguity is
what makes this film exceptional. There is none of the
cut-and-dried dichotomy so prevalent in recent films.
Ronald Neame, the director, has given us a fully
developed set of human beings with all their foibles and
all their virtues.

And Maggie Smith has delivered what is, undoubtedly,
one of the more captivating interpretations in her career
(which has included everything from light comedy 'Hot
Millions,' 'The Honey Pot' to Shakespeare 'Desdemona in
the Olivier 'Othello').

ALSO OF NOTE: Those desiring to see the Zeffirelli
'Romeo and Juliet' again can do so this week at the
Barracks Road Theater. The film — unlike its engagement
at the Paramount — is being shown without a distracting
intermission. (I've never understood why the Paramount
persists in placing intermissions where they do. In the
current 'Where Eagles Dare', the management has placed
such a "soft drink and candy" break right smack in the
middle of a motorcycle chase. They inserted a similar
break in the highly dramatic courtroom scene in 'To Kill a
Mockingbird' recently. I have seen two films recently in
which the screen went blank for a time at the Paramount.
Similarly, on several occasions I have asked that the film
be focused properly. But ultimately intermissions are
more annoying.)

Maggie Smith

Miss Brodie's Girls

Finally a financial note: on the upcoming film, 'The
Sea Gull,' at the University Theater, the management has
announced a special student rate of $1, a 20 per cent
discount for this film, beginning Friday.