Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' she is simply great. There hasn't been such a display of controlled, funny, elegant theatricality since Lawrence Olivier soft-shoed his way through 'The Entertainer' nine years ago.įor some time now, Miss Smith has been giving good performances in movies of somewhat less than classical cut, most recently in 'Hot Millions' as the all thumbs secretary who would take off her dress to change a typewriter ribbon.

'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,' which opened yesterday at the Baronet Theater, is actually a very decent movie, but it will probably be underrated because it must seem smaller than the big, extraordinary performance that Maggie Smith gives When word comes that Mary has been killed, Miss Brodie airily equates Mary with Joan of Arc and Florence Nightingale. Girl, a sweet, stuttering clot of a thing, that the girl runs off to Spain to fight for Franco. Announcing that she lives only for beauty, art and truth, Miss Brodie denies her own sexuality and schemes to put one of her 'gels' into the bed of her lover.

However, these innocent eccentricities have a dark underside. The succession of the Stuarts, she tells her pupils-unbaked puddings in purple jumpers-about her affair with Hugh, 'who fell in Flanders Field like an autumn leaf.' Miss Brodie weeps over Tennyson (she likes the vowel sounds particularly), touts Mussolini because he's turned Capri into a bird sanctuary and, instead of teaching She is an unconventional teacher in Edinburgh'sĬonventional Marcia Blaine School for Girls in the mid-1930's. Tall, red-haired and budget-chic, Miss Brodie is no longer quite so young, but she is still beautiful and very much in her prime. 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' is about a marvelous mess. Screen: 'Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' By VINCENT CANBY

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