Plot

Eccentric and well-meaning teacher Jean Brodie's extravagantly romantic ideas about life = and love - overly impress her young pupils in 1930s Edinburgh, bringing her into direct conflict with her school's conservative headmistress.

A liberated young schoolteacher at an Edinburgh girls' school in the period between the two world wars, instructs her girls on the ways of life. Ignoring the more mundane subjects, she teaches them of love, politics and art. Her affairs with two male teachers become known and she finds herself fighting to keep her job. She believes that she can always count on the one hundred percent support of her favorite pupils, but one of them does not feel that Miss Jean Brodie (Dame Maggie Smith) is in her "prime" anymore. No longer swayed by her teacher's eloquence, she begins to learn about life and love herself.—Rhino <rhino@blueyonder.co.uk>

Marcia Blaine is a conservative private girls' school in Edinburgh. Amongst its staff is flamboyant Jean Brodie (Dame Maggie Smith), who has a romantic view of everything she experiences, including the politics of such leaders as Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco. As she sees herself as a teacher first and foremost, she wants to impart as much of her self to her eleven and twelve-year-old students, but especially to her "set", the small group of girls who she finds special. She almost feels that she can preordain her students' futures, especially those of her set, and as such, she has the loyalty of those girls. In the 1932/33 school year, when thirty-something Miss Brodie considers herself in the prime of her life and as such has more of her experience to impart, she has amongst her set: Sandy (Pamela Franklin), the insightful one; Jenny (Diane Grayson), the pretty romantic; literary Monica (Shirley Steedman); and timid, stuttering orphan Mary McGregor (Jane Carr), who accepts the guidance of anyone who will provide it to her. Miss Brodie is at odds with most of the other staff, but especially the strict head mistress, Emmeline Mackay (Celia Johnson), not only because Miss Brodie does not teach the prescribed curriculum, but because of what Miss Mackay sees as Miss Brodie's improper attitude on life which she brings into her classroom. Miss Mackay's mission is to fire Miss Brodie, despite Miss Brodie having tenure. That year, Miss Brodie begins a relationship with the school's somewhat conservative music teacher, Gordon Lowther (Gordon Jackson), although she is still attracted to the school's married art teacher, Teddy Lloyd (Robert Stephens), with whom she had an affair and who still loves her. Her set are aware of what goes on in most of Miss Brodie's life as they spend most of their time with her, even Miss Brodie's weekends with Mr. Lowther at his seaside home in Cramond. They are, however, unaware of certain secrets, such as her affair with and continued attraction to Mr. Lloyd. Over the years of their lives at Marcia Blaine, this specific set of girls will have a profound effect on Miss Brodie by their actions, even if she cannot or does not out of choice see those effects.—Huggo

Jean Brodie (Dame Maggie Smith) is a dedicated, if eccentric, teacher at an all-girls school in Edinburgh in the 1930s. She has little time for the approved curriculum and rather teaches "her girls" her own romanticized, fantasist view of history, the arts, and the world in general. She is a strong supporter of Mussolini and with the on-set of the Spanish Civil War, Franco. She pushes her girls to excel in what she perceives to be their strengths: Monica (Shirley Steedman) will act in plays; Mary McGregor (Jane Carr) will overcome her stutter and make them all proud; Jenny (Diane Grayson) will be painted many times and will be a great lover; and Sandy (Pamela Franklin) will use her intellect and and insight and be a great spy. Sandy realizes the dangerous game Miss Brodie is playing and after one of the other girls is killed, sets out to stop her.—garykmcd

Based on Muriel Spark's best-selling novel, the film The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie earned a Best Actress Oscar for its star, Maggie Smith, in 1969. The theme song, "Jean" written by Rod McKuen, was also nominated for a Best Song Academy Award. An inspiration to the young girls she teaches and a challenge to the 1932 Edinburgh school who retains her services, Jean Brodie (Smith) espouses her wisdom on art and music, defends fascism, and otherwise encourages fiercely independent thinking in her students. As she engages in ongoing battles with the school's rigid heads and bewilders two men in love with her, Miss Brodie also faces the biggest trial of her life when her career and livelihood become threatened.