The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

May 29 | Written By American Baroness

This film was one of the main inspirations for the show I wrote, "Birth of the American Baroness”, which I then performed from 2015-2108. Any mention, never mind conversation, about a one-person show is a bit uncomfortable, cringey even, so I’ll simply say: Having seen “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" in the 1970s, late at night, on PBS, as a kid, during my two month confinement at home with a broken leg, made a powerful impression on me. I didn’t understand what I was seeing, not fully, but I believe it may have aroused the initial shape of my adult consciousness.

 Here’s an excerpt from "Birth of the American Baroness":

A woman, dressed in a colorful, fitted tweed skirt suit, mounts a basketed bicycle and rides down a pristine residential city street. The words Edinburgh 1932 appear on screen. The music swells, the slim, sophisticated Scottish redhead pedals to an upper class all girls school where she is clearly a beloved teacher. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Based on the popular novel by Muriel Sparks, this 1969 film stars…Maggie Smith. I want to be one of Jean Brodie’s special gerls. The crème de la crème. Give me a gerl at an impressionable age, and she will be mine for life. No matter that Jean Brodie was misguided and possibly dangerous! I didn’t realize that until much later, when I saw the movie again, in my 20s. At 8? Talk about a girl at an impressionable age. Jean Brodie wasn’t married. She had lovers. Two of them! Jean Brodie didn’t have children. She had followers. Lots of them! And a big, beautiful, sun-drenched flat. With a closet full of stern but sexy clothes. She blames everyone but herself for her eventual demise and dismissal from the ultra-conservative Marcia Blaine School. Both lovers leave her. She is past her prime. Alone and excommunicated. Tragic.