The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Ronald Neame, 1969)

Maggie Smith and Pamela Franklin in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Cast: Maggie Smith, Robert Stephens, Pamela Franklin, Gordon Jackson, Celia Johnson, Diane Grayson, Jane Carr, Shirley Steedman. Screenplay: Jay Presson Allen, based on her play and a novel by Muriel Spark. Cinematography: Ted Moore. Production design: John Howell. Film editing: Norman Savage. Music: Rod McKuen. 

My problem with the title character of the film version of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is that she seems to have sprung full-blown -- mannerisms, catchphrases ("I am in my prime"), ideology and all -- from the imaginations of the people who created her, screenwriter Jay Presson Allen and actress Maggie Smith. I'm no more able to envision a backstory, a childhood, or an inner life for her than I am for a Dickens character like Mr. Micawber. At least in Muriel Spark's novel there are hints of something more, but they haven't translated well to the screen. Which is not to say that Smith didn't deserve her Oscar for playing the role; it's a fascinating, nuanced performance, from Jean Brodie's initial dominance to her comeuppance to her final defiance. If we don't know how Jean came to imagine herself an Übermensch, that's our problem, the film eventually suggests. Better to sit back and watch some fine performances: Robert Stephens as the randy art teacher, the always wonderful and welcome Celia Johnson as the headmistress, and 19-year-old Pamela Franklin convincingly transforming the 12-year-old into the post-pubescent student whom Jean underestimates. But anathema upon the producer or whoever decided to commission Rod McKuen to write a goopy song that unaccountably was nominated for an Oscar. At least it plays only over the end credits when you can easily escape it.

 

A Kid for Two Farthings (Carol Reed, 1955)

Jonathan Ashmore in A Kid for Two Farthings

Joanna: Celia Johnson
Sonia: Diana Dors
Avrom Kandinsky: David Kossoff
Sam Heppner: Joe Robinson
Joe: Jonathan Ashmore
"Lady" Ruby: Brenda de Banzie
Python Macklin: Primo Carnera
Blackie Isaacs: Lou Jacobi
Mrs. Abramowitz: Irene Handl
Madam Rita: Sydney Tafler

Director: Carol Reed
Screenplay: Wolf Mankowitz
Based on a novel by Wolf Mankowitz
Cinematography: Edward Scaife
Art direction: Wilfred Shingleton
Film editing: Bert Bates
Music: Benjamin Frankel

Carol Reed's first color film is a very talky, somewhat claustrophobic one, best remembered today as a portrait of the London Jewish community that inhabited Petticoat Lane (called "Fashion Street" in the film) in the East End. The story centers on young Joe, a lover of animals (often to the animals' misfortune, as he can't seem to keep some of them alive) who lives with his mother, Joanna, over Mr. Kandinsky's tailoring shop. Kandinsky indulges Joe with stories about animals, telling him that if he ever found a unicorn it would bring everyone good luck. So naturally Joe finds one, a feeble little goat with one deformed horn, that a merchant is happy to get rid of. Joe thinks it will bring luck to the pretty Sonia and her body-builder boyfriend Sam Heppner, who want to get married but don't have the money; to Mr. Kandinsky, who would like to have a better trousers press; and to himself and his mother, who are waiting for his father to return from South Africa, where he has gone to seek his fortune. Things eventually work out for Sonia and Sam and Mr. Kandinsky, but at the film's end Joe and his mother are still waiting for the return of his father. There's a fair amount of whimsy at work, but it's subsumed in much local color and the hard-scrabble realism of the neighborhood. Diana Dors shows considerable depth as an actress, rising above the exploitation that tried to turn her into the British Marilyn Monroe. But the great Celia Johnson is wasted in the thankless role of Joe's mother, with little to do but look worried. The wrestler Primo Carnera appears as Python Macklin, whom Sam must conquer in the ring to make the money he and Sonia want, even though he's reluctant to develop the unphotographic muscles needed by a wrestler.

Brief Encounter (David Lean, 1945)

Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter

Laura Jesson: Celia Johnson
Dr. Alec Harvey: Trevor Howard
Albert Godby: Stanley Holloway
Myrtle Bagot: Joyce Carey
Fred Jesson: Cyril Raymond
Dolly Messiter: Everley Gregg
Mary Norton: Marjorie Mars
Beryl Walters: Margaret Barton
Stephen Lynn: Valentine Dyall

Director: David Lean
Screenplay: Anthony Havelock-Allan, David Lean, Ronald Neame
Based on a play by Noël Coward
Cinematography: Robert Krasker
Art direction: Lawrence P. Williams
Film editing: Jack Harris
Music: Percival Mackey, Muir Mathieson

It had never occurred to me until I started reading essays about Brief Encounter that the movie is a period film: It's set in 1938, which explains why there is no visual evidence of or reference to World War II, which was still going on when it was made. This also helps explain some of the film's jitteriness or reticence about sex. Why, given the facility with which Laura Jesson lies about her relationship with Alec Harvey, don't they just go ahead and have sex? The film is a portrait of prewar middle-class morality, something the war helped break down, especially with the arrival of American troops, proverbially "oversexed and over here," in Britain. When it gained great popularity after the war ended, it was possible to debate whether Brief Encounter was a validation or an indictment of this morality. Is it really healthy for Laura to spend the rest of her life with her pleasantly stuffy husband, dreaming of what might have been? Is it necessary for Alec to uproot his family and emigrate to South Africa just because of sexual frustration? The resolution to their dilemma seems easier to us: We wish Laura and Alec could unbend, the way the working class characters Albert and Myrtle seem to do. (For all her pretense at refinement, it's easy to see that Myrtle has a healthy off-duty sex life.) But then we get glimpses of the social milieu in which Laura and Alec move: He has to contend with the catty nudge-nudge-wink-wink of Stephen Lynn, the friend whose apartment almost becomes a venue for the consummation of their passion; she is surrounded by friends whose only pleasure in life seems to be to talk. There is a real brilliance in the way which Lean, greatly aided by Robert Krasker's noir-expressionist black-and-white cinematography, suggests the entrapment of the lovers in a world they are afraid to break out of. Celia Johnson is magnificent, of course, and it was a stroke of genius to cast Trevor Howard opposite her. For all his kindness and attentiveness, there is something faintly menacing about him, a hint of danger and possibility that can only attract but also subtly frighten a woman whose life consists of helping her husband with the crossword and spending Thursdays in town returning her library book and shopping for an ugly desk tchotchke for his birthday. Everything in this movie is so well judged and efficiently presented that it only makes me regret that Lean turned from such intimate stories and entered on his epic phase.