The Brodie Set: the crème de la crème of
Marcia Blaine School
Although reduced in number in Ronald Neame's film adaptation of Muriel Spark's novel, the composite characters who make up the cinematic version of the Brodie Set remain the crème de la crème ...
I. Jenny: the Sexy One
Jenny - played by Diane Grayson - is the natural beauty of the group; a Rose by any other name. She possesses instinct, but no insight and is, according to Miss Brodie, like a heroine in a novel by Mr. D. H. Lawrence, with a profile of deceptive purity and a willingness to cartwheel on command, primitive and free.
Thus it is that Jenny will one day be famous for sex; destined - in Miss Brodie's mind - to become Teddy Lloyd's lover and not merely his model. But Jenny is of no real interest to the randy art master and Miss Brodie's fantasy of her erotic value and Nietzschean potential to rise above the common moral code is woefully mistaken.
Jenny is, in fact, just an ordinary girl; more a pint of semi-skimmed milk than crème de la crème. She wants to be happy, like her parents; people who have sexual intercourse in the marital bed, lights off but nightclothes on, and don't have primes like Miss Brodie.
II. Monica: the Plain One
Monica - played by Shirley Steedman - was good at maths and quick of temper. And although a rather histrionic child, easily moved to tears by poetry and tales of lost love, Miss Brodie ultimately thought her to possess very little soul. It is also Monica whom she initially suspects of betraying her.
Personally, however, I like Monica very much: she seems to me the sort of girl one might have a lot of fun with; always happy to go places and to do things.
III. Mary McGregor: that Silly, Stupid Girl
Ah, Mary McGregor - played by Jane Carr - is the most malleable of the four girls, thus her attraction for Miss Brodie. Slow-witted and stuttering, she is bullied by one and all, meekly bearing the blame for everything that goes wrong. Sadly, as Sandy rather cruelly says: She died a fool.
IV. Sandy: the Clever Little Cat
Sandy - played by Pamela Franklin (with such brilliance that she won a BAFTA for her performance) - is Miss Brodie's confidante. And thus, of course, best able to put a stop to her ...
Miss Brodie thinks Sandy dependable, but far from her prime: it's a fatal misjudgement. For by the age of seventeen, Sandy has developed into a young woman of great insight and sexual precocity; something that Teddy Lloyd is quick to recognise and exploit, happily taking her as his mistress.
Miss Brodie also thinks Sandy would make a great spy. But Sandy is ultimately an assassin who regards her former mentor as a ridiculous woman. She also comes to understand the Brodie Set as an essentially micro-fascist formation; faithful to their leader and expected to serve, suffer and sacrifice.
Sandy clearly loves Miss Brodie and was closer to her than any of the other girls. But that's why she has to one day go too far and betray her; for we reward our great teachers not with loyalty, but by losing them so that we can at last become ourselves.
Judas was the greatest of disciples. And Sandy was the greatest member of the Brodie Set: the clever little cat that got the cream and learned how to kill without concern.
Read: Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, (Macmillan, 1961).
Watch: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), dir. Ronald Neame, written by Jay Presson Allen, starring Maggie Smith in her Academy Award winning prime.
To view the original trailer for the above film, click here.
