THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE

Maggie Smith as the airy Miss Brodie

THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE (1969). Director: Ronald Neame. 

In 1930's Scotland Miss Jean Brodie (Maggie Smith) is a tenured teacher at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls. Jean is free-spirited, putting her at odds with the relatively new headmistress Miss Mackay (Celia Johnson of Brief Encounter), who keeps reminding her that this is a conservative school. Jean is one of those teachers who is convinced she can leave a lasting impression on her students and always supposedly knows what's best for them, even though she can be naive, dismissive, and rather stupid at times. She does her best to stay out of the clutches of the art teacher, Teddy Lloyd (Smith's real life husband at the time, Robert Stephens), her former lover, who is married and has six children. Jean encourages one of her charges, Mary (Jane Carr of Something for Everyone) to go off to Spain to fight alongside her brother, something which does not end at all well. Jean may have met her match in young Sandy (Pamela Franklin of The Food of the Gods), who replaces her in Teddy's bed and ultimately helps bring about her downfall.

Smith gets a dressing down from Pamela Franklin

The prime joy of Miss Jean Brodie is the performance of Maggie Smith, which netted her a well-deserved Best Actress Oscar. She fully brings to life all of the different, often maddening facets of Brodie's character and engages your full attention from start to finish. She is surrounded by other wonderful actors: Stephens as the utter pig of an art teacher; Gordon Jackson as the more gentlemanly music teacher with whom Jean dallies; Pamela Franklin, who is ferociously good as Sandy and especially excels in her climactic scene when she really tells off her irresponsible teacher, Jean; Celia Johnson as the long-suffering Miss MacKay, who tries various methods to send her nemesis packing; Jane Carr as the stammering, ill-fated Mary; and others. 

Smith with Robert Stephens

Miss Jean Brodie is by no means perfect. A comedy-drama, there are sequences in the girls' school that , unfortunately, remind one of antics in St. Trinian's! There is something a bit artificial and unreal about the film at times. However, what's amazing is that the particular school girls who form Jean's closest circle all look convincingly like children, despite their real ages, who age gracefully (or otherwise) into adulthood -- Franklin's transformation is especially astonishing. Rod McKuen composed a pretty song for the picture, but he should have been convinced not to sing it, as he has no voice. He had a certain run as a sappy poet and composer. 

Verdict: Smith's Academy Award-winning performance makes this film fully engaging whatever its flaws. ***. 

AND SOON THE DARKNESS (1970)

Pamela Franklin and Clare Kelly

AND SOON THE DARKNESS (1970). Director: Robert Fuest.

Two young British women, Jane (Pamela Franklin of The Third Secret) and Kathy (Michele Doutrice) are on a bicycle trip through the countryside of France. Kathy is intrigued by a handsome stranger at one cafe, and refuses to go any further with the less-free-spirited Jane; the two have a fight and go their separate ways. Still, when Kathy disappears Jane tries to surmount the language barrier and find out what happened to her friend. To make matters worse, she learns that a young woman was murdered in this town two years earlier and her killer was never caught. Suspects for her disappearance and the earlier murder include the aforementioned stranger, Paul (Sandor Eles of The Evil of Frankenstein), who claims to be working for the Surete; a couple, the Lassals (Hana Maria Pravda and Claude Bertrand) who run an inn; a mentally-disturbed veteran; a British schoolteacher (Clare Kelley); and others. John Nettleton appears as a sympathetic Gendarme. And Soon the Darkness is not without flaws -- to create suspicion in the audience's mind over anyone and everyone, some of the characters behave much more weirdly than they might have -- but it is a very creepy and intensely suspenseful film that has good performances (although Franklin underplays too much), an effective score by Laurie Johnson (with the exception of the awful opening theme), and excellent widescreen photography of lonely, sinister vistas by Ian Wilson. There's a wonderfully macabre sequence involving a closet and a corpse late in the picture. Jane never asks Paul for his I.D. Very well directed by Robert Fuest [Dr. Phibes Rises Again]. Remade in 2010.

Verdict: Handsome and disturbing thriller. ***.

THE THIRD SECRET

Pamela Franklin and Stephen Boyd

THE THIRD SECRET (1964). Director: Charles Crichton.

"Look around the world, doctor. What's so special about madness? What's so special about murder?" 

Alex Stedman (Stephen Boyd of Fantastic Voyage), an American TV personality working in London, refuses to believe that his friend and psychiatrist Leo Whitset (Peter Copley) committed suicide. Whitset had helped Alex get over the death of his young daughter, and the latter feels that suicide would go against everything the man believed in. Stedman's belief that Whitset's death had to be homicide is shared by the latter's daughter, Catherine (Pamela Franklin), who reminds Alex of his own daughter and helps him to bond with her. Alex thinks the killer must be one of Whitset's patients, and he goes to see each of them: neurotic art dealer and artist Alfred (an unrecognizable and excellent Richard Attenborough of 10 Rillington Place); lonely Ann (Diane Cilento), with whom he sleeps; and Sir Frederick (Jack Hawkins), who has a secret buried in his past. The "third secret" -- the real truth -- is unveiled at the climax. Boyd gives an excellent performance in this, as does Pamela Franklin [The Nanny], Cilento [The Wicker Man], and Hawkins [She Played with Fire], but the movie never really catches fire, and the solution seems fairly obvious from the first. Judi Dench has a small role as Attenborough's assistant.

Verdict: Somewhat intriguing, but a little too gloomy and flaccid. **1/2.

THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE

THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE (1973). Director: John Hough. 

A group of parapsychologists come to investigate the haunted Belasco house, known as "The Mount Everest of haunted houses" as part of a paid experiment to see if there really is life after death. The last investigating team were all killed except for one man, Ben Fischer (Roddy McDowall), who is going along on this trip as well. Also in the party are scientist Lionel Barrett (Clive Revill), his wife Ann (Gayle Hunnicutt), and the psychic Florence Tanner (Pamela Franklin), who is convinced that the strong presence of the dead old owner Emeric Belasco is permeating and corrupting the spooky mansion. The film has a choppy continuity, but it's also suspenseful, absorbing, and quite creepy at times. McDowell and Franklin give particularly good performances, and Michael Gough has a notable guest appearance. Based on a novel by Richard Matheson, who also did the screenplay. 

Verdict: Watch after midnight with a friend. ***.