What age was Miss Brodie in her 'prime?'

I don't know an exact age, but I believe "prime" refers to the period from sexual awakening and marriageable age (18 and later) when life is full of options and a young woman can embrace what the world has to offer until those open doors begin to close. It's a time she can fall in love and marry and have children that ends with spinsterhood if she doesn't, and it's a time when she's still free rather than feeling a great pressure to settle down and like doors are closing (biological clock ticking and so on).

I think the character is supposed to be at the far end of her prime and perhaps even a bit past it, but in her mind she fools herself otherwise with her fanciful ideas.

i'm thinking early thirties. those years before you're middle aged, after those years when men treat you as mere piece of meat.

i walked in beauty too, till i met you

Maggie Smith was 35 when the film came out, but by the end of the film she is playing a woman in her forties.

On release (1969) forties would have seemed a lot older - these days 40s is nothing ad caling a person 'past their prime' doesn't have the saem ring now as then.

Miss Brodie would have been in her forties during this period of the film. In the novel, I believe that Miss Brodie dies in 1946 from cancer, and I believe she died at age 51 or 56. I can't remeber which. Remember, she would have been a young woman before the first world war as illustrated by her 'relationship' with Hugh.

'The truth is rarely pure, and never simple' Oscar Wilde

Ideally she would have been 37 which is the universal age when women see 40 approaching and the end of their "fatal attraction", plus it is medically proven to be the absolute height of their "sexual desire".

I know all this from bitter personal experience so I am always on the lookout for it portrayed in movies.

the brilliant Catherine in Jules and Jim is a great example of the ultimate reaction.

All About Eve has Bette Davis playing a similar Margo Channing.

however the twist in this case is Jean is a fraud and her issue is she MISSED her Wild Oats in her youth [by playing the "I am a rock" prim and proper young gal "with her books and poetry to protect her".

so Hugh is a fabrication and Sandy [the totally shrewd one] works that out, AND the fact Jean is totally frigid [as Teddy found "you went to bed with an artist and were surprised when you woke up with a MAN"].

Jean lived a lie [npi] by laying with the stupid old mummy's boy Gordon, purely to annoy Teddy.

Sandy therefore TRUMPS her by laying with Teddy and then discarding him.

Sandy is everything Jean wishes SHE had been at 17 so tries to belittle her "sexuality" [not pronked back then] but for Sandy sex is simple ie you do it and enjoy it and NOT the tortuous path Jean took via her illusions of being there [with a white dress with poppies - lol] as Beatrice and Dante, but having missed that "Lolita moment" at 14 as she says, she projects her gals [BY PROXY] into "Dante's bed", even "sexing up" the platonic relationship of Dante and Beatrice and her age from 9 to 14 [and even the location] - "it happens" she pathetically protests and loses it in front of class.

then the very clever scene change from "A painter Miss Brodie" to Sandy showing exactly HOW to do it with Teddy, totally in control and more concerned [like Lolita] there was nothing to eat [a direct nod TO Kubrick's masterpiece].

it was so appropriate she played a role alongside Sue Lyon herself in 1977.

there is no doubt she would have qualified as one of Humbert's nymphets in 1965.

those lovely cherry pies!

http://www.kindleflippages.com/ablog/

In the novel Miss Brodie herself stated her Prime had begun when she was 40 and expected it to last until she was 60.

The Long Walk stops every year, just once.