The name Madeline is a form of the name Magdalene, which is well-known as a name because of Saint Mary Magdalene. Magdalene means "from Magdala". Mary Magdalene's name is thought to be derived from Magdala - a village on the sea of Galilee. In Aramaic, "magdala" means "tower" or "elevated, great, magnificent". In this movie and in the book series on which it was based, the name is fitting since the character Madeline is called "the bravest girl of all" and "she can do anything" by her teacher and classmates.
Vicki:
He's got charisma.
Madeline:
*He's got charisma.* You're all googly-eyed!
Vicki:
I'm not googly-eyed!
The scene at the end when the Uzbekistani ambassador almost buys the school could never have happened in real life. The movie is set in 1956, and at that time, Uzbekistan was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union. Only Ukraine and Belarus were allowed a certain degree of autonomy back then, as both were members of the United Nations despite also being part of the Soviet Union. Therefore, there could not have been an ambassador of Uzbekistan as it was not an independent country and could only conduct foreign diplomacy through Moscow, which represented the Soviet Union overall.
The word FIN appears as movie ends
English, French, Spanish
$6,414,668 12 July 1998
$29,967,750
$29,967,750