The first major film to put a chirpy/quirky spin on the 'tough school' genre first defined by 1955's "Blackboard Jungle." From a 1964 Bel Kaufman novella, born of her keen observations and notebooks while inside the New York City school system. First out on DVD in late 2007; WB's DVD transfer quality is surprisingly
high. Sandy Dennis slips easily into her role as naive break-in teacher at fictional Coolidge High. Coolidge's foremost problem is that it's more an impotent bureaucracy than any kind of institution of learning, with many of its teachers and administrators bunkered well inside silos built of complex, needless paperwork. Along the way Dennis encounters a variety of now-predictable scenarios: student abused by parent, punk takes compassion as come-on, student crush on teacher (and vice-versa), student without parent or home. Dennis truly excels at her subtle revealing of the character's emotions as she navigates and eventually finds port within such choppy waters. Perhaps the film's scenarios are no revelation today, but it surely jolted 1967 viewers reared amidst the cornfields of Iowa. As a once NYC public school student, I know there is validity in the notions this film sets out to portray. Two-foot-wide red centerlines down each hall ensured only counter-clockwise flow of students. Classroom order was the only goal for many instructors; one Spanish teacher told endless macabre tales to mesmerize, skinning his neighbor's cats alive was but one of them. The Principal was unknown by sight; only his voice booming through the classroom speaker boxes was familiar. Truants went undetected for months until the paperwork caught up to them. And there's a strong concordance between this film and many of my personal experiences while teaching within 'a high-need urban high school.' These situations cannot be so much improved decades later. Accordingly, I find this film is still well recommended immersion for those considering K-12 teaching as 'a profession.'
November 8, 2010
