hdianep
I loved this movie, I watched it two times in two days as I dvr'd it from TCM. After watching it I ordered the book and purchased the movie. Sandy Dennis was so endearing in her role. It was so good that I also had to look up all of the actors and read their history and backgrounds etc. I usually do not go so overboard but this movie caught ahold of me. I was only two years old when it was released and do not know how I have gone for so long without seeing it but so glad I ran across it. You will not be disappointed with it. There were some familiar faces in the movie such as Jean Stapleton, Sorrell Booke and even Bernice from Fish :)
dougdoepke
Economic class is a touchy topic for America's power-brokers. That's because class cuts to the heart of how power and advantage gets distributed nationally. Moreover it cuts wider than racism since class affects whites as well as non-whites. In the movie there's an attempt to deal with educational problems of an impoverished urban highschool. There, middle-class innocent Ms. Barrett (Dennis) begins her teaching career fresh from college. Ironically, however, it's she who's about to get an education in class realities, but of a different sort than what she's trained for. Screen time is monopolized by her over- crowded classroom that at times borders on chaos. There, multi-racial teens engage in raucous antics while she bobs and weaves, forging ahead doggedly with lesson plans. Still, she's instinctive enough to know the best approach is not to micro-manage, but to keep a lid on things before they get too unwieldy. But then, why should the kids pay attention since they're basically trapped at societal bottom, viewing the teacher, rightly or wrongly, as an agent of the same system of entrapment. At the same time, administration is all about rules and enforcing them, which given the behavioral realities is, I guess, understandable. Too bad they can't do much about what needs to be fixed, procured, or replaced. Instead, they've learned to live with things as they are, without challenging the higher-ups. Thus, from an institutional standpoint, all sides appear locked into role-playing, where the end product is more like societal processing than education. It's this dead-end role-playing that the idealistic Barrett struggles against. Whether she will eventually be co-opted into the status-quo is, however, beyond the movie's frame. I mention these points because I think they amount to a meaningful background to the on- screen drama. Significantly, these more general points are only briefly touched on in the screenplay. Thus we're mainly left with the puzzle of uncaring student behavior without the societal context behind it.Then too, we see nothing of Barrett's home life, where she lives or with whom. Also, apart from one rather unhelpful mother, we see nothing of the kids' home life, though some home conditions are implied by random comments. Clearly, the movie wants to keep focus on the institutional setting. Thus, we get only impressions of individuals, and strictly through school interplay. In that regard, it's a highly disciplined screenplay.The movie itself does a good job of engaging at the teacher-pupil-bureaucratic level. Dennis is excellent as the determined neophyte, but you may need a scorecard to keep up with all the teens and administrators. Plumpish Ellen O'Mara especially registers as a suicidal teen, made forlorn by an uncaring teacher (Bedford) who apparently sees the kids more as punctuation marks than as human beings. No wonder he rants abusively to Barrett's class, before bolting from campus and his job. It's also interesting to see how Barrett finally makes contact with her class by using a passage from Dickens. In a lively discussion, the kids are quite ready to talk about what's wrong with things in their lives. Understandably, they're much more responsive to give-and-take like this than to isolating assignments like book reports or essays.Of course, the admirable Ms Barrett manages to reach a few students by year's end. And that, despite heavy misgivings, proves enough to sign on for a second year. Overall, it appears the story manages an eye-level contact with inner city high schools without too many commercial concessions. But one thing to keep in mind apart from the movie. Sure, some students will respond well enough to go on to college, and become tomorrow's Ms. Barretts. Then they will go on to cope with tomorrow's urban highschools. But, given that pattern, will anything basic change. And should we be content with that. In my little book, the movie remains a telling and provocative one.
Joseph P. Ulibas
Up the Down Staircase (1967) was a film based up an interesting novel that came out during the mid-sixties. The novel was somewhat scatter shot but the film was more linear in structure. Even though the film doesn't follow it directly, it still manages to keep it's quirky and helter skelter tone and atmosphere. Sandy Dennis stars as a young teacher who's hired to teach in an inner city school. Not all that prepared for life in that environment, she manages to keep her head up and wear that ever so cute smile upon her face. Will this young and idealistic teacher keep to her dedicated style of children first? How does she deal with the culture shock? What does the title mean? Watch this flick and find out!Recommended for fans of high school movies
