Blackboard Jungle (1955)

hyped garbage

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Juvenile Deliqnency is always a good movie subject because you can do so much with it. In this movie, they went all out showing armed robbery, assault, gangs, drinking, mayhem, attempted rape and even what appears to be attempted murder. Of course New York city is the prime area for all this and the 50's times make it real enough. Being a non-conformist and a rebel was considered cool, a badge of honor and the way to be. The problem was that if you got too good at it you didn't graduate so the kids pushed it to the limit to get away with as much as they could within limits. Here, some teachers, a school principal and others take a stand and try to turn it around. One man does an exceptional job of it but at a cost which turned out to be worth it but could just as easily taken his life. At some point in the movie, one of the wayward kids says something like this when talking to a teacher after school: out here, this is my classroom and I can flunk you for real which has a chilling affect of realism. Reaching children of any age takes skill and commitment and the this movie makes that point and then some. Enjoy the supporting cast. Good snack movie and of course with a tasty drink. I never cared much for school because I didn't understand what was required or why. The school of life appealed to me more...enjoy

Richard Dadier (Glenn Ford) is a new teacher at the all-boys North Manual High School coming from an all-girl school. It's a tough inner city school with juvenile delinquent students. Principle Warnecke refuses to acknowledge any problems. Dadier suspects Gregory Miller (Sidney Poitier) and Artie West (Vic Morrow) are the worst disrupters. He tries to instill order in the chaos by putting up Miller as the leader. Anne is his needy pregnant wife. He rescues a female teacher from rape on the first day. Word spreads that Dadier is a tough customer. He still thinks that Miller is the leader of the trouble but it's really West. They ambush Dadier and another teacher in an alley.The music and the subject matter help make this a terrific rock and roll movie. The kids are actually rough which puts Poitier's 'To sir, with love' to shame. Poitier is playing tough and doing good at it. Sometimes he's not good at it. It's a truly hard school which is tougher than most high school teacher drama of today. Glenn Ford is good at portraying the struggling Dadier. He's not a perfect teacher and that makes the movie more compelling. Vic Morrow is also doing some terrific work.

The movie that created the "Teacher reforms delinquent kids" genre, launched the career of Sidney Poitier and introduced many people to rock 'n roll (thanks to Rock Around the Clock, by Bill Haley and the Comets, being in the soundtrack). However, for all this, it is idealistic, heavy-handed and very frustrating. It just doesn't feel like the real world. The abuse the teachers suffer seems over-the-top, just for effect. Worse still, they just grin and bear it. eg A teacher gets assaulted by students and can identify them, yet doesn't identify them to the cops as he would rather "reform" them. Oh, please. They should all have gone to jail. (Plan B: a posse of teachers with baseball bats evens the score...).Has a decent ending, but that would be it.

Probably the granddaddy of all those films about a headstrong teacher who's able to break through to a bunch of underprivileged kids when everyone else has given up on them and, though the oldest, the toughest and most biting of the ones I've seen.Unlike other movies of its kind, where the teacher pretty much becomes the best friend of everyone in his/her class, "Blackboard Jungle" doesn't wrap things up as cosily or tidily. Glenn Ford's teacher certainly earns his class's respect, but not completely their trust. And Ford is not the saint in teacher's clothing that you might think a film from 1955 would make him. In one key encounter with an African-American student (Sidney Poitier) who he has singled out as having the makings of a leader, Ford's character exposes the racism that he knows he shouldn't feel but does anyway. In a decade of films not known for their nuance or subtlety, "Blackboard Jungle" handles the question of race in a somewhat delicate manner and makes a much more complex study of it than audiences who are used to many of the other cinematic offerings from around the same time period would expect.Another thing that struck me about the film was its handling of the World War and its aftermath. In the 1950s, a film could perhaps be critical of war in the abstract, but it would find itself on thin ice if it tried to be too critical of America's involvement in World War II, and it certainly could not suggest that there were serious social problems as a result of the war. This was a decade in which people wanted to believe in the American Dream, that men were proud to serve their country and settle into lives as worker drones and that women were happy to be doting housewives. What to make of a film like "Blackboard Jungle," then, that outright blames the absentee parenting brought about by the social upheaval of the war for juvenile delinquency? And the film is honest too about America's treatment of draftees to its wars. The kids in this film, poor and disenfranchised, know that they'll be the first ones drafted into Korea or whatever war America will be fighting next, treated like grunts, and disposed of when their usefulness expires.Glenn Ford gives a truly terrific performance in "Blackboard Jungle," an award-worthy one that nevertheless went unnoticed for awards attention. The film did garner four Academy Award nominations though it won none of them: Best Screenplay (Richard Brooks, who also directed), Best Art Direction (B&W), Best Cinematography (B&W) and Best Film Editing.Grade: A