Blackboard Jungle

One of the interesting things is to watch movies over and realize how much you'd forgotten about it. I enjoyed this movie both times I have watched it, and after teaching for a number of years now, some things really struck me that worked: 1. Engagement. Things start to change (after a number of unfortunate situations) when Glenn Ford's character starts to really involve them in the lectures and works hard to keep them off the subject. Now, while that's not the be all and end all of good teaching, it is the beginning. 2. Respect. It seemed that, and as it should be, the teacher had to take a while to earn the respect of the kids. It had to go out of the way and overdramatize it, but with older students, respect comes with time and ability and composure. That was well done. 3. The "primary" bad guy doesn't become good in the end. Thank you Hollywood! The system, no matter what's being put into it, doesn't always work out in the end for some people, and I'm glad that it wasn't all touchy-feely.

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source: Blackboard Jungle

Blackboard Jungle (1955) is director Richard Brooks' watershed effort to shed light on the slow moral decline of youth in the inner city. The film stars Glenn Ford as Richard Dadier – a high school teacher whose optimism is sullied when he realizes the teens he is attempting to impart wisdom on are a bunch of wolfish reprobates in adolescent sheep's clothing. Dadier is further disillusioned when he talks to other school staff; particularly Prof. Kraal (Basil Ruysdael) and Jim Murdock (Louis Calhern). They have merely accepted their loss of control in the classroom and do not seem to mind the fact one way or the other. After having a baseball hurled at his head while teaching a history lesson, Dadier confronts Gregory Miller (Sidney Poitier) about the rumor that is being spread regarding his romantic badinage with one of his colleagues. Miller's tough, and he doesn't deny the accusation. But is he really the one responsible for letting Dadier's wife, Anne (Anne Francis) in on the secret? Dated by today's standards, the film is a fascinating time capsule on juvenile delinquency – then perceived as an emerging evil in the public school system - and later, along with a basis in Romeo & Juliet became the gestation for 'West Side Story.' The film also introduced rock and rollers to Bill Haley's 'Rock Around The Clock' – the song went on to become number one on hit parades across the country. Glenn Ford's central performance is among his best. He's cold, steely-eyed and aloof, harboring just the right amount of sarcasm to pit his considerable brain against the unyielding brawn of his sullen motley crew of students. In a very early performance in his career, Poitier illustrates the hallmarks of why he later went on to have such a brilliant career. And the story, ironically, foreshadows Poitier's stepping into the authoritarian shoes of an educator in "To Sir With Love" a decade later. The DVD from Warner is a beautiful B&W presentation. The gray scale has been impeccably rendered with deep, rich blacks, very clean whites and a minimal amount of film grain. The original theatrical aspect ratio of 1:85:1 has been slightly cropped for DVD to 1:78:1 but the loss of screen information is limited and excusable. The audio is original mono but presented at a listening level that will surely please. Extras include a jumble of audio commentaries from Jamie Farr, Paul Muzursky, Peter Ford and Idel Freeman; a cartoon and the film's original theatrical trailer.

This is the standard Bad-kids-won-over-by-caring-teacher movie that keeps getting made. It's the earliest one I've seen so far. The poor script presents a goofy world where new teachers are hired after about 4 exchanges which prove only that the applicant can project his voice. And a new hire has no questions, not even whether he's going to be paid! The adult characters in this movie are very dumb. The half-considered script fails to provide Glenn Ford's character with any insight into either teaching or winning over adversaries, but somehow he triumphs in the end. Must be his swell intentions... and one really powerful Jack and the Beanstalk cartoon! The script barely acknowledges there's a generation gap, and that viewpoints will need to be bridged; a cop-out that allows square viewers in 1955 to remain smug and leave without any worries that their world and its values will soon be toppled. It's not good when you're chuckling over what whitebread nerds Ford and his wife are. This is the guy who was in Gilda? Anne Francis plays the wife, a pretty but high-maintenance drag (oh, the prisons we choose for ourselves). The movie left me absolutely sure that the dullness of this couples minds insure they'll be raising the same delinquent. Ugh. What remains vivid in the movie is the violence, which is still shocking. That and what hopeless ignoramuses the kids are. Sidney Poitier played one of the students here, and then went on to make the very similar, but superior To Sir with Love where he plays the teacher role.

Blackboard Jungle (1955) There is so much intensity and visual punch to this socially concerned schoolhouse narrative, it's hard to not overlook the pushiness of some of the plot and the blatant stereotyping of most of the characters. Glen Ford is, in fact, truly commanding here, and he becomes the movie. Most of the rest, really all the rest, are supporting roles, and not all of them do him credit. And this comes not from lack of talent, but from a script that has too many little agendas at work. Hey, but they are important and interesting agendas, so fear not. It's exciting going every step of the way. Even young Sydney Poitier, for all his charm and ease on screen, is forced into a role, as a reluctant but talented student, that makes him a two-dimensional, and his relationship with Ford is pushed on us at the expense of the others. Some of the other teachers are convincing in their own ways, most of all Louis Calhern as a grumpy and jaded older teacher who expects the worst and gets it. There are moments of high drama that work--mostly violence or the avoidance of violence--and there are moments too contrived and too foreshadowed to contribute very much. The female teacher is set up to tempt the determined Ford main character, and she plays out in expected ways. It might be a testament, actually, that the movie grabs you and won't let go even with these storytelling flaws. For one thing, it looks great (with photography by Russell Harlan) and is edited crisply, so technically it soars (and in a vivid widescreen black and white, not 4:3 like IMDb says). The director, Richard Brooks, clearly makes the most of the material. His career has left us a number of almost great movies, and this might be his greatest. It seems to have had the most impact in its time, sparking violence in the theaters where it was shown. And by using "Rock Around the Clock" it helped make Bill Halley and Comets and white rock and roll hugely popular. But as just a movie, on the screen, it is Ford who takes on the subtle turmoils going on in his character's head, and you read it in his face and his stiff body language, and you believe him.

This movie is only notable today for the careers that it launched. It may have been acceptable TV movie-of-the-week style fodder for its day, but its subject matter, shallow characters, insipid situations and pat conclusions make it interesting only as an historical curiosity. Glenn Ford is a superb actor, and actually makes a pretty decent character out of the little he is given. Sidney Poitier shows some of the poise and confidence that would mark his signature style. It's funny to see the first role of Jamie 'Corporal Max Klinger' Farr, who is unrecognizable. I had to listen to the DVD commentary before I realized he was in the film, as he is not credited as Jamie Farr, but rather as his real name of Jameel Farah.

I think this film is a perfect example of how children and teenagers never really change. Oh sure the music and fashion is dated and looks prehistoric, the kids use lingo from another time and dance to music from another time, but they still act like teens. They think they are the coolest kids of all time and no one will ever be cooler. Then a new batch of teens show up and a new batch and so and so on. And the unthinkable happens to everyone, they get older and then become the middle age farts who don't understand the new generation. When in reality the new generation isn't doing anything too different from any previous generation. I was a teenager in the '90s, guess what? The '90s are over and there are a new generation of teens now who think THEY are the coolest of all time. Teens are rebellious and act up. They think they are immortal and can never die. They always have, especially since the 1940s and 1950s of America. Even the Bible documents a group of youths making fun of Elisha's baldness 3,000 years ago, "Go on up you bald head, Go on up you bald head" Poor kids, God came down with two bears and smote them all for making fun of Elisha. Unfortunately, God won't likely solve every youth problem like that anymore. :) Ways have to be found the way Glen Ford does in this film, to reach out to the troubled youth. And adults must always remind themselves that this is not a "new problem" as they so often wish to believe.

The problem with a film whose purpose is to show current social behavior is that the film is not likely to age well, as society changes. "Blackboard Jungle" is a good example. However true to life the film might have been back in the Eisenhower years, fifty years later it looks and sounds like something from the dark ages. A well meaning but namby-pamby new teacher named Richard Dadier (Glenn Ford) learns a lesson in trying to teach a bunch of boisterous and disrespectful teens. The behavior of these punks is giddily innocent compared to the behavior of punks these days. The film's plot is both repetitive and unrealistic. Dadier confronts his "scholars" over and over, in slightly different ways, as a hackneyed method to advance the plot. He gets the same disrespectful response, until he shows them a cartoon, literally, after which their kindergarten mentality miraculously morphs into a wondrous model of maturity and moral virtue, which in turn rescues Dadier's faltering image of American youth. Setting an irritating tone, the film begins with a written prologue that scrolls up the screen, about "juvenile delinquents", a corny old-fashioned phrase with tons of moralistic subtext. Most of the plot deals with these male "delinquents", none of whom are interesting. They function not as individuals but as a singular mob. Both Dadier and his meek wife seem dreadfully starry-eyed and idealistic. Some of the kid actors overact their roles. That, combined with lengthy, preachy monologues render a film that is melodramatic and theatrical. With a thin story and all those speeches, the film is predictably talky, and there is almost no humor. I can appreciate how the film, in its time, may have been rather daring, a tribute to those who were responsible for making it. But times have changed! Half a century later, the story, the cheap sets, the costumes, are all hopelessly dated. The only "entertainment" the film had to offer me was that classic anthem of rock-n-roll, "Rock Around The Clock", still snappy after all these years ...

In 1955, schools were far less undisciplined than now, yet no school in America would ever look like this. It makes "Boston Public," the foolish TV series about an inner-city school, seem like a documentary. Other than Glenn Ford's acting, there is little to recommend. The much-touted soundtrack appears over the credits, that's it.