BLACKBOARD JUNGLE

US, 1955, 101 minutes, Black and white.
Glenn Ford, Anne Francis, Louis Calhern, Margaret Hayes, John Hoyt, Richard Kiley, Warner Anderson, Sidney Poitier, Vic Morrow, Horace McMahon?, Paul Mazursky.
Directed by Richard Brooks.

Blackboard Jungle has become the classic of the classroom films where a decent teacher tries to confront and educate difficult students. It was based on a novel of the 1950s – a reminder that there were difficulties in education for many decades prior to the same kinds of problems at the beginning of the 21st century.

Glenn Ford, at the height of his popularity in the 1950s, is the dedicated teacher with Anne Francis as his wife. The film was made by MGM and has strong production values with its black and white photography as well as a strong supporting cast. The difficult students are led by a very young Vic Morrow and one of the students is Sidney Poitier who had begun his film career some years earlier with No Way Out and Cry, the Beloved Country.

The film was also famous for its musical score, especially the introduction of the song by Bill Haley and the Comets, ‘Rock Around the Clock’.

The tradition of this kind of film about education has continued for many decades. Sidney Poitier himself had to face difficult students in England in To Sir With Love. Sandy Dennis had difficult students in Up the Down Staircase in the 1960s. Later school films include Lean on Me with Morgan Freeman, Dangerous Minds with Michelle Pfeiffer and The Freedom Writers with Hilary Swank.

The film was written and directed by Richard Brooks from a novel by Evan Hunter (who wrote The Birds and also all the Precinct 87 novels under the pseudonym of Ed McBain?. Brooks began as a screenwriter in the early 40s with a number of conventional films and thrillers. He began directing in 1950 and MGM with Crisis with Cary Grant and moved on to a number of genre films. However, by the late 50s he made The Brothers Karamazov and moved into such higher profile films as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Sweet Bird of Youth from Tennessee Williams plays as well as Elmer Gantry and Lord Jim from the Conrad novel. He also made the film version of In Cold Blood.

1. How accurate was the title of the film? Was it verified during the film?

2. The film was made during the fifties and reflects the atmosphere of schools then. Is its message still valid today? Which aspects of its message? Why?

3. When did audience identification happen in the film? With which characters? Why? How did the film appeal to an audience's memories of schooling and responses to education situations?

4. The impact of Rock Around the Clock in its time? Its use during the credits and at the ending? the response to the rock music today?

5. What questions did the film ask about schooling, education, and achievements? What kind of school was this trade school? Why was it such a challenge? Why was it so impressive? Why were the pupils so unresponsive? The teachers so afraid? What achievements were hoped for from the school? Consider the Headmaster and hid words. The attitudes of the teachers etc.?

6. Did the film convincingly show the parallel or the contrast between a difficult school like this and a pleasant school where the children wanted to learn? What was wrong with the pupils at this school? Give examples of how they treated themselves? Their lack of respect for themselves? Their inability to trust? The reasons for the chips on their shoulders?

7. Proving themselves? How can teachers respond to this challenge? What should they do? What did Richard Dadier do?

8. Were the teachers adequate for their positions? Were they interesting and sympathetic people in themselves? Consider the headmaster's attack. The ‘Shut up’ etc. of the organising teacher? Lois and her dress and her provocation of the students, her inability to see this? Jim Murdoch and his cynicism? Was he justified in some of his cynicism or all of it? Josh Edwards and his ambitions? His fear, his records, their being broken, the bashing?

9. What values did Richard Dadier have? Why did he want to teach? What motivated him? What kept him trying? Why did he pick on Miller? Why did he want Miller to be a leader? Did he handle this situation well? Why were his initial classes failures? Why the breakthrough with Jack and the Beanstalk? What did he appeal to in his pupils? The importance of the Christmas concert? Miller’s singing? How disillusioning was the bashing? The discovery of the anonymous letters? Was it real when he wanted to resign? What kept him going?

10. How did the cross cutting to Dadier’s home help thinking back to the film? What did Anne Dadier contribute to the film? Her pregnancy situation? Previous miscarriages? The importance of the suspicions, the anonymous letters, the premature birth? How did she contribute to Dadier's continuing to work?

11. What kind of pupil was Miller? What chips did he have on his shoulder? Was he really rebellious? Why did he respond to Dadier? What did he contribute positively to the class? How symbolic a contribution was the final confrontation with West? (was Sidney Poitier convincing as a pupil?)

12. What was wrong with Artie? Why did he hate himself and others? why was he so cruel? The bashings, the letters, the influence in the class? Why did the class turn against him at the end?

13. Which other pupils were worth considering as problem children? Why?

14. Why was Jim Murdoch’s attitude changed by the end of the film? Was this too contrived? Would it reflect that some of the cynicism in the audience might have been changed?

13. What did the film say was required for successful teaching? How much idealism? How much facing of facts ?

16. How successful a realistic film was this? The black and white photography? The starkness of the situations and sequences? Was this a good film?