HALLS OF ANGER

US, 1969, 99 minutes, Colour.
Calvin Lockhart, Janet Mc Lachlan, Jeff Bridges.
Directed by Paul Bogart.

Halls of Anger is one of a number of films made in the late '60s about education. The film has a very strong racial theme - a black high school in the city with a minority of whites. The prejudice and oppressions situations are reversed. The film is moralising and at times preaching in its situations and dialogue. However, it makes its points. It is a kind of To Sir With Love in an American setting and with tougher issues.

An American education film at this time was Robert Mulligan's Up The Down Staircase. Calvin Lockhart, a competent actor who has not had wide stardom, is competent in the central role. The film was one of Jeff Bridges' earliest roles. Halls of Anger reflects the breaking through structures of the late '60s and the propensity for protest. It is a film of its time but its themes are valuable at all time.

1. An interesting and satisfying message film? Exploration of education, race issues in the United States?

2. A reflection of attitudes and value-searching in the late '60s? The atmosphere of civil rights, the criticism of structures, the prevalence of protest? Fraternity and hatred? The period seen in retrospect? The influence of such films for the causes?

3. The tradition of To Sir With Love and themes of racism and education? The importance of segregation in schools? Attitudes behind segregation? The feel for oppression, minority groups? The situation reversed for blacks and whites? The moral for the white audience? Oppression by blacks?

4. Education thews: schools and their administration, boys and girls and their needs, abilities? Attitudes towards discipline? Creativity, syllabuses, tests? The heavy-handed attitudes of bureaucracy? Pressures on teachers and students? The promotion of values for blacks and whites in a united America?

5. The initial situation: Quincy Davis and his achievement, a black teacher, successful, able? His drive to get out of the ghetto, his acceptance in the school? His sports career and success? The offer of change and challenge? His being needed and used by the bureaucracy?

6. The presentation of the school: its black and white students, the white minority? The visuals of the students arriving, being harassed - the reversal of the oppression of the blacks? The staff, black and white? The principal and his declaration of attitudes and principles?

7. The classroom sequences - the inability of the students to read, the vocabulary tests, the lack of discipline? The humour of Davis getting the students to read the book about sex and improving their reading by curiosity? Sport training and the exclusion of the whites? The fights? J.T. and his arrogant attitudes? His mouthing of the oppression statements? How sympathetic a character within the school?

8. The humiliations of the whites - the sharpening of pencils, changing places in the classroom, the singing in the cafeteria? The confrontation and bashing? The stripping of the girl? The white parents and their hostile attitudes? The build-up of tension to a final confrontation and decision at the end?

9. The character of Davis - his behaviour in the classroom, his attitudes towards the boys and girls, his sports reputation and the children following him? His standing up to the principal? His friendship with Lorraine and his falling in love with her eventually? Her showing him his options? The contest at basketball with J.T., the riot and his individual action overcoming difficulties? His not needing the police at the end? His facing the problems - J.T. and the white boy going back to the school?

10. The character of J.T. - the inevitable clash, his personality and leadership, his attacks, his mouthing of hostilities towards Davis, towards the whites? Sport? His ability at art - the sequence in preparing for the painting of the mural and the pride in doing it? His reactions and defacing of the mural? The final hostility towards Davis?

11. Johnson embodying the attitudes of the ignorant student - reading, fighting, taunted by the white boy, the fight and the expulsion?

12. The white students and their attempt to fit in, their skill in reading, sport? The hostile white boy and his hatred, the fight with Johnson? The girl and her friendship with the black boy and the ridicule? Her being attacked in the toilet block? The picture of provocation? The inherited attitudes of hostility between white and blacks and their being played out in schools in the '60s?

13. Lorraine and her working in the school,' the counter-view to Davis, friendship, support, outings? Her love for him?

14. The background to Davis' final decision in staying - the temptation to be out, his walking through the ghetto? His dramatic statements of race issues?

15. The success of melodrama to highlight civil rights? The moralising and preaching tone? The conventional sequences of classroom , school activities, people. clashes - highlighting the issues? Giving insight?