Up the Down Staircase
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Movie Reviews of Up the Down Staircase
Movie Review: 'THERE IS NO FRIGATE . . .' HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Summary: 5 Stars
One of my favorite movies. As an innercity public high school student, I remember the snooty kids visiting us from an all-white suburban camelot academy mentioning that it reminded them of "Up the Down Staircase". The late Sandy Dennis' performance as idealistic English teacher Miss Barrett was one of the most undervalued and underrated, and I thought it criminal that she didn't rate at least an Oscar nomination. A wonderful supporting cast, including a pre-Edith Bunker Jean Stapleton and Eileen Heckert, and the students being played by real high school kids makes this special. I think you might be surprised how relatively mild these "delinquents" act in comparison with the kids today. At least no kids were packing heat back then!
Great this is coming to DVD.
Movie Review: Up The Down Staircase DVD
Summary: 5 Stars
The brilliant Sandy Dennis stars in this excellent film adaptation of the book "Up The Down Staircase". I waited years to see this film again and the wait was well worth it for the film is just as wonderful as I remembered it over 40 years ago.Movie Review: super movie
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie is a must see for teachers. It really helps one to see the humor and the obstacles teachers face. Sandy Dennis is wonderful as the naive new teacher and all that she goes through during her first year. I recommend highly.Movie Review: Familiar But Surprisingly Resonant Look at a Young Teacher's Trial by Fire in an Urban High School
Summary: 4 Stars
Fresh from her acclaimed portrayal of the young professor's frail alcoholic wife in Mike Nichols' classic adaptation of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Sandy Dennis stars in this forgotten 1967 drama that covers familiar territory in the movies, the idealistic high school teacher who must get through to a classroom full of unruly inner-city teens. Variations of the same storyline can be seen in a variety of films like Stand and Deliver, Dangerous Minds, the recent Freedom Writers, and another 1967 film, To Sir, With Love with Sidney Poitier. Resuscitated from obscurity in a 2007 DVD release, this one is surprisingly free of the predictable clichés that mar most of the films of this genre. Produced by Alan J. Pakula and directed by Robert Mulligan, the same team that made two of my favorites from the 1960's, To Kill a Mockingbird and Love With the Proper Stranger, this film forges its own identity as a positive yet realistic view of the common problems faced by an urban high school overrun with students, short on funds and run by administrators and teachers more interested in maintaining civility in the classrooms than providing an actual education.
Into the chaos of Calvin Coolidge High School walks Sylvia Barrett, a young, inexperienced teacher intent on making a difference through the naïve methods she developed from her insular, college-trained perspective. You can figure out how her methods are initially greeted and how indifferent her fellow teachers have become to such optimism. However, she perseveres with a blend of patience and subtle defiance, and there is a wonderfully liberated scene where her students become enraptured by the opening paragraphs of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. As Miss Barrett gets to know her students and fellow teachers, so do we, and her personal journey leads to revelations that lend emotional resonance to the viewer thanks to Tad Mosel's incisive, unsentimental screenplay (based on Bel Kaufman's 1965 best-seller). Interestingly, we never see her life outside of school, which makes the drama within the school environs all the more compelling.
Known for her idiosyncratic style and perpetually nervous manner, Dennis uses her unique style to strong effect resulting in a remarkably empathetic performance. Familiar faces dot the supporting cast - Eileen Heckart as a cheery teacher masking an inappropriate crush on a student, Jean Stapleton as a harried administrator, Roy Poole as the tough-minded principal, Sorrell Booke as the poker-faced superintendent, Ruth White as a veteran teacher who teaches Sylvia how to survive the urban jungle, and Florence Stanley as an unctuous, absurdly organized counselor. Looking like a cross between Sal Mineo and John Stamos, Jeff Howard, who later played bit parts in Hal Hartley's films, cannily handles the role of a delinquent with potential, though Patrick Bedford somewhat overdoes his role as a lecherous teacher who dismisses a shy schoolgirl's romantic advances. My only reservation is that the film runs a bit long at 124 minutes. The DVD's only significant extra is the original theatrical trailer.
Movie Review: Rambling and unsatisfying
Summary: 3 Stars
The Bottom Line:
Like the recent Entre Le Murs (The Class), Up the Down Staircase eschews the traditional mold of the new-teacher-inspires-students story in favor of a series of more relaxed and unplotted vignettes about a school year; while this method may have merit, in the case of Up the Down Staircase it leads to an unfocused and rambling movie that doesn't have story as much as storylines and doesn't conclude as much as end.
2.5/4