519. REBELS WITH & WITHOUT A CAUSE ON FILM: BLACKBOARD JUNGLE

Peter Josyph

Directed by Richard Brooks, Blackboard Jungle (1955) is based on a novel by Evan Hunter, a high school teacher in the South Bronx who quit after two months of frustrating, low-pay employment. Featuring Glenn Ford as Richard Dadier, a trade school teacher determined to work through threats of violence and to defuse racial hatred and resistance to the very idea of the classroom, it gave Vic Morrow his first appearance on film as a gang leader with an attitude and a switchblade, and it was Sidney Poitier's breakout performance as a bright but difficult student with conflicted loyalties. Bosley Crowther of the NY Times called the film "as hard and as penetrating as a nail." Brooks's use of Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" for the film's title sequences made the record a #1 hit and ushered rock 'n roll into cinema, a choice that so energized the film's teenage audience that dancing in the aisles and even riots occurred during the show. The film co-stars Louis Calhern, Richard Kiley, Anne Francis, Jamie Farr, and Paul Mazursky before he became a director. Is the film still relevant? A lively discussion will follow.

1-3:30 p.m.                                                                                                               1 Session

Thursday, December 18                                                                                            Fee:  $40

ABOUT THE LECTURER

Peter Josyph is an actor, a painter, a photographer, an award-winning filmmaker, and he has published 13 books.