Does Blackboard Jungle Still Have Lessons to Teach?

This evening, I went to the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge for a screening of the 1955 film Blackboard Jungle in tribute to Sidney Poitier who passed away in January.

Blackboard Jungle starred Glenn Ford as Richard Dadier, a young teacher who gets a job at a high school in the inner city. Along with Ford, Blackboard Jungle featured the likes of Vic Morrow, Anne Francis, Richard Kiley, Paul Mazursky, Jamie Farr (credited as Jameel Farah) and Louis Calhern. I knew I recognized Calhern but couldn't quite figure out where I had seen him. Nearly a quarter century earlier, Calhern had played the evil Ambassador Trentino of Sylvania in Duck Soup with The Marx Brothers. Despite this stellar cast, Poitier was the breakout star of the film. His very presence on screen was authoritative whether he spoke or not. The same would be true when he went from student to teacher a dozen years later in To Sir, With Love.

Blackboard Jungle broke the mold in the reform minded teacher genre film and had a radical soundtrack full of jazz and rock 'n roll most prominently Bill Haley and The Comets' "Rock Around The Clock". I suspect contemporary audiences would fault the film for a lack of representation of women but had a remarkably ethnically diverse cast for 1955. 

With this in mind does Blackboard Jungle still have lessons to teach? While the film depicted street gang life and classroom violence, it could not have envisioned a generation of students learning active shooter drills. Some viewers will be put off by some of the views expressed such as when Mrs. Didier (played by Anne Francis) suggested that a female teacher who was assaulted at the school (played by Margaret Hayes) might have been asking for it based on how she was dressed. 

The answer depends on whether the viewer is open to learning those lessons. While the times and conventions have changed, there are many public schools where teachers have a difficult time getting through to students and even more so as a result of time missed due to the pandemic. Teachers are still looking for a way to reach their students while being challenged by students who don't want to learn. 

With this in mind, I was disappointed that I was only one of five people at the theatre for tonight's screening. One would have thought a film featuring Sidney Poitier would have drawn more interest. Perhaps that will change later this month when The Brattle features Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, In The Heat of the Night and, of course, To Sir, With Love.