Blackboard Jungle (1955)

Blackboard Jungle (1955)

Directed by Richard Brooks

Screenplay by Richard Brooks, based on the novel by Evan Hunter

Runtime: 1 hr, 41 min

The post-WWII era saw a growing concern for the parents of American youth: juvenile delinquency.  To many it appeared that the teenagers of the 1950s, especially in the country’s inner cities, were completely out of control, and this had a profound impact on the nation’s popular culture.  From Dr. Frederic Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent to the evils of that new fangled rock ‘n’ roll, those damn kids were front and center.  The plight of juvenile delinquency is at the heart of today’s film, Blackboard Jungle.

Richard Dadier, or as some students call him, Daddy-o (Glenn Ford), is a brand new English teacher at a high school filled with unruly teenagers.  They talk back, get into fights, and try to inflict sexual harm on female teachers—all the horrible things associated with problem children.  Despite all the trouble, Dadier is determined to get the kids to learn something, or at least behave.  Whether it’s the bright but resigned Greg Miller (Sidney Poitier) or gang leading and completely incorrigible Artie West (Vic Morrow), the mission is the same.

If Blackboard Jungle sounds like one of those movies with the inspirational teacher who has to somehow get his troubled students to excel in school, well, that’s because it is.  Of course, this one’s almost sixty years old, so this was before popular culture got filled to the brim with this sort of story.  Even better, Blackboard Jungle does not follow many of the conventions of its own genre.  Somehow the movie manages simultaneously to establish and subvert the foundations of the formula, and that makes for a more interesting movie experience.

Dadier is far from the savior figure.  For one thing, the problem at the school runs so deep that Ford’s character, by film’s end, still has a long, long ways to go to get things right at the school.  For another, Dadier has many moments where one must question his resolve and morality.  One of Ford’s best sequences involves getting drunk after school (a gradual process), getting mugged by West’s gang, and then refusing to tell an investigator which boys jumped him, claiming it was too dark.  At times he appears resigned; he loses his temper and wants to quit when West makes his life hell.

But, really, the appeal of the film lies not in the inspirational teacher figure, as intriguing as Dadier is.  No, the stars of Blackboard Jungle are the troublemakers.  The central figure, the leader of the rascals, is Miller.  Poitier gives the character a lot of street smarts and dignity, even if he is clearly too old for the part of a high-school student (he was 28 at the time).  West is must more anti-authoritarian, the last holdout as the class begins to turn.  And Morales (Rafael Campos) is easily the liveliest student, and the unfortunate butt end of the pranksters.

Indeed, the film is seen as a landmark for 1950s youth culture, despite (or perhaps because of) its depiction of the students as cruel and unduly disrespectful of authority.  In fact, sometimes the film seems to celebrate the rebelliousness of the youth, contrary to its stated intentions.  This manifests in the colorful cast of characters, but also appears in some of the directorial decisions.  When West’s gang jumps Dadier and a fellow teacher (Richard Kiley), there’s no ominous string section but a lively swing tune to underscore it.

As a matter of fact, Blackboard Jungle’s most lasting legacy is related to music.  The film is largely responsible for the success of Bill Haley and the Comets’ hit “Rock Around the Clock”, which plays during the film’s opening credits.  This may be further evidence that the filmmakers sympathize on some level with the youth of the 1950s.  Rather than ignoring the teenagers’ cultural institutions, Brooks places them into the film without explicitly condemning them (even though the student’s smash the math teachers old, irreplaceable swing records).

I’ve praised a lot in this film, but there’s one nagging problem.  This movie loves to obviously foreshadow things.  By this I mean that details are brought up, such as the math teacher’s record collection or Dadier’s wife’s (Anne Francis) previous miscarriage, which caused my dad and I to think, “Well, that’s clearly a plot point.”  I’ve my own problems with foreshadowing in general, but I especially find it grating when things are brought up specifically to foreshadow something else.  At that point, why bother?  The result is a narrative that tends towards the blindingly obvious.

It’s still a fine narrative, though, with a more open ending and complex conflicts than one might expect from such a film.  Not everyone has learned a lesson at the end, and even those who have still are far from completely converted.  Blackboard Jungle may therefore lack the inspiration potion of the “inspirational teacher” genre, but that may just be for the better.  After all, if the goal is to make a movie showcasing the problem of delinquency in America, it better damn well show the problem as complicated and not easily solved.  Blackboard Jungle excels on precisely that front.