Blackboard Jungle (1955) on Netflix
War veteran Richard Dadier takes his first teaching post at North Manual High School. Artie West, a bully with a gang, and Gregory Miller lead a class that gives him no respect.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.4/1010,707 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes74%
Trailer
Plot summary
Richard Dadier, a war veteran, takes his first teaching job at North Manual High School, an inner-city school whose students come from many backgrounds. Most of them show no interest in lessons, and Gregory Miller stands at the head of the class's resistance. The principal, Mr. Warneke, says there is no discipline problem, while Mr. Murdock, on the faculty, warns the newcomers that there is. Dadier's class also holds Artie West, a bully who leads a gang. Fellow new teachers Joshua Edwards and Lois Hammond become his friends.
Cast
- Dan Terranovaas Belazi
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Blackboard Jungle (1955)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- India's censor board banned the film outright as "too violent" and "unsuitable for public exhibition", and it was banned in 15 other countries; it was also withdrawn from the 16th Venice International Film Festival at the insistence of U.S. Ambassador to Italy Clare Boothe Luce.
- In search of the music teens were listening to, director Richard Brooks borrowed a few records from star Glenn Ford's son Peter; when he heard Bill Haley and His Comets perform 'Rock Around the Clock', he had the first rock song ever used in a Hollywood feature.
- The film was blamed for inspiring a gang of girls aged 12 to 14 in Memphis who burnt down a cattle barn; they later said they "wanted to be tough like those kids in that picture."
- Novelist Evan Hunter, then known by his birth name Salvatore Lombino, based the book on his own job teaching at Bronx Vocational High School, which he took in 1950 and quit in frustration after two months.
- Richard Brooks and Pandro S. Berman said Sidney Poitier was their first and only choice to play Gregory Miller; Brooks was told Poitier's age, 27, only after casting him, but kept him because he felt the role required an experienced performer.
- According to Peter Ford, gossip columnist Hedda Hopper would not talk to his father Glenn Ford for years after the film, calling him a communist and asking, "Glenn, how could you make this kind of film?"
- Vic Morrow, Sidney Poitier, Rafael Campos, Dan Terranova and Paul Mazursky were all given screen tests for the film, and Morrow beat out both John Cassavetes and Steve McQueen for the role of Artie West.
