Up the Down Staircase
Sylvia Barrett is a rookie teacher at New York's inner-city Calvin Coolidge High: her lit classes are overcrowded, a window is broken, there's no chalk, books arrive late. The administration is concerned mainly with forms and rules (there's an up and and a down staircase); bells ring at the wrong time. Nevertheless, she tries. How she handles the chaos and her despair in her first semester makes up the film: a promising student drops out, another sleeps through class, a girl with a crush on a male teacher gets suicidal, and a bright but troublesome student misunderstands Sylvia's reaching out. A discussion of Dickens, parents' night, and a mock trial highlight the term. Can she make it?
APPROVED
HD
Drama
1967
124 min
Prime VideoStreaming Channels
Movie Info:
- Full Name : Up the Down Staircase
- Duration : 124 min
- Languages : English
- Writers : Bel Kaufman (novel), Tad Mosel (screenplay)
- Directors : Robert Mulligan min
- Imdb : 7.6 (1334 votes)
- Tomatoes : 3.8 (367 votes)
- Actors : Sandy Dennis, Patrick Bedford, Eileen Heckart, Ruth White
Movie Storyline
Sylvia Barrett is a rookie teacher at New York's inner-city Calvin Coolidge High: her lit classes are overcrowded, a window is broken, there's no chalk, books arrive late. The administration is concerned mainly with forms and rules (there's an up and and a down staircase); bells ring at the wrong time. Nevertheless, she tries. How she handles the chaos and her despair in her first semester makes up the film: a promising student drops out, another sleeps through class, a girl with a crush on a male teacher gets suicidal, and a bright but troublesome student misunderstands Sylvia's reaching out. A discussion of Dickens, parents' night, and a mock trial highlight the term. Can she make it?