Blackboard Jungle

It was a shocking movie at the time and was said to provoke violence, and when Clare Boothe Luce, then American ambassador to Italy, protested its showing at the Venice Film Festival, its international fame was assured. The subject - contempt for authority (in a metropolitan trade school) - is treated as a problem with a definite solution. Surrounded by hostile and delinquent boys, the hero, an idealistic teacher (Glenn Ford) tries to reach the salvageable one among them - Sidney Poitier, who gives an angry, exciting performance. With Louis Calhern, who's always fun to wacht; Margaret Hayes, as the teacher who's a candidate for rape; Anne Francis in the tiresome role of Ford's pregnant wife; Richard Kiley, as the embarrassingly weak-kneed teacher whose jazz records get smashed. (Pauline Kael)