MOVIE · 1967
Up the Down Staircase
Drama124 min
Sandy Dennis is Sylvia Barrett, a novice English teacher taking her first job at a New York City high school where indifference runs from the faculty lounge to the front office. Buried in paperwork and facing classes full of disruptive, checked-out students, Sylvia keeps trying to reach the teenagers everyone else has written off. Robert Mulligan’s film stays close to the daily pressures of the school—overcrowded rooms, administrative absurdities, and one setback after another as Sylvia’s early optimism is tested. Patrick Bedford and Eileen Heckart are among the colleagues and administrators shaping her rough initiation.
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