Up the Down Staircase (film)
| Up the Down Staircase | |
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Film poster
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| Directed by | Robert Mulligan |
| Produced by | Robert Mulligan Alan J. Pakula |
| Written by |
Bel Kaufman (novel) Tad Mosel |
| Starring |
Sandy Dennis Patrick Bedford Eileen Heckart Jean Stapleton |
| Music by | Fred Karlin |
| Edited by | Folmar Blangsted |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
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Release date
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Running time
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124 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $5,000,000 (US/ Canada) |
Up the Down Staircase is a 1967 American drama film about the first, trying assignment for a young, idealistic teacher played by Sandy Dennis. Robert Mulligan directed the film and Tad Mosel wrote the screenplay adaptation of the novel of the same name by Bel Kaufman.
The film's title is a reference to the staircases inside a public, overcrowded New York City high school with a number of troubled students. Sylvia Barrett, fresh out of graduate school, has just been hired to teach English to the teens in this place, who come from various races and ethnicities. Many are undisciplined; a few are hanging with gangs. She is confused at first by the required regulations, daily reporting and other paperwork. Her students also seem continually disruptive and playful. One girl has a crush on a male teacher, and tries to jump out of a window; another appears with a black eye. A boy on court probation, with a high I.Q. but a mixed academic record, tests her patience, while another boy works nights and falls asleep in class. Not everyone is agreeable with Sylvia's quiet approach to the situation, but she intends to get the teens to become good students and get them into real learning. She succeeds finally in getting them into a lively discussion about classic literature, followed by a lively mock trial, before weighing whether to continue or resign from her position.
Sandy Dennis took the role of Sylvia Barrett after winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? This was her first and only film with producer Alan J. Pakula and director Robert Mulligan. The film also featured early appearances from Bud Cort and Jean Stapleton. Cort later did other films: he is best known as the suicidal youth who meets a vivacious Holocaust survivor in Harold and Maude. Jean Stapleton would land the pivotal role of Edith Bunker on the TV show All in the Family.
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