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Up the Down Staircase

6.5

154

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Original title

Up the Down Staircase

Year

1967

Running time

124 min.

Country

United States

Director

Robert Mulligan

Screenwriter

Tad Mosel. Novel: Bel Kaufman

Cast

Music

Fred Karlin

Cinematography

Joseph Coffey

Producer

Park Place Production. Distributor: Warner Bros.

Genre

Drama | Education

Synopsis

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?

Awards: 1967: Writers Guild of America (WGA): Nominated for Best Drama Screenplay

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User history

Up the Down Staircase

1967

Robert Mulligan

6.5

(154)