Up the Down Staircase (film)

The film's title is a reference to the staircases inside a public, overcrowded New York City high school of 3,000 students, many of them troubled. 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 disheartened that she came to teach but finds that her time seems burdened with the school's required regulations, daily reporting and other paperwork. Her students also seem continually disruptive and playful. Student Alice has a crush on a male teacher and narrowly avoids death after jumping out a school window; Student Linda gets a black eye from her father. Student Joe is on court probation, with a high I.Q. but a mixed academic record, testing her patience; student Roy 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 (comparing "the best of times ... the worst of times" to their own lives), followed by a lively mock trial, before weighing whether to continue or resign from her position.

• Sandy Dennis as Sylvia Barrett, English teacher
• Patrick Bedford as Paul Barringer, English teacher and unpublished writer
• Eileen Heckart as Henrietta Pastorfield, English teacher
• Ruth White as Beatrice Schachter, teacher and soon Miss Barrett's mentor
• Jean Stapleton as Sadie Finch, school office staff
• Sorrell Booke as Dr. Bester, school principal
• Roy Poole as Mr McHabe, school vice-principal
• Florence Stanley as Ella Friedenberg, guidance counselor
• Vinnette Carroll as The Mother, student Roy Atkins' guardian, Mrs. Lewes
• Salvatore Rasa as Harry A. Kagan, student council president
• John Fantauzzi as Eddie, a student who drops out
• Maria Landa as Carole Blanca, Alice's friend
• Lewis Wallach as Lou Martin, the class clown
• Jose Rodriguez as Jose Rodriguez, introverted student who blossoms in mock trial
• Ellen O'Mara as Alice Blake, student with crush on Mr. Barringer
• Jeff Howard as Joe Ferone, an intelligent student admitted on school probation

Julia de Burgos junior high in East Harlem (now Renaissance Charter H.S.) provided the exterior of "Calvin Coolidge High School."

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.

The film was entered into the 5th Moscow International Film Festival where Sandy Dennis won the award for Best Actress.[2]

Outdoor street scenes were filmed on 1st Avenue and 100th Street in East Harlem. The outdoor school scenes were filmed on the same block, at Junior High School 99 at 410 East 100th Street (now the Renaissance Charter High School for Innovation).[3][4] Some indoor school and classroom scenes were filmed at the former Haaren HS on 59th St and 10th Ave (today's John Jay College of Criminal Justice), and a production studio in Chelsea.

The actors portraying the students were non-professionals, and most were themselves high school students. Jeff Howard, 20 years old, was a Long Island University student. Jose Rodriguez, playing the quiet student who blossoms during the trial sequence, was a 17-year-old student at the New York School of Printing, now the High School of Graphic Communication Arts. Ellen O'Mara, who plays a love-struck student, was also 17 and attended Washington Irving High School. Salvatore Rasa, playing the student body president of the fictional high school, was 17 and had that role in real life at Bishop Ford High School.[5]

The film was well received by critics, many of whom praised Sandy Dennis's performance. Later in the year, it would be eclipsed by another movie about teaching, the megahit To Sir, With Love starring Sidney Poitier.

• List of teachers portrayed in films

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Up the Down Staircase (film)

• Up the Down Staircase at the TCM Movie Database
• Up the Down Staircase on IMDb