EarDelightBase Waste of Money.

Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Maleeha Vincent It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

preppy-3 Sandy Dennis plays a young teacher who is assigned to an inner city school in NYC in the early 1960s. You see here deal with tons of red tape at the school and students who don't care.Based on a 1964 book written by an actual NYC teacher. The tone of the film (and book) is light but it doesn't ignore the problems the students have. It offers no solutions but brings up some interesting questions. Shot at an actual NYC high school during the summer break which helps lead realism to the movie. All the acting is excellent.

Syl I felt that I was watching reality even forty years later. I too aspired to be an English teacher like Sylvia Barrett. Sandy Dennis was a terrific actress and this film shows her ability and wide range. The cast features well known and familiar faces. Sylvia endures a stark reality of the urban teaching world. Schools in the poorest sections of New York City are still under funded. The Calvin Coolidge High School appears more like a prison than a school. The atmosphere reminds me of going to the unemployment office where its grim and depressing. How can anybody believe learning is going on? Of course not, schools are supposed to prepare our students for the future but are terribly let down. Today's students believe technology will solve everything. We can't teach how to think as teachers. This film should be shown to all aspiring teachers about the reality of urban school teaching.

wes-connors Idealistic young Sandy Dennis (as Sylvia Barrett) gets her first teaching job, as an English and homeroom teacher at "Calvin Coolidge High School" in New York City. She can quote Emily Dickinson and Charles Dickens, but Ms. Dennis not prepared for an overcrowded and unruly classroom. Dennis gets some of the stereotypical students you've seen, probably, in more movies than high schools. Additionally, she must contend with shrill office secretary Jean Stapleton (as Sadie Finch) shouting orders demanding paperwork; and, everyone has to listen to what has to be the worst bell you will ever hear in a high school setting. No wonder Dennis goes "Up the Down Staircase"...Eileen Heckart, Ruth White, and Frances Sternhagen are credible school personnel. Outstanding (in more ways than one, as he doesn't arrive in time to claim one of the classroom's limited seats) is handsome Jeff Howard (as Joe Ferone), a misunderstood delinquent who mistakes Dennis' teacherly interest as sexual. Also notable is awkward Ellen O'Mara (as Alice Blake), who has a crush on frustrated writer-turned-teacher Patrick Bedford (as Paul Barringer). Highly intelligent and ethnic, but low academic performers fill in other seats. The students call Dennis "Teach" (that's short for "Teacher") derisively, as the school year rolls along... Warner Bros. must have had high hopes for "Up the Down Staircase", with accomplished director Robert Mulligan steering Sandy Dennis immediately after her award-winning performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966). Unfortunately, this film was blown out of the theaters by Columbia Picture's immensely popular Sidney Poitier film "To Sir, with Love", which was released almost simultaneously. Another problem was the fact that the high school teenagers in "Up the Down Staircase" do not possess the level of infectious juvenile delinquent appeal present in "To Sir, with Love", "Blackboard Jungle" (1955), and others..."Up the Down Staircase" was entered in Moscow's film festival, where its depiction of slummy American schooling enjoyed guarded praised. Ms. Dennis received "Best Actress" nominations from the "Film Daily" (she placed third) and the "New York Film Critics" (she placed seventh). Moody newcomers Jeff Howard and Ellen O'Mara received "Film Daily" nominations in the juvenile award category, and the trade publication placed the film itself at #7 for the year. Definitely a passing grade. ****** Up the Down Staircase (7/19/67) Robert Mulligan ~ Sandy Dennis, Patrick Bedford, Jeff Howard, Eileen Heckart

MARIO GAUCI Having watched the film, it seems quite appropriate now that during one of its key sequences, schoolteacher Sandy Dennis is guiding her unruly English literature students through the famously antithetical opening of Charles Dickens' "A Tale Of Two Cities". That's because the sheer glossiness of UP THE DOWN STAIRCASE makes its intended 'realistic' portrayal of the American school system self-defeatingly superficial. On the other hand, however, its cliché-ridden narrative – the troubled class punk is truly a highly intelligent individual, a sensitive soul bearing an unrequited love for the school's playboy-teacher attempts suicide, a painfully shy student finally blossoms into a flamboyant actor, the schoolteacher eventually sticks her neck out for her put-upon students but, ungratefully, almost gets 'raped' into the bargain, she is about to quit her job but, naturally, thinks better of it at the end, etc. – is actually what makes it enjoyable viewing. It also helps that Sandy Dennis is very good in the lead, as she herself gains confidence in her dealings with the kids as the film moves along (to Fred Karlin's playful score).