Blackboard Jungle

In this gritty urban drama, war veteran Richard Dadier (Glenn Ford) wants to begin his career as a teacher and is given an assignment at a boys high school in inner-city New York. However, he soon discovers the school is overrun by delinquents, led by Artie West (Vic Morrow), an insolent hood who ...more

Blackboard Jungle has been tainted somewhat by the countless imitators that followed it. It's difficult to see this movie in context as the shocking "exposé" that it felt like in 1955. Compared to the latest "remakes," like Stand and Deliver and Dangerous Minds, the shocking urban delinquents in Jungle seem more Happy Days than street gang. But in its time, Blackboard Jungle, along with Rebel Without a Cause (also 1955) and The Wild One (1954), showed the mainstream public a scary and unfamiliar ...more