THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 18, 1996 TAG: 9601180034
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines
FROM THE GENTILITY of the 1939 ``Goodbye, Mr Chips'' to the horrific violence of ``The Class of 1984,'' movies about teachers have seen a few changes.
Yet, teachers still come off as noble beings who help troubled youngsters to lead richer lives.
And most such films still end with a scene in which grown-up alumni return to pay tribute to the teacher who inspired them. We've never needed that scene so much as we do now in the troubled school systems of 1996. And we get it in the new film ``Mr. Holland's Opus,'' arriving Friday.
Let's peek into some vintage movie classrooms. If you never saw these films, most are available on video or in TV reruns. While our list is by no means complete, it constitutes a sampling of personal favorites:
Robert Donat, in ``Goodbye, Mr. Chips,'' is the schoolteacher everyone remembers. Donat led the British lads from boyhood toward manhood, and even beat out Clark Gable's Rhett Butler to get the 1939 Oscar. When we finally say goodbye to him, it's still a teary moment.
But it wasn't really goodbye. Peter O'Toole played Mr. Chips in the 1969 musical remake, a role which earned him an Oscar nomination. The film was demeaned in its day, but the score is impressive.
For the 1945 film, ``The Corn Is Green,'' a young Bette Davis sends her prize student from a small Welsh coal-mining town to Oxford. Katharine Hepburn had the role for a 1979 TV remake.
Irene Dunne in the 1947 ``Anna and the King of Siam'' brought the European world to the King's brood. Deborah Kerr, in the 1956 musical ``The King and I,'' met her charges with the song ``Getting to Know You.''
Loretta Young played a college professor who kills a handsome student in self defense in ``The Accused'' (1948).
The 1955 ``Good Morning, Miss Dove'' starred Jennifer Jones, who played the title role from girlhood to old age, sacrificing love and worldliness for her students.
Rosalind Russell in the 1958 ``Auntie Mame'' was our favorite at-home teacher. After all, she did teach little Patrick to write down all the words he didn't understand. In 1966, Russell played a nun-teacher in ``The Trouble With Angels.''
Mae West in ``My Little Chickadee'' (1940), with W.C. Fields, was a schoolmarm who taught the boys the difference between addition and subtraction. Her lesson: ``I meet a man with a hundred dollars, and I leave him with two. That's subtraction. And, then one and one make two. That's addition. You figure it out.''
Sidney Poitier made ``To Sir, With Love'' one of the big hits of 1967. Portraying a teacher in London's tough East End, he tosses the books in favor of teaching his class about life.
Anne Bancroft won an Oscar for teaching Patty Duke, as Helen Keller, to say ``Wa-Wa'' in ``The Miracle Worker'' (1962). Then, in 1963, Judy Garland played a teacher who cares for the mentally retarded in ``A Child is Waiting.''
Maggie Smith won an Oscar for ``The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie'' (1969); she taught her girls that they should all be prima ballerinas, never members of the corps de ballet.
In ``Rachel, Rachel'' (1968), Joanne Woodward played a spinster schoolteacher who gets one last chance at romance. Sandy Dennis in ``Up the Down Staircase'' (1967) portrayed a naive New York English teacher.
In 1955, ``The Blackboard Jungle'' made history as the first mainstream movie in which rock 'n' roll was used. Bill Haley and the Comets' big hit, ``Rock Around the Clock,'' played over the opening credits. Glenn Ford was an idealistic teacher trying to reach his unruly students.
A 1982 film - ``Class of 1984'' with Perry King as the teacher - was a semi-remake of ``Blackboard.'' King goes for revenge against the students. The most ludicrous sequel was ``Class of 1999'' in which a high school principal, in response to gangs, set up rocket-launching robots as teachers.
In 1989, Morgan Freeman, in ``Lean on Me,'' played a real-life New Jersey teacher who used hard-line tactics to turn around a tough school.
The same year, Robin Williams dropped his comic persona to play an idealistic teacher. In the box office hit, ``Dead Poets Society,'' he inspired prep school boys to be individuals, and read poetry.
Danny DeVito, in ``Renaissance Man,'' tried to teach a bunch of Army guys the intricacies of Shakespeare. Evidently, neither a ``Hamlet'' rap nor the casting of Marky Mark could rescue this 1994 film.
Last year, Michelle Pfeiffer in ``Dangerous Minds'' had a surprise hit as a teacher bringing the word to a tough class.
Sometimes students teach the teachers. Michael Caine was the English prof in 1983's ``Educating Rita,'' but it was Julie Walters who gave a memorable performance as the student who teaches him to stop drinking. In a similar search for knowledge, Melina Mercouri, in one of the great performances of film history, played a prostitute who learned about Greek tragedy from Jules Dassin in the 1960 ``Never on Sunday.''
With ``Mr. Holland's Opus,'' Richard Dreyfuss joins the ranks of movie teachers, who have kept alive our hopes that classrooms can remain a place of inspiration. ILLUSTRATION: FILE PHOTO
Robert Donat, who co-starred with Greer Garson, won the 1939 Oscar
for his role in ``Goodbye, Mr. Chips.''
by CNB