![]() ![]() ![]() The phrase Kaufman chose for her title still kicks around in American discourse: an enduring expression of absurd bureaucratic prose, which she lifted from a school memo about reasons for student punishments. And with the movie’s lack of success, Up the Down Staircase began to fade. The 1967 movie version, starring Sandy Dennis, did much less well than Hollywood expected, disappearing behind the success of yet another teacher’s film that same year: Sidney Poitier’s To Sir, With Love (which ranks with the 1988 movie Stand and Deliver as perhaps the archetype of that ain’t-it-awful-but- ah genre). And it was set firmly within the sentimental genre of high-school tale that admits our schools are just as bad as you think they are-but, ah, a dedicated teacher can still make a difference. This wasn’t high literature, but it was a readable and clever account of an idealistic young woman’s first encounter with the real world of corruption, failure, and entrenched stupidity. ![]() To readers at the time, Up the Down Staircase seemed a classic of its kind. ![]()
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