Is this disappointing because the passage of time has given the TV (1952-56), and especially the radio (1940s) series a nostalgic glow they don't deserve? I don't know, but the movie is only mildly amusing in spots -- much of it is a bore -- while I recall the radio series with pleasure.
The nature of the plot line is quite different from both of the broadcast series, partly because the movie feels it needs to wrap up a story cleanly. In the series -- sort of like a movie serial -- the characters are left largely as we found them at the start of an episode -- Miss Brooks panting for the indifferent Mr. Boynton, Osgood Conklin fuming about his daughter's interest in the bumbling Walter Denton, who in turn is contemplating his next (mis)adventure. Denton is the one who's most changed in the movie. He was the main character in the radio shows, getting into one scrape after another (ala Andy Hardy), with Miss Brooks usually intervening in some way to bail him out. I don't recall the beginning of the radio series, but it seems that Connie Brooks had been at the school forever -- as had Denton, for that matter -- not a new arrival as in the movie. This is an interesting period piece, but not really good entertainment.
The nature of the plot line is quite different from both of the broadcast series, partly because the movie feels it needs to wrap up a story cleanly. In the series -- sort of like a movie serial -- the characters are left largely as we found them at the start of an episode -- Miss Brooks panting for the indifferent Mr. Boynton, Osgood Conklin fuming about his daughter's interest in the bumbling Walter Denton, who in turn is contemplating his next (mis)adventure. Denton is the one who's most changed in the movie. He was the main character in the radio shows, getting into one scrape after another (ala Andy Hardy), with Miss Brooks usually intervening in some way to bail him out. I don't recall the beginning of the radio series, but it seems that Connie Brooks had been at the school forever -- as had Denton, for that matter -- not a new arrival as in the movie. This is an interesting period piece, but not really good entertainment.