This is my all time favorite book. I've read it more times than I can count. I have never laughed out loud more reading any other book. I finally had the chance to see the film version. It is almost completely devoid of the humor of the novel. That's not to say that it's a bad film - Sandy Dennis was an amazing actress and she surrounded here by many better-known character actors. The drama is still there. The craziness that inner city teachers had to deal with even back in the 1960s is still there. But there is zero humor and that is what made the novel great. The book is uniquely written in that it is made up of school memos, notes in the teacher's suggestion box, papers the students have written, letters the teacher writes to her college mentor, with hilarious results. The ridiculous way in which the school is managed is mostly missing from this film as well. The pathos is there, the direction, the poignancy, but the humor that is the heart of the novel is gone and it leaves the film sadly lacking.
Review of Up the Down Staircase
