March 19, 1955: “Blackboard Jungle” Premieres

Glenn Ford (left) and Sidney Poitier

March 19, 1955: Blackboard Jungle -- no "The" in the title -- premieres, based on the novel by Salvatore Lombino, using the pen name Evan Hunter. He based it on his experiences at Bronx Vocational High School, now named the Alfred E. Smith Career and Technical Education High School.

It stars Glenn Ford as an inner-city teacher, with his students including characters played by Sidney Poitier, film debutant Vic Morrow, and film debutant Jamie Farr. Also in the cast were Anne Francis, Louis Calhern, John Hoyt, Richard Kiley and future director Paul Mazursky.

Possibly the first "juvenile delinquent film" since the salad days of the Bowery Boys, and predating James Dean's Rebel Without a Cause by 7 months, the film is best known for being the first with a rock and roll soundtrack, including Bill Haley & His Comets' "Rock Around the Clock." Its showing caused riots in Britain, but it also made Haley more popular there than in America.

Poitier was already 28 years old, too old to play a high-schooler, and only 10 years younger than Ford. Morrow was 27. Farr was 20, and could be taken seriously as a teenager. He was credited under his birth name, Jameel Farah, an Arab-American playing an Italian-American named Santini. He was then drafted into the U.S. Army, and stationed in Korea, although the Korean War was already over, and there's no record of the real-life Toledo street kid having worn women’s clothes in the service. When he was cast as Corporal Maxwell Q. Klinger on M*A*S*H 17 years later, he wore his own dogtags.

(Incidentally, Tony Packo's, mentioned in a few episodes, is a real Toledo eatery, on the East Side, across the Maumee River from downtown. Just a little down the river on the West Side is a park named for Farr. But the real-life Triple-A baseball team, the Toledo Mud Hens, moved after the 1952 season, a point never brought up on M*A*S*H. A new team with the name debuted in 1965 and has remained ever since.)

In the 1967 film To Sir With Love, Poitier would be the teacher in the tough inner-city school, in that case a black teacher at a school in the East End of London, where the poor at-risk kids were white.

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March 19, 1955 was a Saturday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There were 2 games played in the NBA Playoffs. The Boston Celtics beat the New York Knicks, 116-109 at the old Madison Square Garden. And the Minneapolis Lakers beat the Rochester Royals, 119-110 at the St. Paul Auditorium.

There were 2 games in the NHL. The Montreal Canadiens beat the New York Rangers, 4-2 at the Montreal Forum. And the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 5-0 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. The Boston Bruins and the Detroit Red Wings were not scheduled.

And in English soccer, North London team Arsenal went to the North-East of England, and beat Sunderland, 1-0 at Roker Park.