This adaptation of Bel Kaufman’s revelatory novel about the joys and frustrations of a public-school vocation has a beautifully articulated screenplay by Tad Mosel and lead performance by Sandy Dennis, as the teacher we follow through a character-testing year at an inner-city high school; Ellen O’Mara is heartbreaking as student Alice Blake. The movie was made (off-season) at an actual school by Robert Mulligan and producer Alan J. Pakula, the team behind To Kill a Mockingbird.