Good Morning Class

I originally meant to write about schoolboy movies, a favorite genre of mine, but I'll have to divide the post into two parts. Tonight, the easy part, a list of some of my favorite schoolboy movies. i've missed some notable ones, ex. Zero pour Conduite, A Separate Peace and Dead Poets Society.
1. The History Boys - Alan Bennett's hit play turned into a tender and very funny movie that's humane without being fuzzyminded.
2. The Devil's Backbone - Guillermo del Toro's Spanish Civil War ghost story that contains real if subtle scares.Great acting by Federico Luppi and Spain's answer to Agnes Moorehead, Marisa Paredes.
3. School Ties - Brendan Fraser is a Jewish athlete who goes to an ultraWASP prep school on a sports scholarship. Plenty of shower room nudity for those who care for such things and some well phrased social critique. ST is set in the 50s, the great age of problem pictures like
4.Tea and Sympathy - What's a sensitive straight boy who likes knitting and Grace Moore supposed to do to prove he's not,er, a swish?
5.If... they gave a revolution and all you had left was black and white film? Malcolm McDowell is terrific in Lindsay Anderson's tale of hair rebels and longing gazes at some noble pile that prepares boys for Life. I always recommend If... to anyone who's just seen the hugely inferior A Clockwork Orange and want more young Malcolm.
6.Au Revoir Mes Enfants - Louis Malle's classic story of the penalties of altruism and its importance.
7.Good Times / Bad Times - James Kirkwood's novel of murder and homosexual panic will make a great movie. Gore Vidal wrote a treatment back in the 70s. Nothing happened. The book is a great potboiler. The movie could be remarkable in the right hands.