User reviews

I liked this way more than I thought I would. It's about a guy (Bud Cort from Harold & Maude) who comes out on a long train ride to the middle of nowhere in Canada during the Depression to teach in a tiny one room schoolhouse. There's a door in the floor that leads to a little bedroom underneath the school for him to live in after schools gets out & the kids go home. It's a small poor community with about 10 kids in grades 2-9 that are all taught together in the schoolhouse. This movie is interesting because it shows how these poor families lived, barely surviving in the long freezing winters & springs of rural Canada. The kids actually spent their recess time hunting gophers in the wide open praires because for every gopher tail they sent to the Canadian government they got back .10 cents! The gophers damaged valuable wheat crops. The teacher made $20 a month, paid in Promissory Notes! Since the teacher arrived broke & wasn't making actual money (the Promissory Notes weren't any good until after the school year was over) the community provided him with used clothes, blankets, food & water. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It has some funny scenes of the clueless teacher from the city slowly figuring how & what to teach these isolated kids with no supplies or books & how to get along with the families. Survival was definitely tough for the teacher. He didn't know anyone & he's in the middle of nowhere in freezing blizzards without a paycheck or money. He begs the one school board member in charge of his paycheck for some money & the guy asks him what he needs money for? Teacher says clothes. School board guy says we gave you used clothes & anyway what do you need clothes for? You're not going anywhere. True. Teacher says food. School guy says we bring you food. Which they did regularly everyday! I highly recommend this.

Such a sweet, sweet movie...and so, so underrated... I'll never understand why some of the worst movies make it to DVD, but the gems sit around and wait for their turn.

I adored the story line! Bud Cort plays an innocent, scattered, simple/warm-hearted man who tries to teach students in a small town in Canada. At first the students are disrespectful loud-mouths, but grow to become compassionate individuals when Cort's character (Max Brown) inspires them.

I cannot get over how endearing Bud Cort is in this film. All he wants is to be loved, and to love someone else, but he has a failed romance with an already-married woman, who is also lost in her own troubles. All you want to do is sympathize with his character, especially in the beginning, when he was trying to become adjusted to this unfamiliar town with people who couldn't understand him.

I would say that this is one of Bud Cort's top 5 best film roles. (Along with Harold and Maude, Bernice Bobs Her Hair, Brave New World, and Ted and Venus).

This movie allowed the viewer to gain some insight into life in the prairies. It is used in many classrooms as a tool which discusses information on the 1930s. The movie also contains some humour, even if it was corny.

However the movie lacks strong does not expand on certain issues. For instance, it would have been interesting to know how many persons came out West during the depression. Or how this migration affected the prairies. Providing these details would have made the movie more informative to watch.

VG

I found this sweet little film to be a very enjoyable and highly recommended experience!

Bud Cort gives one of his finest performances as the naïve, lonely, sensitive, and oh-so-out-of-place Max Brown, a city fellow from Ottawa trying to make a life as a poorly compensated teacher in the very rural town of Willowgreen in western Canada during the Great Depression. It's comic how he has to deal with adjusting to the town, the townspeople, and their children as his students; and is especially very poignant and sad watching his doomed romance with the very married and just as lonely and frustrated Alice Field, played by Samantha Eggar.

As his 'Harold and Maude' was poorly served when it came out on DVD, how I wish that 'Why Shoot the Teacher?' would find its way onto DVD, having such special features as outtakes, deleted scenes, and especially, interviews with Bud Cort and the remaining cast and crew of the film. It's sad to see this one overlooked and, instead, to find such films of lesser quality in Bud's oeuvre, like 'Hysterical,' getting the DVD treatment. I hope that this oversight will someday be rectified for this gem in the career of Bud Cort.

In my opinion, this movie is good to describe the 1930's Depression in the Praries because it exactly describes the way people had to live in those times, especially when the snow and dust storms arrive. Also the people had to "catch" gophers because they always ruin the farmers crops. Because the people couldn't grow the crops, they almost couldn't afford anything. This caused poverty and many people left the Praries. So they couldn't hire school teachers for education, etc.

So in other words, this movie is good for a history class that is covering the 1920's-1930's depression because it gives an accurate description of the events in the prairies.

The film WHY SHOOT THE TEACHER? stars American Bud Cort, star of many Robert Altman classics, and British actress Samantha Eggar. Other than that, the film is truly Canadian. The story, based on the autobiography of Max Braithwaite, is a humourous, entertaining slice of life in the Canadian Dust Bowl. It's as good as any other film to clearly show the extent that the Great Depression had in rural communities. The production, cast, props, etc., make this an excellent period piece of the 1930s. Many of the co-stars are amateurs but this only emphasizes the realism of the picture. Overall, if you need to show someone a video about the Great Depression, and you don't have access to THE GRAPES OF WRATH, then WHY SHOOT THE TEACHER? will be a worthy substitute.

I grew up in rural Canada, in a small middle-class household that was a little bit on the old-fashioned side. Dramas like these were part of the experience when all you had was access to CBC television and a small selection of video tapes. Although I never caught this one in particular as a child, it would have been perfectly welcome.

It's hard to picture why exactly a film like "Why Shoot the Teacher?" has been so well-forgotten over the years. Something in the lack of initial distribution no doubt, which seems to be the lot of nearly all Canadian films of this era. It's based on a book by Max Braithwaite, and it feels very much like a true story, though there's a chance I suppose that it isn't. Silvio Narizzano directs it to life with a looseness and a real live humanity.

The acting is undoubtedly what gives this film its energy, and Bud Cort is better than I've ever seen him. In a similar sense as Charles Martin Smith's character in "Never Cry Wolf" he portrays a truly charming combination of naiveté and forced confidence. It's that painfully forced bravery that saves him in the end. This film could serve as a lesson in how much difference overcoming even the smallest percentage of personal fears can make in your life.

There is a lightness to "Why Shoot the Teacher?", a faithful depiction with just enough weight to keep it all from blowing away. I felt it moving through me, lifting my head and softening my heart. It's something to be thankful for, this gentle little thing.

I think that overall, this movie was good. It seemed a bit short, and it lacked a few details linking parts of the story, which made it a bit difficult to follow. The graphics were slightly poor, but due to the technology of the time, I had to take into account the fact that it was made nearly three decades ago. I also think that it was a fairly accurate depiction of life in the Prairies during the 1930s, based on what we've learned in class about the era. I could easily link the time period to the movie through the actions, speech, and style of the actors and actresses in the story, as well as the cars featured and the houses' decor.

In terms of style, I noticed that the people living in U.S. and the Praires during the 30s differed quite a bit. Some of the clothes and hairstyles that the women wore were similar, but the people of the Prairies were "country folk," and dressed more appropriately for their lifestyles. Alice, for example,(played by Samantha Eggar), wore the sleek, wavy, side-parted bob that many women of the era chose to sport. However, the difference in economic status was apparent in her attire. The aprons and plain skirts she wore had less appeal than the more elegant blouses and dresses that other women preferred.

In conclusion, the movie was pretty effective in getting its message out to the audience. Bud Cort proved his acting skills alongside his pupils, and many important issues were discussed with respect to the conditions of the schools at the time, and Mr. Brown's personal experiences with Prairie weather. The movie was humorous, with a bit of drama, and still maintained a fair amount of accuracy in portraying life in the 1930s.

-A. W.

The subject of "why shoot the teacher?" is a burning one,as much today as it was yesterday:the teacher,fresh from his training college ,who takes his first class ,in a dead-and-alive hole (or ,worse,in the wrong side of the town).The young man (or woman)understands that all that he learned in college ,all the highest theories can't help him with his thankless job.His pupils are not the ones he was expecting.Any teacher,when he began,has been through all this. Bud Cort ,famous for his part of Harold in "Harold and Maude " is ideally cast as the young schoolteacher:his youthful looks ,his naive face and his resilience work wonders.For, in this part of Canada,mother nature is not really on his side.

a remarkable political film reflecting both the times of the 30's and the 70's. beautifully filmed in b&w. i don't believe the art director or the cinematographer received any awards for this film. too bad since the bleak yet dramatic backstop of the alberta prairie added, immeasurably to the near nihilistic dialogue and sparing editing reflecting the times during the depression in the great Canadian prairie. the moments where the director slowly pans the camera over the nearly endless prairie grass to show the feeling of alienation of land that reflects the alienation of the people to one another, never ceases to impact me. there is no real connection with the students the only feeling of empathy obtained by, bud cort, is when a senior school district manger shows up to review his work , the teacher can't help but lay into the supervisor and inform him of the inadequacies the district has shoulder him with in regards to outdated books and supplies. and then there is the delightful prairie dog tail scene which i won't spoil for anyone. rural poor is unlike city poor. watch and see the results.

Bud Cort is miscast here, but does a good job. The film was shot on a limited budget, but Canadian filmmakers always seem to make better films for less money than American filmmakers. Just the way it is. Samantha Eggar is very good again (she was superb in The Collector). And the story line and script are very good. Sort of like Conrack goes to Canada. Worth viewing.

I think that the movie, "Why Shoot the Teacher," was pretty accurate in displaying what really went on during the 1930s. It showed many difficulties people had during the Great Depression, such as unemployment. The movie focuses on one man, Max Brown who decides to go to the Prairies to work as a teacher. We watched with anticipation and curiosity to see how he would do with the new children. I believe the movie was effective because they displayed Mr. Brown as a very innocent man. During hard times, we feel sorry for him, because he is such a nice man and is struggling to stay on his own feet with people trying to walk all over him. In the end, I think the movie wasn't bad. I think it was very helpful in giving us some insight to what really happened during such harsh times.

this movie is about a young man, Max Brown who goes to a farming town to teach. I believe this movie does portray the prairies and the people in the 1920s and 1930s because it shows the life of a person (Max Brown) and others who try to make a living during the Great Depression. It shows the climate and weather conditions of the prairies, and how farmers struggled to harvest corp during those climates, and survive on scarce amount of food, water, etc. Max Brown lives through poor living conditions and a poor salary, just like most other Canadians would have done to support themselves or their family. he works like this so he can pay back the money his brother had given him. He talks about his friend who tried to go to Vancouver to find a job but he didn't make it, and also other people who ride the rails. this movie shows that many people did not except charity in anyway because it was shameful to receive any type of relief. the movie also shows how socialism was confronted by Canadians back then. Therefore from all the points above and many others you can conclude that the movie portrays Canada during the Great Depression.