Our Miss Brooks

Single gal Connie Brooks (Eve Arden) is the new English teacher at Madison High School. Phillip Boynton (Robert Rockwell) is the handsome biology teacher. Osgood Conklin is the by-the-book principal. Lawrence Nolan (Don Porter) is a rich newspaper owner and the father of one of the students.

Our Miss Brooks started as a radio show (1948-1957) and became a success in the early TV medium (1952-56). I'm not familiar with either. The oddity here is that the movie restarts the story after four years on TV. The students look that much older and ill-fitting. I assume the idea is that most of the public have yet to get a TV. So there's no reason to do a continuation movie since most people haven't seen the show to start. I get that idea but maybe get new younger kids.

In TV terminology, this is an extended pilot episode. I can see the appeal of this franchise. This is a simple single gal sitcom in a school. She's a fine strong character. There's a functional love triangle. Aging her up makes her a better spinster. It works somewhat as a movie. It's all fine if unspectacular.

I remember the TV series "Our Miss Brooks," though it's possible I saw it in syndication. 1952 is a little early, even for me.

After the show was canceled, this film was made, completely ignoring the fact that Brooks had moved on to an elementary school. We go back to her arrival at Madison High, meeting Mr. Boynton, etc. We also have a subplot involving a student (Nick Adams) and his wealthy father (Don Porter).

I love seeing Richard Crenna playing the teen-aged Walter Denton - he went on to so much good work in TV and film. Eve Arden plays Miss Brooks the way unmarried women were played in those days -- desperate to get married. Arden always had that wry delivery that served her well in this role. Despite wanting to nab Mr. Boynton, the character of Connie Brooks is a good teacher and an independent woman, dedicated to her work and students.

Robert Rockwell, Gale Gordon, and the rest of the TV cast is on board. Few people realize that Robert Rockwell worked into the mid-'90s, and if you recall the Werther's candy commercial with the attractive white-haired man giving his grandson Werther's, that was him.

Nice trip down nostalgia lane. It was a more innocent time for sure.

I saw "Our Miss Brooks" with the incomparable Eve Arden. This comedy tickles your innermost being. I am a fanatical devotee of the TV series, and this movie disappoints me not. He who hasn't watched it or TV series has missed the finest morsels human wit has to offer. I never laughed, but my whole body chuckled. (From my diary).

This film came out right after the cancellation of the popular TV series in 1956. The writers (from the original series) completely ignored the fact that the TV show underwent a major format change in it's last season. Miss Brooks went to work in an elementary school following the demolition of Madison High. This change never completely worked and the series was cancelled. That said, this feature tells the story, from the beginning, of Miss Brooks arriving in Madison, meeting and moving in with Mrs. Davis, and progressing in her romance with Mr. Boynton over a period of months. There is a secondary romantic subplot interjected with Don Porter, and the film unfolds with virtually the entire cast from the beloved series. The Warner Bros. designed sets closely approximate the ones fashioned at Desilu for the TV show, and Minerva the cat (played by the same cat from the 1950 comedy "Rhubarb") gets ample screen time. Fans of the series and even those who have never seen it or heard the many radio episodes out there will enjoy this funny, gentle story of Connie Brooks and her co-horts.

This film was made immediately upon the completion of the popular four-year run of the TV series, which itself followed a successful radio show, YET for some reason, the filmmakers chose to treat the storyline as if they hadn't existed. It would have made sense had the film been made twenty years later, as in "The Brady Bunch," "Mission Impossible," "Charlie's Angels'" etc. Starting from scratch seems to be backpeddling, but I guess it didn't bother folks in 1956.