Movie: Spare the Rod

Posted by Traditional School Discipline November 21, 2021

Movie: Spare the Rod

You will probably guess by the title that the movie Spare The Rod is an anti-caning story. The 1961 British movie staring Max Bygraves (better known as a middle-of-the-road singer) was based on a novel of the same name by Michael Croft.

John Saunders (Bygraves), a supply teacher with progressive anti-corporal punishment views, arrives to take up a post at Worrell Street School in a socially deprived area of East London. He is assigned a class of pupils in their last year before leaving school and finds himself in charge of a group of rebellious, badly-behaved teenagers from poor home backgrounds, with no interest in education, who register their defiance of authority by fighting, throwing classroom furniture around, whistling and laughing during bible readings and smoking in class.

The school's headmaster Jenkins (Donald Pleasence) is well-meaning but has long become despondent with the seemingly insurmountable challenges posed by his pupils and is resigned to merely serving out his time until retirement. His view that corporal punishment is the only way to maintain even some semblance of order in the classrooms (“You'll never be able to handle them unless you’re as tough as they are”) is anathema to Saunders, who states his intention to try all other methods of discipline rather than resort to physical violence.

Saunders’s teaching colleagues are all resistant to any change in the school’s punishment policy, with their attitudes informed either by disillusion and the fear of otherwise losing control of their pupils completely, or in the case of Arthur Gregory (Geoffrey Keen) by a seeming relish for corporal punishment which borders on the sadistic.

Spare The Rod received some harsh criticism in newspapers which were far from sympathetic to the film (scroll down beyond the photos and clips for more on this.)

There are a number of caning scenes – unsurprisingly since the cane is used routinely in the school.

CLIP 1

The headmaster gives Saunders a demonstration on how to cane a boy.

CLIP 2

Gregory canes two boys after children ‘riot’ in the corridor.

CLIP 3

Fred Harkness, a boy played by Richard O'Sullivan (who we met previously in Carry on Teacher) cheeks Gregory during woodwork class, with the inevitable result.

CLIP 4

Saunders sticks to his principles and starts to make some little headway with his class, although they are baffled by his refusal to rise to provocation and disobedience. He spots particular promise in one of the main trouble-makers, Harkness, and tries to encourage the boy to explore his potential. The first time Saunders caned any pupils involved Harkness, though it is revealed in a later scene that it was not Harkness’s fault: in fact, he was trying to prevent several other pupils from rioting. When Saunders offers him a handshake and an apology at the end of the scene. Harkness refuses and marches out of the room, all trust between them broken.

CLIP 5

Matters come to a head when as a prank the pupils lock Gregory in the school toilets overnight. The following morning Gregory seeks revenge on those he considers to be the ringleaders, singling Harkness out for punishment. His assault on the boy escalates beyond reasonable bounds, with him delivering roughly ten strokes of the cane to his left hand, which was twisted behind his back, and Saunders has to step in to restrain him.

Spare The Rod is often shown on digital television in the UK and is also available on DVD.

Picture and video credits: Bryanst Films

There were many reviews of the film in newspapers and magazines. In this one from the Sunday tabloid The People, the author worries what foreigners would think of Britain after watch Spare The Rod.

Bend over, Mr Lyndon!

THIS 'CANING' FILM IS A DISGRACE

Review by Ernest Betts

SPARE THE ROD. British. Drama. Eight marks for Donald Pleasence. Seven marks for Max Bygraves, Geoffrey Keen and Betty McDowell.

HOW many marks for the picture? NOUGHT OUT OF TEN! And what’s more, the producer, Victor Lyndon, can go and stand in the corner. This film, which attempts to tackle the problem of corporal punishment in schools, should never have been made.

Under cover of treating a subject seriously it dodges the issue. It raises a vitally important question – to cane or not to cane – but side-steps the wider issue of teaching as a whole.

The film plays with fire by dealing with a highly controversial subject. But, for the sake of dramatic entertainment, the facts of school life are grossly distorted.

So we get a kind of sermon dressed up in wolf’s clothing. And any message the film may have had becomes highly suspect.

In fact, a leading education authority told me: “This film does not reflect reality, and it may well have the effect of encouraging school children to behave in a riotous way.”

The picture is set in a London East End council school, to which Max Bygraves comes as a new master. He finds the staff ruling the pupils with the cane. “You can’t give ’em an inch,” says the head (Donald Pleasence) “Swipe ’em,” says his assistant.

A sadistic flick of the cane appears to be the answer to all problems in this school teeming with Teds, morons and little thugs, who do all their writing on lavatory walls.

These tactics appal Max. Discipline by kindness is his idea.

When he tries to stop the caning of an innocent boy, he has a violent scrap with another master on front of the boys. It ends up with the whole classroom being smashed up.

In other words, we are apparently shown that kindness doesn’t pay.

Whether that is the intentional message or not of the film, I don’t know.

But if it is, it’s most unfair. For the bunch of crooks, thieves, liars and hoodlums depicted in Max’s classrooms is several degrees larger than life – even in a tough East End area.

To foreigners this picture would give the impression that we are still living in the dark ages of Oliver Twist." Although it’s a well-acted and probably well-meaning effort. I for one WON’T be asking for more!

As published in The People, 21 May 1961