Blackboard Jungle

1 9 5 5 (USA)

During the 1950s, the United States and its mouthpiece, Hollywood, seemed to see threats around every corner. If it wasn't the Commies, then it was the young who were about to destroy the Land Of The Free. Sometimes, of course, it was the two working in conjunction for, after all, what was Rock & Roll if not a Communist plot to subvert the morals of the nation's youth? 

Blackboard Jungle was cited as an example - Showing, as it did, the reaction of a bunch of juvenile delinquents in a rough school to their well-meaning teacher (Glenn Ford). They smash all his jazz classics and prefer the raucous rubbish which shrieks stridently over the credits. (The song was Rock Around The Clock performed by Bill Haley and the Comets).

The Hollywood moguls did not approve of the music, but they saw a few bucks in it and quickly rushed Bill Haley into his own movie called, of course, Rock Around The Clock (1956).