Substitute Teachers: Remembering Six Movies I Watched in School

Ryan Ludman
Aug 26, 2017 · 9 min read

The NeverEnding Story (1984)

Remember when movies had theme songs that were actually popular and played on the radio for years. The NeverEnding Story produced a song of the same name performed by Limahl (of Kajagoogoo fame) with the lyrics “Turn around / look at what you see / in her face / the mirror of your dreams.” It’s one of the best songs of the 80s and during that decade it’s electronic chords would have me run screaming out of the room. The NeverEnding Story is the tale of a human boy on Earth who saves the world of Fantasia. Not long after it came out, one of my teachers in first or second grade showed this before a holiday break. I watched as Artax sank in the Swamp of Sadness, Sphinx shot lasers out of their eyes, and the Nothing turned a world into, well, nothing, while I couldn’t tell if Falcor was attracted to Atreyu or wanted to eat him. It was a confusing testifying movie.

Even at my young age, I didn’t understand how this world could turn into nothing. Was this a thing that happened? It’s not just a really bad earthquake like the one that destroyed Krypton in Superman, that made sense, that was physics. This was just a world that one day was there and one day wasn’t. And to make matters worse, there was the Gmork, the servant of the nothing. I didn’t understand how a scary wolf puppet could be the servant of nothing, but they seem to do some damage together.

This movie terrified me. I had nightmares for days, weeks even. One of my dad’s coworkers said that the movie was good and she suggested my parents take me. When they suggest this I cried and screamed and said no. I don’t know why a teacher thought it was a good idea to show such a confusing movie to young kids. Maybe I was the only one that was terrified by this film.

Years later, I watched the movie again and I love it. I have no aversion to the film at all, and I consider it one of my greatest achievements, overcoming great odds. As soon as I realized I could, I looked up on the internet the name that Bastian gives to the Childlike Empress: Moon Child. I was so disappointed at that stupid name. I would have done way better if I were that kid.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

I remember watching the fourth Star Trek movie in fifth grade. In this chapter of the Star Trek franchise, the Enterprise flies back in time to 20th century San Francisco steals some humpback whales and takes them to the future so the whales can tell some alien machine not to destroy the Earth. This movie made no real sense but it was pretty good, and probably what got me into Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I have some problems with showing this movie though. It was the fourth movie in a series of films. What if we hadn’t seen the previous three films? I hadn’t. I don’t even know if I had seen any of the original series, though I had picked up Kirk and Spock from the pop culture ethos. It seems like a strange idea to drop some kids into a series in media res without any consideration for the previous plots or character development. I feel like there were some references to Spock dying, that you’d only pick up from the previous movies.

The films were also just so strange. Why would a machine intent on destroying the world only talk to whales? Was this a common occurrence? I remember thinking that between Superman reversing the rotation of the Earth to go back in time, or Christopher Reeve’s character in Somewhere in Time using some penny to go back in time that the Enterprise’s slingshot maneuver around the sun seemed almost plausible if not possible. I do remember also thinking that this movie was a bit too on the nose with the concurrent “save the whales” campaign of the 80s.

There was also some swearing in the movie, so that was fun.

The Blue Bird (1976)

Just like The NeverEnding Story, the film The Blue Bird bothered me for years and years. I had faint memories of this film that we watched before one Christmas break in elementary school. I remember the entire school filing into the cafeteria at Miller Elementary to watch a film projected on a screen in front of a cinder block wall painted with a rainbow. The teachers stood in the back chatting in whispers while I was traumatized by this film unspooling before my eyes.

The Blue Bird is a Russian-American film starring Elizabeth Taylor based on a play from 1908. Two peasant children go on a search for the mystic blue bird of happiness to cure the illness of one of their friends. They encounter the “souls” or anthropomorphic portrayals of inanimate objects and animals like fire, milk, and dogs. On their search, they encounter many different creatures and have a wonderful adventure. This sounds like a fun and whimsical fairy tale.

The film gets dark. Some how these kids end up in the land of unborn children. Father-time, obviously an old dude, comes along and ushers kids on to this platform where these flower petals envelop them, sending them to Earth to be born. The peasant kids talk to the unborn children about what’s going on and all of the unborn children know their fates. One even says they only live one day and wish they would have been born longer. At one point, a child freaks out and runs away saying he doesn’t want to be born, he likes this weird amphitheater of children, until he is forcibly pushed into the flower (and birthed in a most violent way I assume.) Eventually, the peasants spot a bluebird that flies into the birthing flower and escapes to Earth.

As a Catholic in the 80s, this movie brought up many questions about life, and pregnancy, and abortion. I often thought of those unborn children, the flower, and the blue bird. I never knew the name of the movie or who starred in it or really any information. Eventually, I searched the internet and found the scene from the movie on YouTube. In the scene, they meet their brother who dies early of whooping cough and measles. All of the children have inventions and bring something with them to earth. One of the children is even identified as the King of the Nine Planets (like the United Federation of Planets?). In the middle of the scene, Father Time sings a number. I didn’t remember it was a musical at all, but that doesn’t mean this movie wasn’t traumatizing and inappropriate for young kids.

And yes, the children find the blue bird; it was at their house all along.

Sybil (1976)

I remember when we were on vacation, my father was watching a movie on the television. My mother wanted to leave, but my dad wanted to watch a little more of this movie. I was young, maybe in the middle of elementary school. I sat on the edge of the bed and watched the movie. A mother yelled at her daughter to “hold her water” while she played the piano, screaming at her over and over until the daughter eventually peed herself. In the same scene or maybe a different scene, I remember the mother tying the daughter’s feet with rope to a stick, throwing the rope over a chandelier or beam in the house, and hoisting up the daughter’s legs, her skirt falling around her exposing her panties. I remember talking to my parents about it, and my mother didn’t seem happy I had watched this scene. Maybe she was in the bathroom. Maybe my parents thought I wouldn’t think about it. This scene haunted my memories for 10 years or so, my brain trying to process what I had seen for years.

In 1995 I took AP Psychology with Mr. Slusher and one day he showed us the film Sybil to give us a view of trauma and multiple personality (no dissociative) disorder. I watched the film starring Sally Field as Sybil portraying several of her personalities. And then at a pivotal scene, Sybil remembers the scene that I couldn’t. Her mother tied her legs to a broom handle, hoisted her legs up on a light, and got an enemy ready. She also had a number of utensils on a tray, knives and a hook. And then her mother ties Sybil to the piano and tells her to “hold her water until the very last note.” A puddle of water collects on the floor.

This movie was even worse and more traumatic than I remembered, but I was so relieved when I finally saw the film in my psychology class, my brain finally able to stop processing this movie that I remembered from so long ago.

Benji (1974)

Our gymnasium was a multifunctional room. The entries were four doors, two on each side of the basketball court, two hoops on each side with stairs on the south side of the gym, just inside the doors leading to permanently raised bleachers. The polished wooden plank bleachers had a heightened view of the court, while directly across was a stage with a heavy, blue velvet curtain. When we watched films as a school, a big while screen was pulled down with some sort of hook by one of the tall teachers directly in front of the stage. The projector was placed directly across at the bottom of the bleachers. The lower elementary kids, or “lower L”, in grades kindergarten through third sat on the floor of the gym. The older kids in “upper L” sat in the bleachers.

I honestly don’t remember anything about the Benji movie (or movies?) and even a review of the Wikipedia page did not refresh my memory. Did the movie have a plot? Did it have voice over? Did Benji speak? Benji was the name of the dog, right, yes, I do remember that much. According to Wikipedia, Benji was the sleeper hit of 1974, made for only $500,000, rejected by all major distributors and yet went on to be the third highest grossing movie of the year. With that kind of hero’s journey, it’s hard to be surprised that it was shown in schools. Does Benji solve crimes? I believe he solves crimes but I can’t be sure.

I’m not sure if we watched the original Benji as I remember buzz around the new film Benji the Hunted in 1987 and produced by Disney. Maybe we watched this movie in the late 80s after the buzz had died down and our school in the middle of Michigan was able to get a copy of the film.

Benji was memorable in that the films are totally forgettable. I’m just grateful that this movie didn’t traumatize me like the others.

Glory (1989)

This movie had it all: war, race, a moving soundtrack, historic significance, and Denzel Washington. Glory is the story of an African-American militia during the Civil War. In the 90s this was the go-to film when a teacher needed to check out for a day, or a substitute really didn’t have anything to teach. I have watched the first 45 minutes of Glory at least four times.

The problem with showing movies in school was that we would watch the movie during our normal class times. By the time the teacher wheeled in the TV and VCR on the cart down to the room, plugged it in, got the input selection right and inserted the cassette into the VCR, several minutes had passed so we only had about 45 minutes left. And then when the movie was over, we never went back to it to finish it. I’ve seen the beginning of Glory several times and never the ending.

I still don’t know how Glory ends. I’ve heard it’s a great movie, an important film, but I’ve never sat down to finish it. I assume everyone dies in the end because that seems “noble” and “deep.” I don’t understand why if it was so easy for the Enterprise to go back in time, why would they go back in time to steal whales. They really should have gone back in time to stop the Civil War or the Holocaust or any number of tragic events. Maybe there is a place for a 45-minute story where the Enterprise saves the people in Glory. It could be played in classrooms forever.▪️


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