Conrack
In a 2007 interview on the Dennis Miller Radio Show, Jon Voight recalled a reunion that was held twenty years after the release of the movie, with all of the available actors and actresses. Of the twenty-one actors and actresses who portrayed students, at the time of the reunion, three were teachers.,When Pat Conroy goes out to a student's home a pack of dogs rush out to him and the owner calls them off. As Conroy is leaving the dogs chase after him again and as he runs down the road at least one of them run past Conroy, presumably toward the trainer calling them.,Pat Conroy: As for my kids, I don't think I changed the quality of their lives significantly, or altered the fact that they have no share in the country that claimed them - the country that's failed them. All I know is I felt much beauty in my time with them.,Opening credits prologue: This is based on a true story. It began in March of 1969.,Features The Black Swan (1942),5th Symphony
Written by Ludwig van Beethoven (uncredited)
Performed by New York Philharmonic (as the New York Philharmonic)
with Leonard Bernstein as Conductor
(and used by courtesy of Columbia Records),Martin Ritt seems to be a director who was always interested in social issues (as the son of immigrants, he had every incentive to be so, especially since he was blacklisted in the '50s). "Conrack" is based on Pat Conroy's novel "The Water is Wide", about his own experience in 1969 teaching a school of impoverished black children about the outside world, much to the chagrin of the right-wing superintendent (Hume Cronyn). What added to the movie's strength was the cultural and historical context: Conroy (Jon Voight) frustratedly tells another teacher how many of the children don't know about Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier, the Vietnam War, or even where Vietnam is. He proceeds to enlighten them about all these factors.

Somewhere, I read a complaint that when Conroy played music for the children, he only played white music. The truth is, you can't blame the movie for that; it was based on Conroy's real experience. Either way, the movie's a real gem.,