Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay.  Today’s film is 1986’s The George McKenna Story!  It  can be viewed on Netflix, under the title Hard Lessons!

George Washington High School is a school that has defeated many well-meaning principals.  The hallways are full of drugs and gang members.  A good deal of the student body never shows up for class.  Fights are frequent.  The police are a common sight.  The majority of the teachers are men like Ben Proctor (Richard Masur), burned-out and content to hide in the teacher’s lounge.

New Orleans-raised George McKenna (Denzel Washington) is the latest principal and, from the minute that he shows up at the school, he seems a bit more confident than the other principals that the school has had.  He barely flinches when a raw egg hits his suit.  When he hears a fight occurring, he doesn’t hesitate to head down the hall to investigate.  McKenna is determined to make George Washington High into a worthwhile institution and that means inspiring both the students and the teachers.

When it comes to films about dedicated educators trying to reform a troubled school, most films tend to take one of two approaches.  One approach, the well-intentioned but not always realistic liberal approach, features the teacher or the principal who demands respect but who also treats the good students and teachers with equal respect and who turns around the school through the power of benevolence.  The other approach is the one where the principal or teacher grows frustrated and turns into an armed vigilante who forces the students to shut up and learn.  Think of The Principal or The Substitute or Class of 1984.  The first approach is the one that most teachers claim that they try to follow but I imagine that, for most of them, there’s an element in wish-fulfillment to be found in watching the second approach.  In the real world, of course, neither approach is as automatically successful as it is in the movies.

The George McKenna Story was made for television and it’s based on a true story so, not surprisingly, it follows the first approach.  Denzel Washington plays McKenna as someone who could probably handle himself in a fight if he ever got into one but, for the most part, the film portrays McKenna as succeeding by treating his students with more empathy and respect that they’ve gotten from anyone else in their lives.  Though cranky old Ben Proctor thinks that McKenna’s methods are foolish and that he’s asking the teachers to do too much, McKenna starts to turn the school around.  One student, whose father was threatening to make him drop out, ends up getting nearly straight A’s and reciting Shakespeare.  Unfortunately, not everyone can be rescued.  One student is arrested for murder and taken away by the cops but McKenna is still willing to be there for that student.  McKenna doesn’t give up on his students and, unlike that music teacher in The Class of 1984, he doesn’t allow them to fall through a skylight either.

The George McKenna Story is a predictable film.  It’s easy to guess which student will be saved by McKenna’s approach and which student will end up getting stabbed in a gang fight and which student will end up in prison.  That said, the film definitely benefits from Denzel Washington in the lead role.  Washington exudes confidence from the minute that he appears on screen and you’re left with little doubt that if anyone could reform a school simply through good intentions, it would definitely be Denzel Washington.