Pluskylang Great Film overall

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

ClassicFilmEra Such a sweet, sweet movie...and so, so underrated... I'll never understand why some of the worst movies make it to DVD, but the gems sit around and wait for their turn.I adored the story line! Bud Cort plays an innocent, scattered, simple/warm-hearted man who tries to teach students in a small town in Canada. At first the students are disrespectful loud-mouths, but grow to become compassionate individuals when Cort's character (Max Brown) inspires them.I cannot get over how endearing Bud Cort is in this film. All he wants is to be loved, and to love someone else, but he has a failed romance with an already-married woman, who is also lost in her own troubles. All you want to do is sympathize with his character, especially in the beginning, when he was trying to become adjusted to this unfamiliar town with people who couldn't understand him.I would say that this is one of Bud Cort's top 5 best film roles. (Along with Harold and Maude, Bernice Bobs Her Hair, Brave New World, and Ted and Venus).

jana_sr this movie is about a young man, Max Brown who goes to a farming town to teach. I believe this movie does portray the prairies and the people in the 1920s and 1930s because it shows the life of a person (Max Brown) and others who try to make a living during the Great Depression. It shows the climate and weather conditions of the prairies, and how farmers struggled to harvest corp during those climates, and survive on scarce amount of food, water, etc. Max Brown lives through poor living conditions and a poor salary, just like most other Canadians would have done to support themselves or their family. he works like this so he can pay back the money his brother had given him. He talks about his friend who tried to go to Vancouver to find a job but he didn't make it, and also other people who ride the rails. this movie shows that many people did not except charity in anyway because it was shameful to receive any type of relief. the movie also shows how socialism was confronted by Canadians back then. Therefore from all the points above and many others you can conclude that the movie portrays Canada during the Great Depression.

Tiwanna Ellerbe (tiwannae) I found this sweet little film to be a very enjoyable and highly recommended experience!Bud Cort gives one of his finest performances as the naïve, lonely, sensitive, and oh-so-out-of-place Max Brown, a city fellow from Ottawa trying to make a life as a poorly compensated teacher in the very rural town of Willowgreen in western Canada during the Great Depression. It's comic how he has to deal with adjusting to the town, the townspeople, and their children as his students; and is especially very poignant and sad watching his doomed romance with the very married and just as lonely and frustrated Alice Field, played by Samantha Eggar.As his 'Harold and Maude' was poorly served when it came out on DVD, how I wish that 'Why Shoot the Teacher?' would find its way onto DVD, having such special features as outtakes, deleted scenes, and especially, interviews with Bud Cort and the remaining cast and crew of the film. It's sad to see this one overlooked and, instead, to find such films of lesser quality in Bud's oeuvre, like 'Hysterical,' getting the DVD treatment. I hope that this oversight will someday be rectified for this gem in the career of Bud Cort.

Richard Maurer (ram-30) The film WHY SHOOT THE TEACHER? stars American Bud Cort, star of many Robert Altman classics, and British actress Samantha Eggar. Other than that, the film is truly Canadian. The story, based on the autobiography of Max Braithwaite, is a humourous, entertaining slice of life in the Canadian Dust Bowl. It's as good as any other film to clearly show the extent that the Great Depression had in rural communities. The production, cast, props, etc., make this an excellent period piece of the 1930s. Many of the co-stars are amateurs but this only emphasizes the realism of the picture. Overall, if you need to show someone a video about the Great Depression, and you don't have access to THE GRAPES OF WRATH, then WHY SHOOT THE TEACHER? will be a worthy substitute.