Goodbye, Miss Turlock (1948)

There is something of the “How Green Was My Valley” about this engaging little retrospective from a narrator who recalls his childhood in a one-room school built in 1902. He can’t recall everyone’s name from the time, but that doesn’t really matter as we see kids of different ages play merrily in the playground before being summoned by the bell of the stern and fastidious “Miss Turlock” (Nana Bryant). She puts up with no nonsense and seems to have eyes in the back of her head! Didn’t we all have one like that? It’s a subtle little reminder that a century ago, education was sometimes a bit of a luxury and that in many ways those often rather solitary looking figures helped to make us who we are today. Worth ten minutes.