The film co-stars Tuesday Weld, Michael Callan, Warren Berlinger, Roberta Shore, Doug McClure, Victoria Shaw, and Stephen Talbot.

Among Neil's students are Buddy McCalla, whose mother Frances hides her promiscuity from her son; Anne Gregor, whose sexual misstep the previous summer with incipient juvenile delinquent Griff Rimer has sullied her reputation; Ricky Summers, whose love for fellow student Jim prompts both sets of parents to warn their offspring about premarital sex; and Griff, whose leering glances at Anne disrupt Neil's class.

After the first day of school, Donlan cautions Neil about becoming involved in the students' personal problems and states that all disciplinary issues will be dealt with by the principal.

Griff, who works at the market, is warned by Chris, the butcher, to stop stealing cigarettes because he is capable of "bigger things."

Even though Neil has developed an aversion to football, he takes Eric to a game and asks Joan to accompany them.

When an overly amorous Jim makes sexual advances to Ricky, she recalls her parents' admonition and pushes him away.

On the evening of the robbery, Griff waits in the getaway truck while Chris knocks out the watchman and Patcher disables the alarm.

Patcher botches the job, however, and sets off the alarm, and when the guard regains consciousness, he shoots and wounds Chris.

Panicked, Griff drives off and ditches the truck, then takes refuge at Harrison High to escape the police.

As Buddy climbs the steps to his apartment, he hears his mother's drunken voice as she flirts with a man she picked up at a bar.

Anne, who has gone to school to rehearse for the class play, is surprised when she is approached by Buddy, who incoherently laments that his mother "is dirty."

Afterward, Donlan summons Neil to his office, where Griff's father threatens to press charges against the school for his son's beating.

As the two boys fight in the biology lab, Neil revives and sounds the fire alarm, then tells Donlan to call the police.

[1] He wrote it at the age of 20 while a student at the University of Missouri, and it was based on his high-school experiences in Memphis, though Harrison High is fictional.

[4] Jerry Bresler, who had a multi-picture deal with Columbia, was assigned to produce and he hired James Gunn to write a script.

Columbia really laid it on; they rented a house in Bel-Air owned by Mercedes McCambridge, provided a maid, a butler and a chauffeur, and gave me a hundred dollars a day in expenses.