Long before he danced on
Show Me the Money or threw furniture around in the Winners' Circle, William Shatner had dreams of being a serious actor. One of the movies he made in those early days,
The Explosive Generation, airs May 8 at 11:30 AM ET on TCM.
Shatner plays a high school teacher who lets his students write about what they want and, they being teenagers, mostly write about... sex. Word of this eventually reaches the parents, who are naturally horrified (this
is 1961, after all), and the usual controversies about what to do with a teacher who has his students do things that make their parents uncomfortable.
Obviously, for fans of game shows, or
Star Trek, it's interesting to see Shatner doing serious work. However, those who enjoy classic cinema will also want to watch the main female student. That's Patty McCormack, who has had a long movie career -- most recently appearing as Pat Nixon in
Frost/Nixon, but having been a child star early on, notably as one of the movies' most evil children in
The Bad Seed.