Good Luck Miss Wyckoff [Blu-ray] [1979] [US Import]

I think the reason this movie works so well is because of the extremely shocking change of tone that happens an hour into the movie. For the first hour, we are led to believe that we are watching a sensitive portrait of a lonely spinster high school teacher named Miss Wyckoff, whose supportive best friend is played by Carolyn Jones (Morticia, from "The Addams Family"). In the first hour there is no nudity, and everything is very tastefully presented, and sensitively done.
Then, out of nowhere, an hour into the movie, the audience is shocked by one of the most explicit rape scenes I've ever seen in a mainstream movie, when Miss Wyckoff is brutally raped by a black janitor. The rape scene seems to last for a very long time, and both the janitor (and later Miss Wyckoff) have full frontal nude scenes.
After the rape scene, the movie continues it's new explicit tone, with more shocking scenes between Miss Wyckoff and the janitor.
I think the reason the movie is so memorable is because the audience is tricked into thinking we're watching a made-for-Lifetime-type of drama, and then the movie suddenly becomes very explicit, ugly, and shocking.
Anne Heywood delivers an excellent performance as Miss Wyckoff, and I only wish she was interviewed for the dvd.

While some of the people behind this film may have had earnest intentions, Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff is an unintentional comedy. Problems range from bad acting and poor directing to scenes that are just blatantly offensive.

This 1979 movie is based on a book by William Inge, who also wrote Picnic, Bus Stop, and Come Back, Little Sheba. But somewhere between the book and this film, something went wrong. Very wrong.

Miss Wyckoff (Anne Heywood) is a school teacher in 1956 Kansas. She experiences menopause at age 35. She’s also a virgin. To curb her emotional instability, her doctor recommends she find a man. And she does exactly that, which is where the film goes from bad to jaw-dropping, insanely bad.

Poor Miss Wyckoff is raped. She is raped by a student. An African-American student. She also seems to fall in love with the student and so goes to him for more. Again. And again. (That happens after every rape, doesn’t it?) The repercussions might not be pleasant for a woman in 1950s Kansas, and she knows that. So she keeps it secret.

As Miss Wyckoff, 47-year-old Anne Heywood does a decent job of minimizing her British accent. Yet, despite her headstrong approach to the role, she is convincing neither as a woman 12 years her junior, nor as a Kansas schoolteacher, nor as a virgin.

The rape scene in itself shows everything that is wrong with the entire film. While it tries to appear on the side of moral righteousness, it also tries to keep the scene titillating. The camera makes sure we see her ample breasts. The camera also lingers lasciviously on the. . . well, let’s just say this isn’t a movie to watch with your family. It’s as if Mr. Inge’s original script was hijacked by producers who really just wanted to make a porn flick.
Worth noting is some astonishingly bad acting from Robert Vaughn, Miss Wyckoff’s physician. It’s hard to imagine any woman letting a doctor this menacing go anywhere near her private parts. Which is what we see him do. Conversely, some scenes are saved by the (post-Addams Family) Carolyn Jones – frighteningly believable as a bigoted, spinsterish Kansas schoolteacher. Her nastiness seems closer to the core of what Mr. Inge had wanted us to see in his original book.

In one of the most stupefying film scenes of all time, a horrible note is put on Miss Wyckoff’s classroom door. The students are gathered and Miss Wyckoff must push through them to see what’s been written. Yet the extras playing the students are silent and their faces are blank: These inexperienced background extras were not told how to behave, and so they’re just hanging out silently, waiting for… Godot? Some are not even facing the direction of the shocking note. To stretch credibility more, Miss Wyckoff hangs her head in shame, opens the door, and enters – without even pulling down the vicious note which remains for each student to read as they follow her one-by-one. This one scene deserves an award for having the most people “asleep at the wheel” when assembling a film…

Watch it. Invite your friends over, and give them each a pad and a pen. Then see who finds the most things “gone wrong” with this movie. You might even want to re-watch parts, as did I, when you ask “Did that thing in that scene really happen?”

Yes, it did.

This movie was well before it's time! I think that this movie should be shown in the theaters now! Very enlightening!

shows its age but was a shocker when first released

Everything was great, thanks.