| Director | Martin Ritt |
|---|---|
| Budget | $2.4 million |
| Box office | $2 million |
The story follows a young teacher, Pat Conroy, in 1969 assigned to isolated Yamacraw Island (Daufuskie Island) off the coast of South Carolina and populated mostly by poor black families. He finds out that the children as well as the adults have been isolated from the rest of the world and speak a dialect called Gullah, with "Conrack" of the novel's title being the best they can do to pronounce his last name. The school has only two rooms for all grades combined, with the principal teaching grades one through four and Conroy teaching grades five through eight. Conroy discovers that the students aren't taught much and will have little hope of making a life in the larger world.
Conroy tries to teach them about the outside world but comes into conflict both with the principal and Mr. Skeffington, the superintendent. He teaches them how to brush their teeth, who Babe Ruth is, and has the children listen to music, including Flight of the Bumblebee and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. He explains that when Beethoven wrote the Fifth Symphony, he was writing about "what death would sound like". He is astounded they've never even heard of Halloween, and he decides to take them to Beaufort on the mainland to go trick-or-treating, which the superintendent has forbidden. He also must overcome parental fears of "the river." As a result, he's fired. As he leaves the island for the last time, the children come to see him leave, all of them lined up on a rickety bridge. As he is about to leave by boat, one of the students then begins playing a record, which is the beginning movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.