A Touch of Greatness is a short biographical film, covering the life's work of Albert Cullum, an elementary-school teacher whose inspired teaching methods in the 1960s were ahead of his time. Working with the premise that children are smart and eager to learn if they're given "greatness" instead of mediocrity, he got classrooms of ordinary kids excited about learning everything from geography to Shakespeare, and instilled in them a lifelong appreciation of knowledge. It's an example that's well worth promoting now; while more educators have come to embrace his philosophy, modern teachers have to fight against the constant pressure to test, test, test, and teach to the test. Children are not empty vessels that have to stuffed full of facts, but people who learn best when they're inspired to do so, as Cullen did.

So the premise of A Touch of Greatness is certainly both relevant and interesting. As a film itself, though, it's passable but not really remarkable. The 54-minute main program on the DVD takes an admiring look at Cullen's work, with ample footage of his classroom work and the projects that his students did, such as a literature festival and a performance of Julius Caesar. We also get to hear from his grown students about the profound effect he had on their lives, and we get to see Cullen in action in later years as a teacher educator, attempting to inspire the same sort of passion in a new generation of classroom teachers. That's all perfectly fine material, except that it's hard to really engage in it if you don't know anything about Cullen to begin with. The film does try to introduce us to him and give us a sense of his significance as a teacher, but throughout it still has the feel of an appreciation piece made for the retirement party of a beloved colleague, rather than a documentary film in its own right.

Perhaps what's most missing is context. As a teacher myself, I'm certainly interested in what Cullen was doing, but I'd have liked to have gotten some sense of why he thought to do things the way he did, and how he fit into the educational system of the time. Were there other teachers who had the same principles, or was he one of the first innovators? Did he have a systematic approach, or was he guided by intuition? The film mentions that he had both supporters and detractors, but there's no real indication of how he fit into the larger educational community.

All in all, A Touch of Greatness isn't a bad documentary; it's simply one that leaves me wishing for more than it was.

The DVD

Video

Most of A Touch of Greatness is made up of 1960s-era black-and-white footage, most likely taken with home video cameras to begin with; clearly it's not going to look pristine on DVD. The older footage is grainy and noisy, and fairly worn; still, it's watchable as long as you keep in mind that it's archival footage. The more recent footage with Albert Cullum in later years as a teacher educator is not particularly good-looking either, though. The colors look a little bit artificial, and it's fairly soft-looking. All in all, though, the film is acceptable given the nature of the material. It appears in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:1.

Audio

The soundtrack is, like the video, satisfactory considering the age and condition of the material the filmmakers had to work with. The sound is acceptably clear and easy to understand for the most part.

Extras

While there's nothing here that will catch the attention of viewers who were only mildly interested by the feature film, those who really liked A Touch of Greatness will appreciate the additional material here.

Three short films by Albert Cullum are presented here: "A Touch of Greatness" (26 minutes), "Literature Au-Go-Go" (26 minutes), and "From Sea to Shining Sea" (13 minutes). Each is of 1960s vintage and showcases the work of various students or whole classes that Cullum was teaching. Some of the footage here also appears in the main feature film.

Two 27-minute episodes of the Camera Three television series focusing on Cullum and his students are also included here. We also get a photo gallery and text biographies of the filmmakers.

Final thoughts

A Touch of Greatness is a narrowly focused documentary film that misses its opportunity to take either a broader or deeper look at the issues it presents. The film does a nice job of celebrating the teaching methods of Albert Cullum, and showing how he positively influenced the children in his classroom, but I found myself wishing for more substance and more content. I'll give it a "rent it" for viewers who are interested in the subject matter of education.