A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

In the year that Rod Serling won his Emmy Award for the episode, 'Patterns', in the 'Kraft Television Theatre' series which was aired on January 12th 1955, he wrote 'The Fateful Pilgrimage' which was aired on April 17th 1955 for this series.