David Conrad delivers a valentine to teaching -- and one man in particular -- in a documentary called "Tamas," but you don't need an editing suite to honor a remarkable person.

"I wish everybody at one point in their life would get up and say, 'I knew this guy' or 'I knew this woman' and they were this kind of teacher, and whether they do it in a bar or take a picture or tell a story or write an article or a letter or tell their kids," it's just as valid.

"To me, it's such a ridiculously important thing, and I think almost more important than my dad did this or my mother did this, because it's not by a blood tie, it's by the act of devotion to a stranger."

Tamas Szilagyi was a stranger until Conrad, a Broadway, film and TV actor now on "The Ghost Whisperer," transferred from Woodland Hills to The Kiski School as a sophomore in the early 1980s.

Now 77, Szilagyi was 25 when he left Hungary after Soviet troops moved in to crush the Hungarian revolution in 1956. More than 15,000 Hungarians were killed and 200,000 became refugees like Szilagyi, who forged a new life in Saltsburg, Indiana County, where he has taught at Kiski for more than four decades.

A husband and a father, he's a larger-than-life figure who can cultivate the intellectual vigor of his students and challenge them to look for loopholes or problems in any argument, including his. But he can juggle a soccer ball, volley on a tennis court, drink, smoke, curse, talk life or politics and socialize like a far younger man.

As one observer told Conrad, Szilagyi never condescends to students.

"When there are kids in his class, they look at a man who looks at them with value, who never talks down to them, who values intelligence in whatever form it comes to him in," Conrad said this week from Los Angeles. "He does not discriminate if you're not book smart, if you're not a quick thinker, if you're not witty," but he does zero in on a skill a student possesses.

Szilagyi, who returned to Hungary in 2006 with Conrad and a small camera crew in tow, is the subject of Conrad's documentary, "Tamas," one of three movies opening the Three Rivers Film Festival.

It will play at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Regent Square Theater (ticket, $25, includes party afterward at Pittsburgh Filmmakers headquarters) and repeat Nov. 22 at 4:30 p.m. at the same location ($15, includes party at Concept Art Gallery). To buy tickets in advance, go to www.3rff.com.

Szilagyi taught three of Conrad's classes: modern European history, Soviet studies and, with Rockwell Gray, a course on five seminal novels, such as "Brothers Karamazov" and "Madame Bovary" that examined both the literary aspects and historical background of the books.

He was one of the "four best teachers I think I've ever had in my life," Conrad says, and he also studied at Brown University, Juilliard and the Chautauqua Institution.

Days ago, the actor and Edgewood native slipped back into a Kiski classroom and found Szilagyi "still pulls out six different books, and he's reading from them and asking questions and prodding people."

A dozen years ago, Conrad and four of his far-flung classmates had a brilliant idea about marking the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian revolution.

They would meet in Italy, where one spent much of his time, travel by car or train to Serbia to pick up another alum, head for Vienna where one was studying medicine, go to Budapest where they planned to reunite with Szilagyi and return to Trieste, Italy, and have a party.

"That was the plan, when we were drunk. And then, everybody got married and had kids, got real jobs. And the only person who wasn't married and didn't have a real job, of course, was me," Conrad said.

"So, come 2006, I was like, you know, if nothing else, I'm going to go to Hungary and if anybody else wants to come, they can come and I'm flying Tamas there because I want him to walk me through the streets on the 50th anniversary."

Conrad thought if he were going to film the trip, why not talk about Szilagyi's tenure as a teacher? Szilagyi's reaction to the movie proposal: "I'm not that fascinating, the revolution is what matters."

"Tamas" honors Szilagyi's time in the classroom but celebrates his place in history, as teacher and participant.

He revisits old haunts and old friends, and Conrad says, "To me, the most affecting part is when they go to the cemetery, when it becomes political and I mean that in the kind of social sense. You realize, like he said, the real heroes are in the cemetery and some sense of loss you get from brief lives cut off. He's such a little piece in the giant sweep of history which is maybe why he teaches it."

As Conrad continues, "No matter how capable the teacher or great the man, they may be caught up in forces they can do nothing about. Maybe all you can do is tell stories to the next generation or use what tools you can."

Conrad's documentary is just under 80 minutes, culled from 80 hours of footage. He worked with a small crew that included Robert Weiss, Mark Schwartzbard, Claudio Cambon, Kevin Brooks, Jefferson Breland and George Nixon.

The actor knew Szilagyi would be an "easy sell, a fascinating guy," while it might be tougher to capture the Kiski School, "200 mostly white guys in ties," who look like they're in the land of privilege but aren't and include scholarship students such as Conrad.

Conrad and Szilagyi will be at the Regent Square Theater for Friday's showing although the actor turned filmmaker jokes that since they've seen the movie, they may be outside having a drink and a cigarette. And, no doubt, some rich, worldly conversation.

First Published: November 6, 2008, 10:00 a.m.