To Sir, With Love (1967) - Sidney carried this unforgettable high school movie

Review No. : 0014

Title : To Sir, With Love

Year : 1967

Director : James Clavell

Country : United Kingdom

World’s Verdict : Rotten Tomatoes – 92%; IMDB – 7.7 out of 10.0.

My Verdict : 3.2 out of 5.0.

I remember hearing the song when I was growing up, the melancholic melody and the lyrics that I did not much understand back then.  Lulu’s “To Sir, With Love” is one of the best movie soundtracks ever produced.  It summarizes the film by capturing the feelings of a student towards her teacher.  Aside from the wonderful song, there are other reasons that made me watch To Sir, With Love (1967) and one of them is that this is my first Sidney Poitier film.  The writer and director, James Clavell, also wrote to of my favorite novels (Shogun and King Rat).

To Sir, With Love (1967) was based on an semi-autobiographic novel of the same title written by E. R. Braithewaite, a Guyanese teacher and writer.  Set in the 1960s, Mark Thackeray (Sidney Poitier), a black man from British Guyana, gets a teaching job in a secondary school in London.  He learns that his students are rejects from other schools and their trick and pranks drove their last teacher to quit.  The class is led by a tough guy, Bert Denham (Christian Roberts), and a beautiful student, Pamela Dare (Judy Geeson).  The class antics progress to disrespectful behavior that Thackeray loses his temper one day and decides to change his lesson plan.  He throws all the books and informs the kids that from now on they will treat each other as adults and that they will talk anything about life instead of reading their classroom books and one by one he gains the trust, respect and love of his students.

The Good

• Sidney Poitier’s top class acting – He wowed me.  As mentioned, this is my first Sidney Poitier movie and he simply amazed me.  What I like about him is that he plays the part so naturally that he didn’t go overboard.  He effectively shows different layers of the character, a poor gentleman trying to start his life, a human who has limitations and a not-so-good dancer.

The Bad

• The montage in the museum – Thackeray and the student go to a museum for their first field trip.  What I didn’t like about this scene is that it features a montage of photos of the students in the museum while the famous song of Lulu is being played.  The pictures look authentic and most of them are funny but somehow I feel like I was taken out of the movie and a TV commercial or an MTV video is being played.
• The awkward dance – There is a scene that Thackeray is asked by a student to dance in a school party.  The dance of Poitier looks awful at first that it makes me cringe, soon he dances good enough that he begin to look like more of a student than a teacher.  If the intention of the director is to make the audience cringe and then smile then he succeeded.  Come to think of it, it shows another personality of Thackeray which makes this scene actually okay.  But Iet me leave it under "The Bad" section right now.  "The Bad" section is where I put memorable scenes that I didn’t like so much but others might think it’s good, sort of like a limbo section.

And The Ugly

• The camera – there is an obvious scene wherein a camera makes a sudden movement like someone accidentally trip on it.  Then there is a close-up scene that the actress is just out of focus.
• The instant change of heart of Denham – Denham, the king of the classroom, has been fighting against the principles of Thackeray then a week before graduation he realizes that he is wrong.  This would have been more believable if it happened months before graduation, seriously it did not add additional suspense to the movie, if anything it only added predictability.
• The overused of the main theme song – Lulu’s “To Sir, With Love” song plays during the start of the scene – What a wonderful way to start the movie.  Then it plays again while running the montage of pictures during the trip to the museum.  Then Lulu sings it during the graduation party a few minutes before the ending.  Then after a few minutes, in the closing credits the song plays again.  Talk about oversused and abused soundtrack.  I like the song but it’s just too much to be played four times in a movie.

Two reasons to watch this film: 1)  Sidney Poitier's compelling acting and 2) Sidney Poitier's compelling character.