by David C. Terr

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Title: To Sir, with Love

Director: James Clavell

Starring: Sidney Poitier, Christian Roberts, Judy Geeson, Suzy Kendall, Lulu

Release Date: June 14, 1967

Running Time: 105 min

Genre: Drama

 

Commentary
To Sir, with Love is an inspiring movie about an idealistic teacher determined to get through to a class of rebellious teenagers. Other films have been made based on this theme, including Blackboard Jungle (1955) and The Principal (1987), but this is the best I've seen. As always, Sidney Poitier delivers a superb performance. The students' performances are also very good, most notably Lulu's moving rendition of the theme song, "To Sir, with Love", which she sings at the end of the term dance near the end of the film.

Plot Summary
With no other choice, Mark Thackeray (Poitier) takes a teaching job at a high school in a London slum. At first he finds the students nearly impossible to teach, due to their rebellious nature and unwillingness to be taught.

After awhile, he tries a new approach. He starts by throwing out their textbooks. Then he tries to prepare them for adulthood by treating them like adults, having them address each other as Sir or Miss. He takes them to a museum to expose them to culture. The students gradually come to respect and admire him.

Thackery receives an offer to work as an engineer, but tears up the letter and decides to keep teaching, which is what he loves. At the end of the term, he meets two new rebellious students who will be in his next class.

Cultural Significance
To Sir, with Love was made in England the 1960s, a place and time of much teenage rebellion. This movie was very inspiring to the young generation in that it presented a teacher who was more concerned with understanding and respecting his students than in trying to teach them rote discipline, which clearly didn't work for them.

The theme song became a huge hit, spending five weeks at #1 on the Billboard charts. It is still often played on oldies' stations and I often hear it performed to karaoke.

Movie Clips

Here's the movie trailer.

 

Here's Lulu's moving performance of the theme song.