To Sir With Love

This is a heartwarming film. This is a good feel-good movie for anyone who may be feeling down!

Jeffrey C. McAndrew
author of "Our Brown-Eyed Boy"


One of Sidney Poitier's outstanding movies   June 25, 2004
Trial Critic (San Francisco, CA)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

This movie, based on E.R. Braithwaite's book, was one of the outstanding movies of Sidney Poitier. I am a sucker of such movies, especially as I can relate to them. I was in a difficult school during my teenage years with bad schoolmates and some good teachers set me straight, otherwise, I would have been in trouble. This movie inspired many other movies but did not do such a splendid job. The main difference was the script and the actors.

Sidney plays the part of Mark Thackerey who is an engineer who does not get a job as an engineer and decides to become a teacher as an intermediate job. In the East End school he sees how bad the standards of the students are and realizes that he is not making any difference. Finally one day he loses his cool, and then hits on an idea to change the students attitude. Gradually, the students warm up to him. Though some of the ideas might be dated (language, customs etc) for the present day, the ideas of racism, generation difference, teacher-student trust and problems are well brought out. This is still a timeless classic and for anyone who has worked with schools, teachers and problem students.

The DVD quality is excellent. Both video and sound transfer are good. Sidney is Sidney, what can I say, his quiet, dignified style of acting and the way he handles all the situations by showing his emotions is fantastic. The theme song of this movie is also special. Do not miss this movie.


A BEAUTIFUL FILM   June 7, 2004
Steven R. Travers (CALIFORNIA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

"To Sir With Love" was a beautiful story about a black teacher, Sidney Poitier, who overcomes racial barriers to teach West London toughs and toughettes the meaning of life. It was, literally, banned in Alabama, which was ruled entirely by...the Democrat party. In 1967, Poitier again stirred the red-necks with "In the Heat of the Night", where he plays Virgil Tibbs, a competent Philadelphia cop stuck overnight in a Mississippi town. It must be 110 degrees at night. The white boys sweat like stuck pigs while Virgil is as cool as a cucumber in a Savoy Row suit. The sheriff, Rod Steiger, is discomfited by circumstances in which Tibbs is "lent" to him to solve a murder that happens to occur when he is there. In working together, layer after layer of characterization is stripped away in marvelous fashion, through the skill of director Norman Jewison (who tells everybody he is not a Jew, he is Methodist), until understanding between the two men become a metaphor for the healing of a divided America. Very good stuff.

STEVEN TRAVERS
AUTHOR OF "BARRY BONDS: BASEBALL'S SUPERMAN"
STWRITES@AOL.COM


To Mr. Heath McEwan, with disgust   August 31, 2003
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

I just wanted to say i read your review and was alright with it until i read your sentence which read along the lines of "some viewers believe that the teacher should have lost his cool just once for it to be a believable movie." If you had actually watched the film, you would have discovered in the first hour that he does, in fact, lose his cool 'just once' and calls the girls in his class some rude names. Please do not comment on films you do not care to watch the entire length through. Thank you.