Director James Clavell
Starring Sidney Poitier, Judy Geeson, Christian Roberts
Rated PG
Score 5/6

Idealistic engineer-trainee and his experiences in teaching a group of rambunctious white high school students from the slums of London’s East End.

I think I may have watched To Sir, with Love a couple of times, but only really thought that I should review after watching Greg Berlanti’s 2018 movie Love, Simon. For those of you who might be wondering there might be a couple more reviews posted this weekend that might fall into that theme.

I was a little surprised to find out that To Sir, with Love was Patricia Routledge’s (who might be better known to some people as Hyacinth Bucket) first movie role, this was also a first movie role for Lulu who also sung the movie’s title song.

While writing this review I have been thinking what sets To Sir, with Love apart from contemporary teen movies. I suppose to an extent it was the racism but what really sets the movie apart is some of the interactions between the teachers and students particularly the incident between Potter and Mr. Bell and the boxing match between Denham and Mr. Thackery as well as some of the language used by Mr. Thackery when he loses his temper with the girls.
To Sir, with Love is a sweet heartfelt movie this is highlighted with the use of the title song To Sir, with Love. Part of me wants to say that the flow of the movie is a little cliched but given that the movie is over fifty years old it would be more accurate to say that solidified the template for movies to come. I also liked the movie’s ‘if you work hard, you can …’ message but for some reason my mind made the oddest connection to the Richard Sharpe franchise
I’m not overly familiar with director James Clavell’s work though he also wrote the screenplay for The Great Escape.