This guide and all of my reviews contain occasional bits of rude language,
and opinions some people might find offensive but for which I won’t apologise.
Don’t read any further unless you are open-minded.
As hard as I try not to give away too much, I can't guarantee there are no spoilers.
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To Sir With Love - Movie UK 1967 - 105 Mins
A man from Br Guiana takes a teaching job at an impoverished East End school while he looks for work as an engineer. His time with the group of social misfits changes their lives and his forever.
This was a ground-breaking movie in the “inspirational teacher” genre – addressing race and social issues of 1960s Britain and introducing Lulu's hit song to the English-speaking world.
When I first saw this on a big screen Australia was still a predominantly British outpost – while Melbourne was never “English” there are plenty of similarities between the London shown here and the world I grew up in. Bus and tram conductors wore military style uniforms, and more.
No - I don’t miss the era when my mother wore a headscarf whenever she left the house, it’s just a shock to see how radically the world has changed, both culturally and physically, in 5 short decades.
Re-visiting this movie and listening to “Sir” talk about the influence of The Beatles is a pisser; it is almost impossible to explain how iconoclastic a band of musicians who wore suits could have been at the time.
In this story, one of Sir’s fellow teachers never misses an opportunity to comment on his colour, and race is a topic that is not central to but never forgotten in this movie, which is a spot-on depiction of how post WWII White-Australia immigration Policy seemed to work:
“I’m not racist but … there will not be one second of your life that I will let you forget that I believe you are different from me, and as I am normal it follows logically that you cannot be therefore it is very big of me to accept you as my equal”.
To appreciate this film classic fully, it is worth noting that at the time this was released, the UK was bogged down (still bogged down, if we remember this began before Ghandi was a pup…) in some very divisive internal debate about immigration from its many former colonies (where British citizens were not necessarily white) and the UK parliament was debating proposals to ban racial discrimination. Enoch Powell was still campaigning for repatriation of people of colour.
Today this movie seems to feature almost apologetic pleas on screen for racial tolerance, but at the time they were possibly an economic gamble for the film’s producers. (Except Sidney Poitier, at the time, was box office magic.)
In May 1967, Australians had just voted in a referendum on altering the constitution, so the Federal Government would have power to make laws for Aboriginals (A power they gained and have since then done frack all with - so much for Sir telling us it is our duty to change the world if we can… I can hear him now, saying “You had one job to do…”).
The delinquency of the students in this story seems tame compared to US movies of the same genre regardless of when they were made; - there are no guns or gangs or drugs in the mix. This makes the voice-over in the U.S. trailer sound ridiculously melodramatic. (The same footage with the voiceover delivered in a plummy British accent sounds less ridiculous, though someone slamming a desk lid hardly matches the description of rebel.)
The turning point in the movie itself hinges only indirectly on the question of race, though it was key for E.R.Braithwaite, the engineer whose story is being told .
Generally speaking, To Sir With Love works as a tribute to any teacher who ever has been an inspiration to any pupil. Sir inspired me, because he was the first “teacher” in my life who, without reference to God or the threat of eternal hellfire, suggested life might have some meaning.
All other good or bad teacher movies I've seen since pale by comparison.
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