Reviews

To Sir With Love is another film examination of a teacher's struggle to win over under-privileged youth, in the tradition of Blackboard Jungle and Boys Town. In this film Poitier's character, Mark Thackeray, is less committed to his task than the protagonists in the aforementioned movies, but is no less dedicated in his resolve to instill self respect and empathy in his pupils.

The desire to do so stems from his own realisation that he was once in their shoes, and was able to escape the downward spiral wrought by poverty. At the same time, he faces a dilemma in furthering his own career (as an engineer) at the expense of his students. The tension between the two choices - engineer or teacher - might be unpalatable to career teachers, but is deftly handled by director/writer James Clavell as he sets up a series of set-pieces designed to test Thackeray's mettle.

The students are ultimately the catalyst for Thackeray's decision. Unruly, vulgar and contemptuous of authority Thackeray gradually pierces their armour to reveal their underlying humanity. Poitier's performance, aided by an excellent supporting cast including Judy Geeson and Lulu, portrays this gradual revelation without any cloying sentiment.

Evan Hunter's novel of The Blackboard Jungle was a timely reminder of the "Lost Generation" of post-war adolescents living in a social vacuum in the late forties and fifties. Contrary to recent trends towards mythologising this time as an era of plenty (the economic "Long Boom"; the feel-good depictions of fifties life by Hollywood) social unrest was a corollary of affluence.

At the core of the story is the unseen class war fermenting among the underclass - socially deprived, racially discriminated youth who are trapped inside a system which can't (or won't) realise their innate potential.

This is the situation confronting teachers such as Richard Dadier (Glenn Ford), who are placed as front line "soldiers" to keep the animals at bay - until the next wave! Resolving to work within, and beyond the confines, of the "system" Dadier suffers for his humanity, but perseveres, knowing that the jungle has an inner beauty too long hidden from respectable society.

Representative of the jungle is Gregory Miller (Sidney Poitier), young and black, who has developed his own code for existence - to push as far as possible without ever crossing the boundary into the enemy's territory. Hunter's novel examined this aspect of the student-teacher relationship more fully than Richard Brooks's film, but the tension is brilliantly crystallised in the film's climactic scene as Dadier is forced to react against an intransigent student's brutality with violence. Looking at Miller, the ostensible leader, he poses the question whether it would be best to ignore what happened and let things continue as is, consigning them all to the law of the jungle. The answer affirms the basic human dignity inherent in all members of society. A timely sentiment in an era where humans are increasingly accorded the dignity of economic cyphers, rather than flesh and blood beings.