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To Sir, with Love (1967)

Rate: 5
Viewed: 5/16

ToSire
5/16: One of Sidney Poitier's earliest roles was playing a rebellious student in Blackboard Jungle, a fine film with Glenn Ford that's about a newbie teacher working at an urban school.

Twelve years later, Sidney makes a full circle by appearing in To Sir, with Love, but this time, he's in Glenn Ford's shoes. Everything that had been done in the former is repeated in the latter. Hence, there's nothing new to discover. The same stuff can also be seen in Up Down the Staircase which is a much superior film with Sandy Dennis.

As a former teacher myself, I've seen it all and have left the profession for good. The work is impossible. Therefore, I refuse to buy the Hollywood bullshit ending. If there's a better job for Sidney Poitier's character, especially in engineering, he should take it and never look back. Anything that requires high level of cognition is a hundred times better than being sucked dry from dealing with soulless numbskulls who can't or won't improve themselves because they think the world must revolve around them and their stupid, silly needs.

Sidney Poitier is okay here, but a lot of his actions are, to be frank, inappropriate and therefore grounds for outright dismissal. Professionally speaking, there are more effective solutions to defuse each situation he was faced with, but I'll let him off the hook because he hasn't the proper training for it.

By the way, here's a trivia from IMDb: "The film did so unexpectedly well in America that Columbia Pictures did market research to find out why so many people had gone to it. Their answer: Sidney Poitier." Of course, it's my primary reason, too, for picking up the movie. Why is it so hard for these white morons to understand Sidney Poitier was an exceptional actor?

All in all, you're better off watching Blackboard Jungle and Up Down the Staircase as To Sir, with Love is the same old, same old.