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To Sir, With Love Customer Reviews (28 - 30 of 37 Reviews)

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"

A BEAUTIFUL FILM
"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

A BRAVURA POITIER PERFORMANCE.
Sidney Poitier is astonishing in his role of Mark Thackeray, a black super-gentleman teacher who has been assigned to work with a bunch of unruly students in the slums of London's East End. If the classroom scenes aren't entirely convincing, the performances are finely executed. Thackeray explains to the cheeky, rowdy kids that he came from humble orgins as well. He instills confidence, respect and responsibility in their heads. In the end, he somewhat, if not entirely succeeds: the students as a whole are awed by this magical man who has become something of a hero. To insure more believability, some viewers feel that Thackeray should have been allowed to be more human & lose his "cool" just once, but it wouldn't have been the same film that many have come to know and love. The film was produced, written and directed by James Clavell, the author of SHOGUN; he adapted the autobiographical book by E.R. Braithwaite for the screen. This movie was a box-office success with the public: it earned over 7 million dollars in profits. Critics, however, were somewhat less than enthusiastic. Oh, well!