Back To School Special: To Sir, With Love, 1967

For the month of September, I have decided to feature some classic films that are about going back to school, teachers, etc. I am trying to avoid Dead Poets' Society but I do reserve the right to feature Legally Blonde and call it a classic. To this end, my first selection is 1967's To Sir, With Love starring the one and only Sidney Poitier.

To Sir, With Love is the story of Mark Thackeray, a native of British Guiana who finds himself after an unsuccessful job hunt as a teacher in one of London's toughest schools. This is the part that always amuses me, most British films have royalty and people drinking tea and parrying verbal insults. For some reason, I still find it unusual when I find a film about a bad neighborhood in London. I was watching the first series of Doctor Who for a while when I was like, "Wait, does Rose Tyler live in the projects? Is her mom on welfare?" Same deal here, but I think these kids would still get their asses kicked by kids from American slums. Thackeray goes in sure that no matter what these kids throw at him, he can take it given what he's already had to put up with. Not so much. I spent the first part waiting for him to go all Mr. Tibbs on those kids. He loses it when one of the girls throws a sanitary pad on the furnace, which I had to look up on Wikipedia to find out, but that does sound pretty gross. He has the revelation that these kids are about to be adults, he should treat them as such and lays out a whole new course for the class. The students will choose what they want to discuss and places an emphasis on deportment. It works wonders and seems to change their whole attitude. Thackeray loses them when he tries to explain how the world works after one of the students get in an altercation with their boxing teacher. He finally wins them back when he shows mercy on a student and with all the weird sixties dancing in this movie, you know Sidney Poitier was going to have to get down in this movie.


I have to say that Sidney Poitier somehow pulls that off. I was thinking about him in comparison to Colin Firth while I watched this movie. Number one was that they both possess a certain poise and elegance, even while they do the ridiculous. It seems to me that this kind of film is the forerunner of the magical minority helping figure film, but I think it's because Sidney Poitier occupies a unique space in film history. He was one of the first black actors to be billed as a leading man, but studios still had to find a way to market him to audiences, specifically a non-threatening way. Look at Lilies of the Field or a Patch of Blue. It wasn't until this same year that Sidney got to go all "They call me MR. TIBBS!" in In The Heat of the Night. This was also the same year as Guess Who's Coming To Dinner? Have you watched that recently? I mean, I enjoyed it thoroughly the first time, with all the Hepburn-Tracy stuff going on, but seriously, what is Sidney Poitier doing with their idiot daughter? He's a freaking doctor with the World Health Organization, and oh, yeah, he's Sidney Poitier! He can do better! Sorry, I realized this the next day. You know what that movie's like? It's like if Mr. Darcy had ended up marrying Lydia Bennet and was happy about it. That's what it's like. In the case of this film, they use Thackeray's life story of improving his speech and working his way through school- strikingly similar to Poitier's own back story- as a source of inspiration for the mostly white, lower class students. (There is a mixed race character, but also a Chinese girl and an Indian girl neither of whom ever says anything.) Anyway, it becomes clear that Thackeray has really had an impact on the students and Lulu sings.


I have to admit that is a catchy tune. A lot of this movie seems cheesy and dated now, like the field trip told through photo montage, but you really have to admire Poitier's performance, he remains timeless. Judy Geeson's performance as a student with a crush on Thackeray is adorable and just a little heartbreaking because you can see he's the first man who's treated her with any sort of respect. Anyway, I liked it, you can go watch it on YouTube if you want, apparently there was some sort of TV movie sequel... Oh, must they do that?

Questions, comments, concerns? Did you think that girl was too idiotic to marry Sidney Poitier, too?

Best Picture 1958: Gigi

1958 was a remarkable year in the history of film. It was the year when Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo came out, along with Orson Welles' Touch of Evil along with Some Came Running. However, none of these films were nominated for Best Picture. Instead, the nominees were Auntie Mame, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The Defiant Ones, Separate Tables and Gigi. Now, let's review the contenders. Separate Tables is the story of several couples as they stay at a seaside hotel. Auntie Mame is the story of an orphan who goes to live with his eccentric aunt. The Defiant Ones is the story of two prisoners one black, one white escaped who have to work together. It was also the film that Sidney Poitier was first nominated for an Oscar for, making him the first African American man to get the honor, and only four African American women had gotten any nominations before that. (Dorothy Dandridge for Carmen Jones, Ethel Waters for Pinky and Hattie McDaniel for Gone With The Wind, the only woman among these three to actually win.)



Then Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, my personal favorite of these films. Admittedly, there are flaws to my selection. It is the film that Tennessee Williams famously told people not to see because the filmmakers had to cut out all the homosexual elements present in the play and talk around things. They also had to kind of give it a happy ending. Yet the movie still feels like it's about something and Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor both give incredible, tortured performances. Burl Ives also gives a great performance as Big daddy. (Your piece of trivia for the day is also that Burl Ives sings "Holly Jolly Christmas")

So, how the hell is Gigi the Best Picture of 1958?





Gigi was directed by Vincente Minnelli and one of the last musicals to come out of the storied Arthur Freed production unit at MGM. Overall, it's not a bad movie and pretty good so far as musicals about French courtesans go, but Moulin Rouge remains my favorite of the genre. Gigi, played by Leslie Caron, is a young girl being groomed to be a courtesan by her grandmother and great aunt. She enjoys a friendship with man about town, Gaston, played by Louis Jourdan. The friendship unfortunately gets sidetracked by the fact that Gigi is grown up and her family would like to see her put in a comfortable situation. Gigi's grandmother points out to Gaston that Gigi is grown up. He first refuses to believe it and leaves in a huff, wandering the streets and singing. Gaston proposes to Gigi that she becomes his mistress. Gigi rejects him, saying that such a life would only be fraught with misery and scandal for her. Gaston storms out, unable to see that. Gigi calls him back and announces that she would rather be miserable with him than without him. Gigi and Gaston go out to dinner that evening where the combination of Gigi's coquetry and the reaction of the other patrons convinces Gaston that Gigi's original interpretation of her life as a mistress was accurate. Dismayed, he takes her home and wanders the streets of Paris only to return and ask Gigi's grandmother for her hand in marriage.

So, a pretty fanciful story, but it was 1958 so we can't exactly count that against it. It's just in the broad strokes that some things bother me. Take this scene in the opening where Maurice Chevalier sings "Thank Heaven For Little Girls."



Am I the only one thinking old guy alone in the park singing this song equals pedophile? It doesn't help that the plot of this film just about adds up to being about training your granddaughter to be a high class prostitute. The whole concept of this film is creepy. Vincente Minnelli has his usual skill with color and spectacle, it has all the charm of an MGM musical, but there's nothing particularly wonderful or groundbreaking about it, especially when compared with the competition and even more so when compared with the films that got snubbed that year.

So, what do you all think? Fill in the blank in the comments section: "Yo, Gigi, I'm really happy for you, I'mma let you finish but ________ was the hottest film of 1958."