To Sir with Love

“Sidney Poitier has had to carry a heavier load of social significance than just about any other actor in history. In his more than forty feature films, he rarely had the luxury of ignoring the larger implications of his characters' actions. He was always judged twice: once for his performance and once for the worth of that performance to the advancement of human relations. That's a lot to ask of any mere mortal. But then, there's nothing ‘mere’ about Sidney Poitier.” – excerpt from AFI Lifetime Achievement Address

Saturday, September 15; 7:30pm
Sunday, Spetember 16; 2:00pm

To Sir With Love
USA, 1967, 105 min.
Directed by James Clavell
Based on the novel by E.R. Braithwaite
Starring Sidney Poitier, Judy Geason and Christian Roberts
Theme song performed by Lulu

An enormous hit in its time, this relatively simple and sentimental story of a teacher's seemingly miraculous ability to change his unruly students for the better is sustained by Sidney Poitier's powerful performance. He stars as a Caribbean native who finds himself working in a rundown secondary school in London's tough East End. Quickly realizing that his rebellious students need to learn self-discipline and survival skills more than anything they can find in a book, he acts accordingly. -Rovi

The dignity Poitier projected not only served his characters well, but paved the way for scores of African-American performers who would follow in his footsteps...The color of his skin is all but inconsequential, a turn of events that would have been unimaginable just a few years earlier. In that sense, this modest film was groundbreaking… The theme to To Sir, with Love, which Lulu so memorably warbles in one of the film's pivotal scenes, served as her launching pad to stardom…it went on to top Billboard's Hot 100 chart for five weeks in 1967, and would become the number one single of the year.- Paul Tatara