To Sir, With Love

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1 - 1.33:1, not 16x9, Dolby Digital 2.0 mono
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	Yes, 1 - Dolby Digital City
Year Released	1966	Commentary Tracks	No
Running Time	100:47 minutes	Other Extras	Biographies - Cast and Crew
RSDL/Flipper	RSDL (57:28)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	2,4	Director	James Clavell
Studio Distributor	Columbia TriStar	Starring	Sidney Poitier  Judy Geeson Christian Roberts Suzy Kendall The Mindbenders Lulu
Case	Brackley
RRP	$34.95	Music	Ron Grainer

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	No	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Dolby Digital	2.0 mono
16 x 9 Enhancement		Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, 192 Kb/s) French (Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, 192 Kb/s) German (Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, 192 Kb/s) Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, 192 Kb/s) Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, 192 Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	Yes
Subtitles	English German French Dutch Spanish Italian Portuguese Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Swedish Turkish	Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Mark Thackery (Sidney Poitier) is an engineer who is unable to find work and so turns to teaching until such time as his employment opportunities improve. No teaching experience at all and so he is dutifully thrown into the deep end at North Quay, a school in the East End of London. But that is understating the problem - this is an area of tough living, broken homes and broken marriages. The pupils at his school are the worst of the worst, and Thackery gets the worst class in the worst school. Students such as Pamela Dare (Judy Geeson), Barbara Pegg (Lulu), Denham (Christian Roberts) and Potter (Chris Chittell) - foul mouthed anti-establishment types with no respect for authority. In the course of their final term at school, Thackery has the task of preparing these people for life in the real world, whilst also gaining their respect. Oh, and Thackery is black - in a very racist part of town.

    The story is really that simple - but this is a powerful story of social change and social tension in the East End of London during the sixties. Like so many British films both before and since, this is a true to life, gritty look at the times - something that the British do so well, and that Hollywood is completely incapable of doing. What makes the film shine is not the story but the cast that brought it to life. Sidney Poitier copped an Oscar for his performance in Lilies Of The Field in 1963, something of a breakthrough for African American actors. He then had a succession of stirring roles including this gem. He so brilliantly captures the role of the engineer seeking his level in a new occupation. This is a timeless performance that despite having been watched dozens of times still makes you sit up and take notice. But it is the performances of the supporting cast that really lift this out of the good category and into the very good category. Judy Geeson is wonderful as the young woman infatuated by a man unlike any she has ever met before. Christian Roberts is superb as the protagonist in the class, Lulu is creditable in her film debut (at the time she was one of the bright new talents of British pop music) and Suzy Kendall nicely understated as the colleague with a shine of her own for Thackery. The entire cast though contributed enormously to a stunning portrayal of a class of disadvantaged young adults in the East End. This was written by James Clavell, better known for his book Shogun (amongst others), and as I found out through the extras, born in Sydney: the sublime quality of the story cannot be doubted. But I never, ever realized that he was also the director of the film (so much for thinking he was just an author) and a fine job he did too. This is not a film that could rely on great cinematography to succeed - it needed great performances and superb capturing of the gritty nature of the location. James Clavell succeeded in obtaining both.

    A superb film that continues to stand the test of time, unlike many other films of the sixties (The Thomas Crown Affair or West Side Story anyone?). I for one am extremely glad that this has been given a release on DVD.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and it is 16x9 enhanced.

    You do have to bear in mind that this is 34 years old - the source material simply is not up to the quality of a film of far more recent vintage. However, this really is a very good transfer that hardly raises any quibbles at all. Sure it is not wonderfully sharp and nor do we expect it to be. In general, it is a reasonably softly defined transfer but never descends into anything unwatchable and maintains a consistency in definition that is to be lauded for a film of this age (indeed, it is far better than the lamentable effort for Out For Justice that I recently reviewed). The definition is good without being exceptional, whilst shadow detail reflects the age of the transfer - good without being too great. This is not a really clear transfer, but then again if it were it would diminish the impact of the film: the East End of the sixties was a dirty, depressing area and the film captures this so well. The transfer was a little grainy on occasions but nothing that was in the least distracting. There appear to be no problems with low level noise in the transfer.

    The transfer deliberately has quite a muted colour palette, which again captures the location and era so well. You certainly would not be seeing bright, vibrant colours in the East End of London in the sixties, so they are not present here at all. This is such a natural palette that it brings back memories of my childhood in Wolverhampton in England and my visits to London. There is obviously no problem whatsoever with oversaturation here.

    There were no MPEG artefacts noted in the transfer. There were no significant film-to-video artefacts in the transfer, apart from false colouration of portions of a white stripey shirt worn by one of the cast. There were very few noticeable film artefacts, and this is a surprisingly clean transfer for a film of this vintage.

    This is an RSDL format disc, with the layer change coming at 57:28. This is a reasonably placed change that is minimally disruptive to the film. What is unusual is that a film of this reasonably short length has been given RSDL formatting. This has no doubt contributed to the quality of the transfer, which maintained a fairly consistently high transfer rate throughout.

Audio

    There are five audio tracks on the DVD, all being Dolby Digital 2.0 mono tracks: English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. I listened to the English default soundtrack.

    Dialogue was clear and easy to understand.

    There were no apparent audio sync problems with the disc.

    The score by Ron Grainer is a little overshadowed by the film itself, and the music from the British Beat era as exemplified by The Mindbenders appearance in the film. However, the musical contribution to the film is vital as it expresses so much of what made Britain in the sixties such a happening place (as bastardized by a certain film about an international man of mystery - shudder).

    And this is one of the better sounding mono soundtracks that I have heard. Okay, you can throw away your surround speakers and the subwoofer for this one, but what is left is still quite fine. The soundtrack is free from hiss and distortion, and the sound is far less raw than you often hear in mono soundtracks. The soundscape is quite decent and reasonably natural, although obviously lacking a little space in the sound.

Menu

Theatrical Trailer (3:19)

Biographies - Cast and Crew

    A very good video transfer for its vintage.

    A very decent audio transfer.

    A minimal extras package reflecting the film's age.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris
31st January 2000