QWhat is 'To Sir, With Love' about?
AUnemployed engineer Mark Thackeray (Sidney Poitier), a black British Guyannan living in London, accepts his first job teaching at North Quay Secondary School in London's East End. What he gets is a mob of white, unruly, defiant seniors, particularly class tough Bert Denham (Christian Roberts) and precocious Pamela Dare (Judy Geeson), both of whom excel at one thing...teacher baiting. With no prior teaching experience, Mark must dig deep into himself and into his students, to find a way to keep his head until his long-sought for engineering job comes through.
QHow closely does the movie follow the book?
AThose who have both seen the movie and read the book report that the film is pretty faithful to the book, in essence at least, but trimmed for length.There is more regarding the author's position in British society and his feelings about being black in that society. There are a couple of chapters covering his job search and how he was treated, a lot more characterization and back-story. The movie also tends to eliminate a lot of the scenes in which overt racism was described and dissected as a social illness. In the book, his relationship with Gillian (Suzy Kendall) is explicit -- he even goes to meet her parents -- and there is a nasty scene involving a racist waiter in a restaurant. In the movie, Thackeray's relationship with Gilliam was not so detailed. Another major difference that viewers mention is that the book is set in the 50s whereas the movie moves the setting into the 60s.
QA Note Regarding Spoilers
AThe following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags have been used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.
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