Although CBS is billing "To Sir, With Love II" as a sequel to the 1967 original, it's not. It's a remake.
Same star, same story.The only thing that's changed is that Sidney Poitier is about 30 years older and the setting is inner-city Chicago instead of inner-city London. That and the fact that the same story is considerably less plausible three decades later.
Directed by Peter Bogdonovich, "II" opens in the very halls where the original left off. It's present-day London, and fabulous teacher Mark Thackeray (Poitier) is retiring after 30 years on the job.
Judy Geeson (who played one of the kids in the original) shows up to wish him well. And the telemovie slides dangerously close to sappy stupidity when Lulu appears to sing that title song one more time.
But "II" largely rights itself when Thackeray announces he's off to Chicago to teach once again. What he doesn't say is that he's also looking for a lost love - the movie's least developed, most cliched and most unbelievable element.
Before long, Thackeray is teaching the young hoodlums a thing or two about life. But things are even tougher this time around. His students include gangsters, pimps and prostitutes.
And it's a bit difficult to believe that gang members are going to run from this teacher. (Come on, they'd shoot him dead without giving it a second thought.)
But if you can suspend disbelief, "To Sir, With Love II" is pleasant enough. And Poitier (who still looks great) has got so much talent - so much sheer presence - that he almost pulls this remake off.
Not quite, but almost.
NOT "REAL FUNNY": At the risk of hyperbole, the ABC special "Real Funny" (tonight at 7 on Ch. 4) may be the worst piece of trash your local television editor has ever seen on network television.
This truly awful hour is full of things like a grotesquely fat man dressed up as Cher, a man whose cheapness borders on child abuse, and rejects from "Stupid Human Tricks." Not "Real Funny" at all.
It's so bad I sat in stunned amazement, frequently forced to remind myself to lift my fallen jaw.
Actually, "Real Funny" is more of a mystery than a comedy - how in the world did this end up on the air?