I was just watching this movie and there’s a scene where some of the girls in the classroom are burning something on the stove while Mr. Thackeray (Poitier) is gone. He gets absolutely furious, expelling the boys from the room while he unleashes a torrent of anger upon the women for their “sluttish behavior” and mentions the “disgusting object” that was burned in the stove.
All the searching I’ve done on the matter tells me that it was a tampon that they were burning. But there is absolutely no proof of this in the movie. Is it simply to be assumed by the viewers?
That’s what it was in the book. Or no–actually, I think it was a sanitary napkin (used) in the book. You probably couldn’t say that in the movies at the time.
The only time I saw the movie was on TV one afternoon in the late 70s. I assumed it was some sort of sanitary product or a pair of panties, but was edited out for broadcast TV.
Yes, it’s in the book, and no, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t customary to burn sanitary napkins, at least not in a stove. (Disposing them in a regular trash incinerator is no different from today, I suppose.)
It was something disgusting that the girls did to piss off Thackery (or Braithwaite, as he was in the book – the story is something of an autobiography by author E.R. Braithwaite).
Love this movie, in all its glorious hokiness. And the music is awesome.
But here’s the thing, perhaps by not being able to say such things in movies at the time, look at how that restriction added to Poitier’s brilliance - he’s able to convey just how revolting the object is (which many of us concluded to be as disgusting as a used tampon) without having to say it !
It’s like the shower scene in “Psycho” compared to the slasher films that would follow. You “got” the horror of Janet Leigh getting hacked up without a single shot of the knife entering flesh. Still far more effective than the “Friday the 13th” movies where you see machete’s cleaving into people’s skulls.
There is a scene before that incident that gives you the impression of what happened. Sir and the older female teacher are in the teacher’s lounge when she mentions something about having to talk with a girl who is sixteen and hopeless about female hygiene problems, or something to that effect. So I assume the girls in class did a Carrie number on the hopeless hygiene girl.
The older teacher also warns Sir about Miss Dare, make no mistake she is a woman ;).
Oh absolutely! I can remember that speech with every inflection, every music sting, burned into my brain. (I’ve seen the film a kabillion times since first watching it in my '80s senior high class!)
“I am sick of your foul language, your crude behavior and your sluttish manner. There are certain things a decent woman keeps private, and only a filthy slut would have done this. And those who stood by and encouraged her are just as bad! I don’t care who’s responsible … you’re all to blame! Now, I am going to leave this room for five minutes by which time that disgusting object had better be removed and the windows opened to clear away the stench.”
“If you must play these filthy games, do them in your homes! And NOT. IN. MY. CLASSROOM! (cue cool music as he stomps out)”
Sidney Poitier was all kinds of hot in this role. In my teen years I always hoped that Thackery and Pam (adorable Judy Geeson) would eventually wind up together after she graduates.
“Slut” did not always have the almost exclusively sexual connotation it has today. It originally meant a woman with low-class or slovenly habits, not necessarily one who was sexually indiscriminate. In the 1960s it probably still had enough of the older meaning left to pass muster.
