Tea and Sympathy

7/12/2026

Initially, I thought that John Kerr looked just a bit too old to convince as the seventeen year old "Tom" but as his character unfolds in front of us, I concluded that actually his extra years helped him to add quite a degree of maturity to a role that proves a lot more complex than the title might suggest. He arrives at his new all-boys school and, like any newbie, is on the periphery of it's community. Luckily, he is befriended by the kindly "Laura" (Deborah Kerr) who has recently married his new housemaster "Bill" (Leif Erickson). It's not that "Tom" is in any way effeminate, but his complete lack of interest in contact sport or girls and his obviously more theatrical and creative, tennis playing, bent quickly earns him the disparaging nickname of "sister boy". "Laura" becomes aware of