I don’t know why
I just heard about this movie, but it’s one I liked so much that I’m going to
tell everybody I know to go see it.
“They call me
Mister Tibbs!” is the memorable phrase in this movie. Then there’s the
groundbreaking scene where Sidney Poitier, slaps a white man for insulting him. That scene got huge support from Black audiences, and I
had to rewind and watch it twice before I was satisfied.
Sidney Poitier was incredible in this movie, and I think deserved a nomination, but he wasn’t even considered for Best Actor that year, while Steiger took the win, I guess after Poitier won Best Actor in 1963 for Lilies of the Field, two in a roll may be pushing it.
Still, it didn’t
hold the movie back in any way. The film is a masterpiece. I couldn’t believe
how it turned out compared to how it started. While watching, you have to keep
in mind the limitations of being Black in the ’60s and how one man’s tenacious
spirit to stand up to a white man led him to solve a murder and clear two
innocent people of murder charges.
In the Heat of
the Night is based on the 1965 book of the same name by John Ball. It
tells the story of Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier), a Black police detective from
Philadelphia who is passing through a small town called Sparta, Mississippi.
While there, a man is killed, and a patrolman driving around spots Tibbs at the
train station, arresting him as a suspect simply because he’s Black.
At the police
station, the Police Chief (Rod Steiger) also believes Tibbs is the culprit
because he’s carrying a large amount of money and isn’t from the town. But the
chief is embarrassed when he finds out Tibbs is a police detective—and the best
homicide detective in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Police Chief orders Tibbs
to stay and help, which neither Tibbs nor the Sparta Police Chief wants. But
Tibbs stays, and boy, does he make the local police in Sparta look like a bunch
of school kids.
The movie was both a critical and commercial success, and I’m telling you, you have to see it. It’s one of the best films out there. There’s no slack in the story or the acting—it’s pure and true.
That said, no movie is perfect, and a few things stuck out to me as weaknesses. The pacing drags at certain moments, making some scenes feel longer than they need to be. The visuals capture the era well, but some shots feel too staged, taking away from the film’s natural flow. And while the resolution is satisfying, it wraps things up a little too quickly and neatly compared to the buildup.
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