Film Review: In The Heat of the Night

Interests

Tensions Simmering

A seminal movie dealing with black and white race relations, Norman Jewison’s superb In the Heat of the Night (1967) is also a cracking police procedural.

Cinema lost a truly important icon recently with the recent passing of Sidney Poitier. In 1967, he was on a roll in two very important movies, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner and In the Heat of the Night. Here, Poitier plays a black Philadelphia police detective who is mistakenly suspected of a local murder while passing through a racially hostile Mississippi town, and after being cleared is reluctantly asked by the police chief to investigate the case. That chief is played by the great Rod Steiger

It can’t be underestimated what an important figure he was in giving a voice and image to an entire race on the big screen. And yet in his day, Poitier ran into criticism from both sides. White audiences were still bigotted in accepting a handsome black man leading a movie (don’t even start on the notion that he could romance a white woman onscreen). For black audiences, they often accused him of bowing down before the white man and not pushing hard enough to get black voices heard. He couldn’t win either way but, with as much grace and dignity as a person with that much pressure on them, he pushed forward. Poitier walked so generations after him could run. The same night the academy awards gave Denzel Washington the Best Actor Oscar in 2002, Poitier received the lifetime achievement award. Washington joked during his speech, directing it to Poitier in the balcony; “I’ll always be chasing you, Sidney”. Poitier was a great actor. Just pay attention to the iconic response “They call me Mr. Tibbs.” It feels like it should be shouted at high volume but Poitier as Tibbs knows that he has to remain calm given the environment he is in. His response helps keep the peace but you still get the resentment and defiance all in that one response. But so too was Rod Steiger. He gives his role as a bigotted cop many layers, suggesting a more complicated figure then meets the eye. Legendary cinematographer Haskell Wexler photographs the movie. The film was innovative not just in its dealings with race relations, but also in its photography. Never before had a big budget color picture been properly lit for an actor with dark skin — cinematographer Haskell Wexler saw that standard lighting for color film had a tendency to produce a lot of glare on those with darker skin complexions. He thus toned down the lighting on Sidney Poitier, for vastly better results. This was most certainly a step forward in social justice in cinema (and justice for realism in and on film), yet it is still kind of sad that it took until 1967 to get it right.

Its tale of racial division still applies even in today’s seemingly tolerant culture but it’s not preachy. The mismatched buddy cop would see a big resurgence in the 80s and 90s but here we get to see one of its greatest examples in action. Available on DVD,

Blu Ray & to rent on YouTube