Best Picture: #40
Original Release Date: August 2, 1967
Rating: Approved
Runtime: 1 hour, 50 minutes
Director: Norman Jewison
Quick Impressions:
My grandma loved this movie and the 1980s TV show it inspired. I didn’t watch with her often, but the catchy theme song the film and show share–performed here by Ray Charles–is permanently stuck in my head. When I think back on my childhood, I remember a strange mashup of the show and the movie, Carol O’Connor (from the show), Sidney Poitier (from the film), Virgil’s wife (from the show), “They call me Mr. Tibbs!” (from the film but no doubt remembered from AFI specials and Oscars clip packages). When I hear “In the Heat of the Night,” I never fail to think of my grandma’s passion for the story. Still this isn’t a film I remember watching much as a child, perhaps because my mom found it too intense for her liking. Grandma and Mom had radically different taste in movies, The Godfather versus Pollyanna, The Cotton Club versus The Story of Ruth, Victor Victoria versus Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. When it comes to murder mysteries, my mom would have preferred something staring Hercule Poirot that she had already seen a million times. Strangely, she did love The Maltese Falcon, but she chose not to notice much of the non-murder-related conflict implied by the story. She preferred the murder to be the only real conflict in her mysteries. I can imagine that the story of a black homicide detective trying not to get murdered himself in 1960s Mississippi would have stressed her out. But my daughter and I found In the Heat of the Night highly engrossing. Yes, its alarmingly realistic look at racism in the South sometimes makes the movie intense, but this is the kind of film that holds up well over time. Sometimes films age badly because they contain racist or sexist content unnoticed in their own day but distasteful to viewers in ours. In the Heat of the Night, though, intentionally shines a light on racist attitudes and behaviors. We’re supposed to notice. The filmmakers noticed, too.
Besides showing us something (intentionally) unpleasant and (potentially) eye-opening, the movie also tells a well-paced, captivating story, centered on a carefully constructed mystery that isn’t too easy to solve.
The Plot:
On a hot, summer night in Sparta, Mississippi, a police officer discovers a wealthy factory owner dead in the street. New police chief Bill Gillespie wants the culprit found immediately. One eager officer discovers a suspicious black man at the train station and brings him in for questioning. What makes the man suspicious? He’s black, and he’s from out of town. That’s enough to get him arrested. To Chief Gillespie’s chagrin, the mysterious black man turns out to be Detective Virgil Tibbs, a homicide expert from Philadelphia. For reasons that can only be explained by plot convenience, Virgil’s boss in Philadelphia suggests that he remain in Sparta for a while to help them solve the murder…which he eventually does (but not before he’s almost murdered several times himself! Turns out, Sparta is a very racist town!)
The Good:
In the Heat of the Night does something pretty brilliant. Its storytelling so effectively conveys its message. You have a small Southern town, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone else. When a murder happens, the entire town is horrified. No one can rest until the killer is brought to justice. And yet, when a black homicide detective from Philadelphia agrees to help solve the crime, half the town seems determined to kill him, and the other half is more than willing to look the other way. The murder of a white man is horrific, but killing a black man doesn’t even count as murder. It’s pretty chilling stuff. And this was 1967, just fifty-four years ago. I’m pretty sure my grandparents and my mother saw this in the theater together.
As murder mysteries go, the film is well constructed, too. From the first, we get a number of genuinely helpful clues, and yet the answer is never so blatantly obvious that we don’t feel suspense and continuing curiosity. There are two overlapping mysteries going on here. 1.) Who killed Mr. Colbert, one of the wealthiest men in town? 2.) Is somebody going to kill Detective Virgil Tibbs before he can solve the case? I mean, they’re gunning for him! Everywhere he goes, those guys with chains and lead pipes seem to be chasing him in their cars with novelty plates displaying the Confederate Battle flag.
I like the film’s economy. No scene is wasted. Even seemingly throwaway lines and images ultimately relate to one of the two mysteries I just mentioned.
My daughter noted that the film seems more like a movie we might see at the theater today than anything else so far. Like me, she was immediately captivated by the story, the characters, the gripping cinematography, and the highly unusual score, full of energy and novelty. That score is really something else! I lack the musical vocabulary to describe it adequately, but it’s unique and vivid, kind of like a character in the film itself.
The performances are all excellent, too. Rod Steiger won Best Actor, and he does give a gripping performance as Sparta’s new gum-smacking police chief, Bill Gillespie. The performance is sometimes hard to love because the character is so frustrating. Of course, because it’s 1967 in Mississippi and that’s the theme of the movie, Gillespie is very racist. But even when he gets to know Virgil Tibbs and becomes less racist by his own standard, he still remains screamingly racist by ours. And I’m not even talking about micro-aggressions or episodes of thoughtlessness. I’m talking about randomly yelling out the N-word and saying he wishes he could have Virgil horsewhipped and stuff like that. His racist behavior is blatant, and the character himself would not have denied it. Obviously this movie is one of those “odd-couple buddy cop” adventures. But even when the two policemen grow friendlier, Virgil has to make so many concessions to allow Gillespie any sort of magnanimity. Eventually they do sort of become non-enemies. And perhaps they’re friends. But they’re friendly only because 1) Virgil is charitably overlooking A LOT and 2) Virgil is leaving town.
In the 1980s TV series, I’m pretty sure Virgil’s character and his family permanently move to town. (I’m positive I remember an early episode in which Virgil’s wife gets upset because he didn’t tell her everyone there goes to church on Sunday or becomes a social outcast.) Nothing of the kind is possibly on the table in this 1967 film. Sparta is too dangerous and hostile. It’s so dangerous for Virgil that it’s almost hard to believe. My daughter found the general vibe of hostile racism so enlightening. She commented, “You see all these movies about that time where the black guy and the white guy are friends. Then you see this and see how it really was.”
It’s hard to believe that even Mississippi (with its notorious reputation) could be so dangerous for a black police detective as it is depicted in this film. But guess what? This movie was actually filmed in Illinois, not Mississippi, because of concerns that the actual Mississippi would not be safe for Sidney Poitier!
Poitier gives a great performance, too, playing Detective Virgil Tibbs, a character who is easy to root for because 1) He’s a brilliant detective, 2) He keeps his cool under pressure, 3) A bunch of racist thugs are constantly assaulting him and threatening him (and how can that fail to engender sympathy in the audience?).
In a small but key role, Lee Grant is memorably excellent. Also great are Warren Oates, Larry Gates, Beah Richards (who plays Poitier’s mother in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner), Quentin Dean, and, especially, Anthony James who has such a photogenic face (and neck).
Best Scene:
Probably the pivotal scene of the film comes when Tibbs and Gillespie question Mr. Endicott, one of the town’s wealthiest citizens who owns the local cotton plantation. Endicott automatically seems sinister. Not only do we learn that he was Colbert’s business rival, but I mean, he runs this giant cotton plantation. (The people in the fields picking cotton aren’t slaves, but they might as well be. As we watch, it becomes clear that Endicott thinks of them as slaves he’s now inconveniently obligated to pay.) To top it all off, when the two officers come to question Endicott, he receives them in a greenhouse full of his prize orchids and sends a servant for cold lemonade. I love orchids. All of ours are again in bloom just now. (We have five, I think.) But in movies, characters who receive guests in their greenhouses full of orchids always appear to be up to no good.
What happens between Endicott and Tibbs follows Tibbs for the rest of the movie. How strange that in the minds of a number of people in town, what Tibbs does here is an offense punishable by death.
The opening sequence of this movie–when we follow Sam from the diner all over town until he discovers the body–is also particularly strong.
Best Scene Visually:
My favorite scene takes place in the diner midway through the film. It’s just the guy who works there selecting a song he enjoys from the jukebox and preparing for a visit from the police. What makes the scene so captivating is hard to explain (especially without spoilers), but it seems a perfect blend of cinematography, music, and acting. The song that plays here reminded me so much of “Lil’ Red Ridin’ Hood” by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs. But it turned out to be a much weirder song, “Foul Owl on the Prowl.” As we watched, I started wondering to myself, “Was there a popular subgenre of late 1960s music like this–slow rock songs about crafty animals with sinister sexual overtones?” As intriguing as the idea sounds, the answer is probably not. After the movie, I learned that “Lil’ Red Ridin’ Hood” was actually the song director Norman Jewison had wanted to use for the scene. “Foul Owl on the Prowl” by Quincy Jones was just a substitute plugged in because he couldn’t get the rights.
At any rate, no matter what creepy animals lurid adventures are being blasted by the jukebox, this atmosphere rich scene is my favorite in the film.
Best Action Sequence:
Both an early manhunt and a mid-movie car chase that almost ends very badly for Virgil are absolutely gripping to watch.
That first chase through the woods, across the tracks, and nearly over the state line is presented in such a stylized way. The shots have such odd depth and dizzying motion. The effect is almost hypnotic. The suspect races forward and the dogs follow, all in a dizzying jumble. It plays almost like a music video.
I said to my daughter, “With different music, this could be on Sesame Street.” Honestly, the general energy and chaotic visual style of the manhunt does remind me of a clip from classic Sesame Street. It could be used to explain prepositions or adverbs–kind of a variation on “Around, Over, Under, and Through.” Maybe I thought of Sesame Street because its earliest episodes came out at roughly the same time as this film. Maybe this is an example of a certain visual style that emerges in the late 1960s. The score here makes the action intense and frantic, but with more mellow music, we’d just be watching someone run through the woods, climb up a ladder, and so forth.
Always during the intense chase sequences, the film’s score goes absolutely wild, distinguishing itself from every Beat Picture score I’ve heard up to this point.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment, Lee Grant:
Now I understand why my grandma liked Lee Grant so much. Grant plays grieving widow Mrs. Colbert. She wasn’t nominated for an Oscar, but you’d never guess that from her performance. In the scene where Mrs. Colbert first learns that her husband has been killed, Grant sells her reaction so much that she’s practically overacting, but the results are so satisfying to watch, and you can’t argue with results. It’s hard not to love Grant here, thanks to her intensity, coupled with the fact that her character (the one person with a decent excuse for being rude) is the only white person in town who treats Virgil well. (Of course, her relative lack of racism may be because the Colberts are not actually from that town. They’re from Chicago. They’ve come to Sparta recently to open a factory there that employs lots of people.)
Grant is so captivating, then disappears from the movie so quickly that I was almost convinced she had something to do with her husband’s murder.
As I said, some may see her performance as a trifle over the top, but it’s undeniably riveting, and she was nominated for a Golden Globe.
The Negatives:
One thing the film didn’t quite sell me on was the idea it suggests that while racial prejudice initially prevents the Sparta police from seeing the true worth of Virgil Tibbs as a detective, Virgil also lets his prejudices cloud his judgment. He jumps to a wrong conclusion, ostensibly motivated by his rancor toward a particularly nasty racist individual. I think this is a cool idea. But the thing is, the movie doesn’t necessarily prove that this person is innocent, just that someone else is guilty of one particular act. Keep investigating. I guarantee that person’s guilty of something. It’s a cute, clever trick the movie tries to pull, showing that prejudice can get in Virgil’s way, too. But it’s also kind of annoying. Isn’t it sort of false equivalence to say, “It was wrong for me to assume you were a criminal, just like it was wrong for you to assume that guy was a murderer just because he tried to have you murdered”?
My only other criticism is the way Virgil is asked to help investigate the crime in the first place. It seems a sort of clumsy device for getting the story started. Would they really be so naïve in Philadelphia? Or what if Virgil’s boss is somehow in league with Endicott, scheming to murder Virgil? (That would be an exciting story!)
Overall:
Both my daughter and I really liked In the Heat of the Night. (It bumped The Sound of Music out of the #11 slot on my daughter’s list.) Of course, #11 is the most precarious slot on her list, so In the Heat of the Night may not stay there for long!