Pauline Kael remarked at the time of the release of this movie that Hollywood seemed to have divided the United States into three parts. There was New York. There was The South. And then there was everything else. This is a story of "The South," circa 1968, with African-Americans as a second and much lower caste in the cotton-picking, sweltering South.
The story is well known. Sidney Poitier is Virgil Tibbs, an expert homicide detective from Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) who is told by his Chief of Police (Rizzo, no friend of blacks, as I know from living in Philadelphia at the time) to assist the local cops in the solution of an economically important murder. Tibbs' identity as a homicide cop is only revealed, in a funny scene, after he has been arrested for the murder by the pragmatic and inept local constabulary. Thereafter, he is nudged into helping them by their wheedling encouragement and his own arrogance. Lo! He solves the murder!
Well, in truth, the solution isn't really important. Something to do with abortion and who's responsible, but it's a minor matter. And actually the final scene is unbelievable. Poitier, about to be slaughtered by a gang of murderous and thoroughly organized rednecks who have all kinds of guns pointed at him, stymies them all by simply saying, "Look in her purse." In a Faulkner short story, the movie would have ended right there.
There are three things that make this movie worth repeated viewing. One is the ethos of the film. The second is the acting. And the third is the production itself.
The ethos of the film, by which I mean the values it examines, are locked into the 1960s, and even earlier. I recall hitchhiking through the South (Maryland, actually) and still seeing signs at the time reading "Colored Only" over the rest rooms. And an African-American friend who took pictures of such arrangements being followed out of town by a short string of local cars and stopped for questioning. The film reflects a dangerous and hate-filled time which Southerners have finally overcome, thank God.
And yet this same ethos lives on in the minds of some Southern whites and even more African-Americans, not reflected in on-the-ground behavioral reality, but in beliefs. I taught for years in a Southern mostly African-American university before I came to realize how important this myth is to blacks. To ask them, or anyone else, to give up that history of persecution is to ask them to sacrifice a solidarity that is otherwise unattainable. There is "us" and then there is "them". And "they" are the enemy which draws us together and from which we gain support and succor. There is not much segregation in the South or elsewhere (although it still exists), but there might as well be.
From the point of view of any cohesive group, there almost NEEDS to be. Don't human organizations need a history of persecution? The Christians have Nero, Jews have four thousand years of it, including the holocaust, Irish have the British occupation, Moslems have the hejira, Mormons have the assassination of Smith. We -- who have once been treated unjustly -- have Victim Power. You can't understand us unless you've walked a mile in our moccasins.
The acting. Rod Steiger deserved his academy award. He's often dismissible but not here. Standing around the initial dead body, worried, he's furiously chewing gum and trying to think of somebody to pin it on. Then he suddenly stops chewing, darts his eyes around, and says, "Couldda been a hitch-hiker." A well-conveyed dramatic moment. Poitier is at least equally good. He was lambasted in some of the press for playing a super-black, a kind of white guy in blackface. The fact is that Poitier was one of the best dramatic actors who has ever appeared on screen, and this is one of his best performances. Oh -- he's put upon, true, but once he gets his transmission in the proper gear he becomes all too human. Showing off in a subtle way, wrong about the town's big time racist being responsible, and Gillespie has his number. "Boy, you're just like the rest of us, ain't you." Warren Oates adds some much-needed comedy.
The bad guy has a face that could clear a room without using a gun. The succulent young woman who is spied upon by the Oates' character should be squirted all over with whipped cream spray and eaten alive. Perhaps the funniest scene in the move is when she describes Oates taking her down to the cemetery and rolling around together on the cool marble slabs. Steiger stops chewing again, looks up in amazement, and asks, "Sam did THAT?" Not so much that he's shocked at his deputy's depravity, just surprised at his imagination!
To end this quickly, okay, it was shot in Illinois. But does it capture the small-town South of the time! Two cars racing towards an empty garage and the camera shows us the squealing tires stirring up dust -- and a pile of burning, smoking garbage, which is what it's all about.
The story is well known. Sidney Poitier is Virgil Tibbs, an expert homicide detective from Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) who is told by his Chief of Police (Rizzo, no friend of blacks, as I know from living in Philadelphia at the time) to assist the local cops in the solution of an economically important murder. Tibbs' identity as a homicide cop is only revealed, in a funny scene, after he has been arrested for the murder by the pragmatic and inept local constabulary. Thereafter, he is nudged into helping them by their wheedling encouragement and his own arrogance. Lo! He solves the murder!
Well, in truth, the solution isn't really important. Something to do with abortion and who's responsible, but it's a minor matter. And actually the final scene is unbelievable. Poitier, about to be slaughtered by a gang of murderous and thoroughly organized rednecks who have all kinds of guns pointed at him, stymies them all by simply saying, "Look in her purse." In a Faulkner short story, the movie would have ended right there.
There are three things that make this movie worth repeated viewing. One is the ethos of the film. The second is the acting. And the third is the production itself.
The ethos of the film, by which I mean the values it examines, are locked into the 1960s, and even earlier. I recall hitchhiking through the South (Maryland, actually) and still seeing signs at the time reading "Colored Only" over the rest rooms. And an African-American friend who took pictures of such arrangements being followed out of town by a short string of local cars and stopped for questioning. The film reflects a dangerous and hate-filled time which Southerners have finally overcome, thank God.
And yet this same ethos lives on in the minds of some Southern whites and even more African-Americans, not reflected in on-the-ground behavioral reality, but in beliefs. I taught for years in a Southern mostly African-American university before I came to realize how important this myth is to blacks. To ask them, or anyone else, to give up that history of persecution is to ask them to sacrifice a solidarity that is otherwise unattainable. There is "us" and then there is "them". And "they" are the enemy which draws us together and from which we gain support and succor. There is not much segregation in the South or elsewhere (although it still exists), but there might as well be.
From the point of view of any cohesive group, there almost NEEDS to be. Don't human organizations need a history of persecution? The Christians have Nero, Jews have four thousand years of it, including the holocaust, Irish have the British occupation, Moslems have the hejira, Mormons have the assassination of Smith. We -- who have once been treated unjustly -- have Victim Power. You can't understand us unless you've walked a mile in our moccasins.
The acting. Rod Steiger deserved his academy award. He's often dismissible but not here. Standing around the initial dead body, worried, he's furiously chewing gum and trying to think of somebody to pin it on. Then he suddenly stops chewing, darts his eyes around, and says, "Couldda been a hitch-hiker." A well-conveyed dramatic moment. Poitier is at least equally good. He was lambasted in some of the press for playing a super-black, a kind of white guy in blackface. The fact is that Poitier was one of the best dramatic actors who has ever appeared on screen, and this is one of his best performances. Oh -- he's put upon, true, but once he gets his transmission in the proper gear he becomes all too human. Showing off in a subtle way, wrong about the town's big time racist being responsible, and Gillespie has his number. "Boy, you're just like the rest of us, ain't you." Warren Oates adds some much-needed comedy.
The bad guy has a face that could clear a room without using a gun. The succulent young woman who is spied upon by the Oates' character should be squirted all over with whipped cream spray and eaten alive. Perhaps the funniest scene in the move is when she describes Oates taking her down to the cemetery and rolling around together on the cool marble slabs. Steiger stops chewing again, looks up in amazement, and asks, "Sam did THAT?" Not so much that he's shocked at his deputy's depravity, just surprised at his imagination!
To end this quickly, okay, it was shot in Illinois. But does it capture the small-town South of the time! Two cars racing towards an empty garage and the camera shows us the squealing tires stirring up dust -- and a pile of burning, smoking garbage, which is what it's all about.