In the Heat of the Night (1967)

3 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

This Is Sparta

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Based on a novel by John Ball, Norman Jewison's In the Heat of the Night was nominated for seven Academy Awards, and won five, for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Screenplay (Stirling Silliphant), Best Editing (Hal Ashby), and Best Sound. (It lost Best Director and Best Sound Effects.) This acclaim caused many to be suspicious of the film, especially in a year that included such forward-thinking movies as Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, Cool Hand Luke, and, to pull one out of thin air that received no Oscar nominations, John Boorman's Point Blank. For its attempts to explore the effects of racism, In the Heat of the Night was really just an old-fashioned message movie.

Roger Ebert, in his first year as a critic for the Chicago Sun-Times chose it as the tenth best movie of the year, lower than some of those other aforementioned titles. In her famous "Trash, Art, and the Movies" essay Pauline Kael gave it a passingly positive review, but considered it a comedy(?). Andrew Sarris went a little further, criticizing the Tibbs character as more of a device than a human being. So how does it hold up today, more than fifty years later, as the Criterion Collection releases it on 4K and Blu-ray?

Quite well, actually. I saw the film ages ago on VHS, and this was my first time revisiting it. I had forgotten that it was, first and foremost, a whodunit. There's a mysterious dead body in Sparta, Mississippi, and no obvious clues. The victim is a wealthy industrialist and the stakes are high. Officer Sam Wood (Warren Oates) cruises around and spies a Black man waiting at a bus station, to his mind the most immediate and obvious suspect. Wood brings the man in, and we learn that he is Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier), a homicide detective from Philadelphia who was just passing through town after visiting his mother. Police chief Bill Gillespie (Rod Steiger, forever wearing yellow sunglasses and chomping a million miles an hour on gum) calls Tibbs' commanding officer, and Tibbs is ordered to stay and help solve the murder.

There are a series of red herrings, suspects brought in with scant evidence, intermingled with Tibbs' experiencing first-hand racism. The most powerful moment comes when Gillespie and Tibbs are interviewing the wealthy and powerful Eric Endicott (Larry Gates). When Endicott takes offense at Tibbs, he reaches out and slaps him. In the space of a heartbeat, Tibbs slaps him back. For a second it's extremely satisfying, but Endicott's indignation at having been slapped (despite the fact that he slapped first), is a pointed indicator as to how deeply racism is festering in this world. (Although the slap is the most discussed moment in the movie, the line "They call me MISTER TIBBS" is arguably more famous.)

The key to the movie is the interaction between Tibbs and Gillespie. Tibbs is elegant and piercing in his crisp suit, always sharp and ready, despite the fact that, by my count, he gets very little sleep over the course of several days. Poitier was commanding and magnetic, and there's a reason he was chosen to be the Jackie Robinson of the movies, the person tasked with easing White audiences into a world of multi-cultural stories. Steiger was a method actor, and we spend the movie watching his eyes as he tries to figure out which side of things he lands on. Is he coming to respect Tibbs? Is he questioning his own racism? Is he just trying to get the crime solved and Tibbs out of town? These are two great performances that are strikingly opposite but snap perfectly together. (Kael compared them to Holmes and Watson.)

Weirdly, Steiger was nominated and won the Oscar, but Poitier was not nominated at all. Whatever the reasoning, it was a bit of a blow for a movie that was designed to be a soft lesson in racism. Cinematographer Haskell Wexler gives the movie an energy — a palpable heat — and Hal Ashby (who of course went on to become one of the most beloved directors of the 1970s) provides the crisp, suspenseful, thoughtful editing. Lee Grant (a future Oscar winner for Shampoo) plays the dead industrialist's wife, and the one who is responsible for Tibbs being on the case. (She overlooks his race in favor of his skills and knowledge.) And the gangly Anthony James — whom I somehow recognized from his later role in Unforgiven — plays the proprietor of the local burger joint, forever withholding tasty pies from Officer Wood. A sequel, They Call Me Mister Tibbs!, followed in 1970, and a TV series starring Carroll O'Connor debuted in 1988.

Criterion's two-disc 4K and Blu-ray release looks incredible, with rich, bold texture and a clear audio track (uncompressed mono on the Blu-ray). Both discs include a 2008 commentary track with director Jewison, Steiger, Wexler, and Grant. The Blu-ray carries over several extras that were included on Criterion's 2019 Blu-ray, including interviews with Jewison and Grant, a 2006 TV interview with Poitier, an interview with Aram Goudsouzian, author of a book on Poitier, a 22-minute behind-the-scenes featurette (from 2008), a featurette on composer Quincy Jones (also from 2008), and a trailer. The liner notes booklet includes an essay by film critic K. Austin Collins. Recommended.