It is my theory that when is come to classic films there is the feeling you get that just tells you that you are watching something truly special. Now, when it comes to all of Best Picture films that I have watched I don't get that feeling the with all for them. Some I am ask myself "why has this film even been made". Then you come across a film that you think in not going to impress you or leave a mark and it takes you by surprise. In the Heat of the Night is one of those films.
When one for the richest men in town is shot, with not witnesses, the police are very concerned about what to do next. Their little town has never come across a murder before. So, they are not even sure who they need to look for because they do not know who would do such a think to a man who was going to bring new jobs to their community. When searching new by they run into Virgil Tibbs. A well dressed black man waiting at the train station to go home. Being that it's the south in the 60s, they bring him in for questioning. When he tells Officer Gillespie, the officer in charge, that he has no idea what he is talking about Gillespie is ready to charge him with the murder. Tibbs tells him that he can't do that because the evidence would not match up to what him Gillespie says that Tibbs would have no idea about any of this. Tibbs corrects him by telling him that he is a Detective in Philadelphia. Gillespie thinks he is lying until he calls Tibbs' chief where he confirms his story. The chief asks Tibbs to help them out until the next train for Philadelphia comes through again. Reluctantly he agrees. Between the murder and a black man working the case to whole town slowly gets turned upside down.
One of the more interesting parts of this film is the subject of this film. We are in a very divided country when it comes to civil rights at this time in history and the fact that this film was popular as it won the Best Picture is truly astonishing. One of the most famous scene happened in this film. The scene where Tibbs and Gillespie go to the home of Eric Endicott, a man who idealizes the "Old South". He still lives in a plantation that is run by black workers. He never comes out and says that he thinks black people are beneath him but does heavily allude to it through the whole conversation that they have. Things get a little heated when Tibbs interviews him. To the point where Endicott slaps Tibbs in the face and Tibbs does the unthinkable and slaps Endicott back. It is in during this scene when you can tell in the movie theater if there were more blacks or whites in the room during the showing. If the audience mainly gasped then it was mostly white people, if the audience cheered it was mostly blacks. Subject aside this film had to beat out some pretty big names to take home the prize. United Artist beat out: Warner Brothers' Bonnie and Clyde; 20th Century Fox's Doctor Dolittle; Embassy's The Graduate; and Colubia's Guess Who is Coming to Dinner. To add to the honor of winning Best Picture, in 2002 In the Heat of the Night was selected for preservation by the National Film Institute.
Like I said before this film was something special. It was not was I expected when I stated watching it. I thought it was going to be way more violent, crude when it came to the subject of race in the 1960's south. However, I was very impressed at the fact that it balanced everything out. It showed what it was like for the cop, who obviously did not like this black man, to work with Tibbs to solve the case. However, you can tell that he was starting to see Tibbs more like a human being and not just a "black man". Not only did he notice it but the people around him started to notice it as well. It did allude to the crudeness of some people not being tolerable to Tibbs at all. They threatened him and they tried to kill him at one point. Yet, Tibbs kept a cool head about it through most of the film. I have to say that this is one of my favorite roles that I have seen Sidney Poitier in.
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