clips
This is one of the great movies of the '60s. Director Norman Jewison, well known for his liberal viewpoint, directs the movie with a many textured viewpoint. Mostly, it is based upon his belief, radical at the time, that if the black and white races came to know each other, racial differences would be overcome. Naive or an ideal that has yet to be fulfilled?
The film stands on it's own as a mystery, but it is the relationship of Virgil Tibbs and police chief Gillespy that is the moral center of the film. Poitier gives his usual great performance as a black man who is his own man owing nothing to anybody but his own integrity. But is Rod Steiger, whose Southern accent goes from over the top to subtle, gives a great performance of a Southern man at the crossroads of personal understanding and growth and as the Every-White man, both North and South. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the film won Best Picture.
The content of the movie was such that it could not be filmed in the South, but in a small town of Sparta, Illinois.
This movie was extremely controversial, but so well made, audience scrambled to the theaters.
After 41 years this movie still stands up as a great thriller and a lesson in racial relations.
The film stands on it's own as a mystery, but it is the relationship of Virgil Tibbs and police chief Gillespy that is the moral center of the film. Poitier gives his usual great performance as a black man who is his own man owing nothing to anybody but his own integrity. But is Rod Steiger, whose Southern accent goes from over the top to subtle, gives a great performance of a Southern man at the crossroads of personal understanding and growth and as the Every-White man, both North and South. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the film won Best Picture.
The content of the movie was such that it could not be filmed in the South, but in a small town of Sparta, Illinois.
This movie was extremely controversial, but so well made, audience scrambled to the theaters.
After 41 years this movie still stands up as a great thriller and a lesson in racial relations.
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