In the Heat of the Night
A crouched man in a suit examining a body, and two policemen standing over him
Theatrical release poster
Directed byNorman Jewison
Screenplay byStirling Silliphant
Based onIn the Heat of the Night
by John Ball
Produced byWalter Mirisch
Starring
CinematographyHaskell Wexler
Edited byHal Ashby
Music byQuincy Jones
Production
company
Distributed byUnited Artists
Release date
  • August 2, 1967 (1967-08-02)
Running time
110 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$2 million[2]
Box office$24.4 million[3]

In the Heat of the Night is a 1967 American neo-noir mystery drama film directed by Norman Jewison. It is based on John Ball's 1965 novel of the same name and tells the story of Virgil Tibbs, a black police detective from Philadelphia, who becomes involved in a murder investigation in a small town in Mississippi. It stars Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, and was produced by Walter Mirisch. The screenplay was written by Stirling Silliphant.

At the 40th Academy Awards the film was nominated for seven Oscars, winning five including Best Picture and Best Actor for Steiger. The quote "They call me Mister Tibbs!" was listed as number 16 on the American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes, a list of top film quotes. The film also appears on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies, a list of the 100 greatest movies in American cinema. In 2002, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[4]

Plot

Wealthy industrialist Phillip Colbert and his wife are in Sparta, Mississippi, to oversee the building of a factory. Late one night, in September 1966, Sparta police officer Sam Wood discovers Colbert's murdered body lying in the street. Wood finds Virgil Tibbs, a black man with a fat wallet, at the train station and arrests him. Police chief Bill Gillespie accuses him of murder and robbery, but soon learns Tibbs is a top homicide detective from Philadelphia, who was visiting his mother. Tibbs wants to leave town on the next train, but his Chief in Philadelphia suggests he stay in Sparta to help Gillespie with the murder investigation. Though Gillespie, like many of Sparta's white residents, is racist, he and Tibbs reluctantly agree to work together.

A doctor estimates that Colbert had been dead for less than an hour when his body was found. Tibbs examines the body and concludes the murder happened much earlier, the killer was right-handed, and the victim had been killed elsewhere and moved to where Wood found his body.

Gillespie arrests another suspect, Harvey Oberst, who protests his innocence. The police plan to beat him to extract a confession, but Tibbs reveals Oberst is left-handed and has witnesses to confirm his alibi. Frustrated by the ineptitude of the local police but impressed by Tibbs, Colbert's widow threatens to halt construction of the factory unless Tibbs leads the investigation, so the town's leading citizens are forced to comply with her demand.

Tibbs initially suspects the murderer is wealthy plantation owner Eric Endicott, a genteel racist and Sparta's most powerful citizen, who publicly opposed Colbert's new factory. When Tibbs begins interrogating him, Endicott slaps him, to which Tibbs responds by slapping him back. Afterwards, Endicott sends a gang of local thugs after him. Gillespie rescues Tibbs and tells him to leave town to save himself, but Tibbs is determined to stay and solve the case.

Tibbs asks Officer Wood to re-trace his patrol car route during the night of the murder; Gillespie joins them. After questioning why Wood partially detours from his patrol route, Tibbs discovers that Wood enjoys passing by the house of 16-year-old Delores Purdy, who deliberately walks around nude with the lights on in an attempt to entice him, and that Wood changed his route to prevent Tibbs from seeing her. Gillespie learns that Wood made a $632 deposit to his bank account the day after the murder. He arrests Wood, despite Tibbs's protests that he is not the murderer. Tibbs tells Gillespie that the murder was committed at the site of the planned factory, which clears Wood because he could not have driven both his and Colbert's cars back into town. Later, Wood provides a credible account of where the money for his large deposit could have come from.

Delores' brother Lloyd Purdy, a racist, hostile local, brings her to the police station to file statutory rape charges against Wood for getting her pregnant. When Tibbs insists on being present during Delores' questioning, Purdy is offended that a black man is present during her interrogation and soon afterwards gathers a lynch mob to attack Tibbs.

Tibbs pressures illegal abortionist Mama Caleba to reveal that she is about to provide an abortion for Delores. When Delores arrives and sees Tibbs, she runs away. Tibbs follows Delores and confronts her armed boyfriend, Ralph, a cook at a local roadside diner. Purdy's mob arrives and holds Tibbs at gunpoint.

Tibbs tells Purdy to check Delores' purse for the $100 Ralph gave her for an abortion, which he got from killing and robbing Colbert. Purdy realizes Tibbs is right when he opens the purse and finds the money. After Purdy confronts Ralph for getting his sister pregnant, Ralph shoots Purdy dead. Tibbs grabs Ralph's gun as Gillespie arrives on the scene. Ralph is arrested and confesses to the killing of Colbert. He explains that after hitchhiking a ride with Colbert and asking him for a job, Ralph attacked him at the construction site of the new factory, intending only to knock Colbert unconscious and rob him, but accidentally killing him instead.

Tibbs arrives at the station to meet his train to return to Philadelphia, as Gillespie, having carried his suitcase, shakes Tibbs' hand and bids him farewell. In the final interaction between Gillespie and Tibbs, as the detective ascends the stairs onto the train, for one last time Gillespie calls out to him and sincerely tells Tibbs: "You take care, you hear?" After a moment of hesitation, Tibbs turns around to face Gillespie and gives a warm smile in reply. Gillespie smiles back at Tibbs as he boards the train.

Cast

Cast notes:

  • His unbilled appearance in this film was Clegg Hoyt's final acting role. He died two months after the film's release.

Production

Although the film was set in Sparta, Mississippi, most of the movie was filmed in Sparta, Illinois, where many of the town's landmarks can still be seen.

Jewison, Poitier, and Steiger worked together and got along well during the filming, but Jewison had problems with the Southern authorities, and Poitier had reservations about coming south of the Mason–Dixon line for filming. Despite their reservations, Jewison decided to shoot part of the film in Dyersburg and Union City, Tennessee anyway, while the rest was filmed in Sparta, Chester (Harvey Oberst chase scene), and Freeburg (Compton's diner), Illinois.

The scene of Tibbs slapping Endicott is not present in the novel. According to Poitier, the scene was almost not in the movie, and it was he who had proposed the idea of Tibbs slapping Endicott back.[5] In the textbook Civil Rights and Race Relations in the USA, Poitier states: "I said, 'I'll tell you what, I'll make this movie for you if you give me your absolute guarantee when he slaps me I slap him right back and you guarantee that it will play in every version of this movie. I try not to do things that are against nature."[6] Mark Harris, in his book, Pictures at a Revolution, states that copies of the original draft of the screenplay clearly depict the scene as filmed, which has been confirmed by both Jewison and Silliphant. Nevertheless, Poitier is correct that Tibbs' slapping of Endicott was not originally envisioned. After Endicott's slap, Silliphant's initial step-outline reads: "Tibbs has all he can do to restrain himself. The butler drops his head, starts to pray. 'For him, Uncle Tom', Tibbs says furiously, 'not for me!'" Tibbs' counter slap first appears in Silliphant's revised step-outline.[7]

Tibbs urging the butler to pray for Endicott was part of Silliphant's adaptation of In the Heat of the Night as a subversive Christian allegory, featuring Tibbs as the messianic outsider who confronts the racist establishment of Sparta.[7]

The film is also important for being the first major Hollywood film in color that was lit with proper consideration for a black person. Haskell Wexler recognized that standard strong lighting used in filming tended to produce too much glare on dark complexions and rendered the features indistinct. Accordingly, Wexler adjusted the lighting to feature Poitier with better photographic results.[8]

Music

In the Heat of the Night
Soundtrack album by
Quincy Jones
Released1967
Recorded1967
GenreFilm score
Length33:34
LabelUnited Artists
UAL 4160/UAS 5160
Quincy Jones chronology
Enter Laughing
(1966)		 In the Heat of the Night
(1967)		 In Cold Blood
(1967)

The film score was composed, arranged and conducted by Quincy Jones, and the soundtrack album was released on the United Artists label in 1967.[9][10] The title song performed by Ray Charles, composed by Quincy Jones, with lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman was released as a single by ABC Records and reached #33 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and #21 on the Hot Rhythm & Blues Singles chart.

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[11]

AllMusic's Steven McDonald said the soundtrack had "a tone of righteous fury woven throughout" and that "the intent behind In the Heat of the Night was to get a Southern, blues-inflected atmosphere to support the angry, anti-racist approach of the picture ... although the cues from In the Heat of the Night show their age".[11] The Vinyl Factory said "this soundtrack to a film about racism in the South has a cool, decidedly Southern-fried sound with funk-bottomed bluesy touches, like on the strutting 'Cotton Curtain', the down 'n' dirty 'Whipping Boy' or the fat 'n' sassy 'Chief's Drive to Mayor'".[12]

Track listing

All compositions by Quincy Jones

  1. "In the Heat of the Night' (Lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman) – 2:30
  2. "Peep-Freak Patrol Car" – 1:30
  3. "Cotton Curtain" – 2:33
  4. "Where Whitey Ain't Around" – 1:11
  5. "Whipping Boy" – 1:25
  6. "No You Won't" – 1:34
  7. "Nitty Gritty Time" – 1:50
  8. "It Sure Is Groovy!" – 2:30 (Lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman)
  9. "Bowlegged Polly" – 2:30 (Lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman)
  10. "Shag Bag, Hounds & Harvey" – 3:28
  11. "Chief's Drive to Mayor" —1:10
  12. "Give Me Until Morning" – 1:09
  13. "On Your Feet, Boy!" – 1:37
  14. "Blood & Roots" – 1:07
  15. "Mama Caleba's Blues" – 5:00
  16. "Foul Owl [on the Prowl]" – 2:30 (Lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman)

Personnel

Reception

In contrast to films like The Chase and Hurry Sundown, which offered confused visions of the South, In the Heat of the Night depicted a tough, edgy vision of a Southern town that seemed to hate outsiders more than itself, a theme reflecting the uncertain mood of the time, just as the civil rights movement attempted to take hold. Canadian director Jewison wanted to tell a story of a white man and a black man working together in spite of difficulties. Jewison said that this film proved a conviction he had held for a long time: "It's you against the world. It's like going to war. Everybody is trying to tell you something different and they are always putting obstacles in your way."

A particularly famous line in the film comes immediately after Gillespie mocks the name "Virgil":

Gillespie: "That's a funny name for a nigger boy that comes from Philadelphia! What do they call you up there?"
Tibbs (annoyed): "They call me Mister Tibbs!"

This reply was later listed as number 16 on the American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes, a list of top film quotes, and was also the title of the movie's sequel.

Another important scene that surprised audiences at the time occurs when Tibbs is slapped by Endicott. Tibbs responds by immediately slapping him back. In a San Francisco pre-screening, Jewison was concerned when the young audience was laughing at the film as if it were a comedy. The audience's stunned reaction to the slapping scene convinced Jewison that the film was effective as drama.[13] That scene helped make the film so popular for audiences, finally seeing the top black film actor physically strike back against bigotry, that the film earned the nickname, Superspade Versus the Rednecks.[14] During the film's initial run, Steiger and Poitier occasionally went to the Capitol Theatre in New York to amuse themselves seeing how many black and white audience members there were, which could be immediately ascertained by listening to the former cheering Tibbs's retaliatory slap and the latter whispering "Oh!" in astonishment.[15]

Critical response

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times praised Jewison for crafting "a film that has the look and sound of actuality and the pounding pulse of truth." He further praised Steiger and Poitier for "each giving physical authority and personal depth" to their performances.[16] Richard Schickel of Life magazine wrote that "almost everything in this movie is good—the sharply drawn minor characters, the careful plotting, the wonderful rightness of each scene's setting, mood and dialogue. Most admirable of all is the way everyone avoids oversimplifications."[17] John Mahoney of The Hollywood Reporter deemed the film to be "a gripping and suspenseful murder mystery that effects a feeling of greater importance by its veneer of social significance and the illusion of depth in its use of racial color."[18]

Time magazine applauded the film's theme of racial unity that was "immeasurably helped by performances from Steiger and Poitier that break brilliantly with black-white stereotype."[19] Roger Ebert gave In the Heat of the Night a positive review, praising Steiger's performance although he noted "the story itself was slightly too pat". He would later place it at number ten on his top ten list of 1967 films.[20] Arthur D. Murphy of Variety felt that the excellent Poitier and outstanding Steiger performances overcame noteworthy flaws, including an uneven script.[21] Penelope Gilliatt of The New Yorker thought it had "a spurious air of concern about the afflictions of the real America at the moment" and that it is "essentially a primitive rah-rah story about an underdog's triumph over a bully".[22]

Akira Kurosawa cited In the Heat of the Night as one of his favorite films.[23][24]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 96% based on 89 reviews, with an average rating of 8.40/10. Its consensus states, "Tense, funny, and thought-provoking all at once, and lifted by strong performances from Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, director Norman Jewison's look at murder and racism in small-town America continues to resonate today."[25] Metacritic assigned a score of 75 based on 14 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[26]

Box office

The film opened at the Capitol Theatre and at the 86th Street East theatre in New York City on Wednesday, August 2, 1967, grossing $108,107 in its first five days.[27] It opened in Miami Beach, Florida and in Toronto on Friday, August 4 and grossed $20,974 for the weekend which, together with the New York grosses, combined to give a weekend gross of $95,806.[28] It was released soon after race riots in Newark, Milwaukee, and Detroit.[27] By January 1971, the film had earned $11 million in box office rentals from the United States and Canada.[29]

Accolades

Award Category Nominee(s) Result
Academy Awards[30] Best Picture Walter Mirisch Won
Best Director Norman Jewison Nominated
Best Actor Rod Steiger Won
Best Screenplay – Based on Material from Another Medium Stirling Silliphant Won
Best Film Editing Hal Ashby Won
Best Sound Samuel Goldwyn Studio Sound Department Won
Best Sound Effects James Richard Nominated
American Cinema Editors Awards Best Edited Feature Film – Dramatic Hal Ashby Nominated
British Academy Film Awards Best Film Norman Jewison Nominated
Best Foreign Actor Sidney Poitier Nominated
Rod Steiger Won
United Nations Award Norman Jewison Won
Directors Guild of America Awards Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures Nominated
Edgar Allan Poe Awards Best Motion Picture Screenplay Stirling Silliphant Won
Golden Globe Awards[31] Best Motion Picture – Drama Won
Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama Sidney Poitier Nominated
Rod Steiger Won
Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture Quentin Dean Nominated
Lee Grant Nominated
Best Director – Motion Picture Norman Jewison Nominated
Best Screenplay – Motion Picture Stirling Silliphant Won
Grammy Awards Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television Show Quincy Jones Nominated
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards Best Actor Rod Steiger Won[lower-alpha 1]
Laurel Awards Top Drama Won
Top Male Dramatic Performance Sidney Poitier Nominated
Rod Steiger Won
National Film Preservation Board National Film Registry Inducted
National Society of Film Critics Awards Best Actor Rod Steiger Won
Best Cinematography Haskell Wexler Won
New York Film Critics Circle Awards Best Film Won
Best Actor Rod Steiger Won
Online Film & Television Association Awards Hall of Fame – Motion Picture Won
Sant Jordi Awards Best Foreign Film Norman Jewison Won
Best Performance in a Foreign Film Rod Steiger (also for The Loved One and No Way to Treat a Lady) Won
Writers Guild of America Awards Best Written American Drama Stirling Silliphant Nominated

Legacy

In 2003, In the Heat of the Night was selected by The New York Times as one of the 1000 Best Movies Ever Made.[32]

American Film Institute recognition

The film appears on several 100 Years lists by the American Film Institute.

Preservation

The Academy Film Archive preserved In the Heat of the Night in 1997.[38] In 2002, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[4]

Home media

In the Heat of the Night was first released on DVD in 2001. The only extras in that release were the theatrical trailer, and audio commentary with Norman Jewison, Haskell Wexler, Rod Steiger and Lee Grant.

Another DVD was released in 2008 to coincide the film's 40th Anniversary.

In 2010, the film was digitized in High Definition (1080i) and broadcast on MGM HD.

MGM released the film on Blu-ray on January 14, 2014, through 20th Century Fox. The release ports over all the extras from the 2001 and 40th Anniversary DVDs.

Another DVD and Blu-ray were released by The Criterion Collection on January 29, 2019. The release contained new and previously released extras.

Kino Lorber released In the Heat of the Night as a two-disc 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray set on April 19, 2022. The main disc includes the UHD SDR version of the film plus two audio commentaries including the 2001 commentary and a brand new commentary featuring historians Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson, and Robert Mirisch. The special features Blu-ray contained the sequels They Call Me Mister Tibbs! and The Organization in addition to the 40th Anniversary extras, and theatrical trailers for all three films.

Sequels and adaptations

The film was followed by two sequels with Poitier, They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970) and The Organization (1971). Both films still did fairly well at the box office though to less critical acclaim. It was also the basis of a 1988 television series adaptation of the same name.

See also

References

Informational notes

Citations

  1. ↑ "IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (A)". British Board of Film Classification. July 17, 1967. Archived from the original on November 28, 2014. Retrieved November 13, 2014.
  2. ↑ Balio, Tino (1987). United Artists: The Company that Changed the Film Industry. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 187. ISBN 978-0-299-11440-4.
  3. ↑ "In the Heat of the Night, Box Office Information". The Numbers. Archived from the original on December 10, 2007. Retrieved March 8, 2012.
  4. 1 2 "Librarian of Congress Adds 25 Films to National Film Registry" (Press release). Library of Congress. December 17, 2002. Archived from the original on February 5, 2017. Retrieved May 1, 2020.
  5. ↑ Worby, Mike (September 8, 2022). "Sidney Poitier Agreed To Be In The Heat Of The Night Only After One Major Change". Looper. Retrieved September 5, 2023.
  6. ↑ Sanders, Vivienne (2016). Civil Rights and Race Relations in the USA, 1850–2009. London: Hodder Education. ISBN 978-1-471-83825-5.
  7. 1 2 Heetebrij, Geert (April 15, 2020). "Subversive Christian Allegory in in the Heat of the Night (1967)". Christian Scholar's Review. 49 (3): 249–62. Archived from the original on May 10, 2020. Retrieved April 30, 2020.
  8. ↑ Harris 2008, p. 221.
  9. ↑ "In The Heat of the Night (1967)". Soundtrack Collector. Retrieved January 17, 2018.
  10. ↑ Edwards, Dave; Callahan, Mike. "Discography Preview for the United Artists label 40000 & 4000/5000 Series (1958–1972)" (PDF). Both Sides Now Publications. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 8, 2017. Retrieved January 17, 2018.
  11. 1 2 McDonald, Steven. In the Heat of the Night/They Call Me Mr. Tibbs – Review at AllMusic. Retrieved January 19, 2018.
  12. ↑ "10 definitive Quincy Jones soundtracks from the '60s and '70s". The Vinyl Factory. August 21, 2015. Archived from the original on January 17, 2018. Retrieved January 19, 2018.
  13. ↑ Harris 2008, pp. 288–90.
  14. ↑ Harris 2008, p. 336.
  15. ↑ Harris 2008, pp. 335–6.
  16. ↑ Crowther, Bosley (August 3, 1967). "Screen: 'In the Heat of the Night,' a Racial Drama". The New York Times. p. 26. Archived from the original on May 7, 2021. Retrieved May 6, 2021.
  17. ↑ Schickel, Richard (July 28, 1967). "Two Pros in a Super Sleeper". Life. p. 10. Archived from the original on May 9, 2021. Retrieved May 9, 2021 – via Google Books.
  18. ↑ Mahoney, John (August 2, 2017) [June 21, 1967]. "'In the Heat of the Night': THR's 1967 Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on May 6, 2021. Retrieved May 6, 2021.
  19. ↑ "Cinema: A Kind of Love". Time. August 11, 1967. p. 72. Archived from the original on May 6, 2021. Retrieved May 6, 2021.
  20. ↑ Ebert, Roger (December 31, 1967). "The Best 10 Movies of 1967". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on April 10, 2020. Retrieved October 18, 2016 – via RogerEbert.com.
  21. ↑ Murphy, Arthur D. (June 21, 1967). "Film Reviews: In The Heat Of The Night". Variety. p. 6. Archived from the original on September 28, 2015. Retrieved June 5, 2020.
  22. ↑ Gilliatt, Penelope (August 5, 1967). "The Current Cinema". The New Yorker. p. 64. Archived from the original on May 6, 2021. Retrieved May 6, 2021.
  23. ↑ Lee Thomas-Mason (January 12, 2021). "From Stanley Kubrick to Martin Scorsese: Akira Kurosawa once named his top 100 favourite films of all time". Far Out. Far Out Magazine. Retrieved June 10, 2021.
  24. ↑ "Akira Kurosawa's Top 100 Movies!". Archived from the original on 27 March 2010.
  25. ↑ "In the Heat of the Night (1967)". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on March 2, 2012. Retrieved January 29, 2023.
  26. ↑ "In the Heat of the Night". Metacritic. Archived from the original on July 12, 2020. Retrieved May 6, 2021.
  27. 1 2 "'Heat of Night' Scores With Crix; Quick B.O. Pace". Variety. August 9, 1967. p. 3.
  28. ↑ "In the Heat of Night (advertisement)". Variety. August 9, 1967. pp. 14–15.
  29. ↑ "All-Time Box Office Champs". Variety. January 6, 1971. p. 12.
  30. ↑ "The 40th Academy Awards (1968) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved August 25, 2011.
  31. ↑ "Winners & Nominees 1968". Golden Globes. Archived from the original on April 13, 2019. Retrieved May 9, 2021.
  32. ↑ The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made. The New York Times via Internet Archive. Retrieved June 20, 2021.
  33. ↑ "AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies Nominees" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on October 26, 2013. Retrieved December 10, 2011.
  34. ↑ AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs: Official Ballot. American Film Institute via Internet Archive. Retrieved June 20, 2021.
  35. ↑ AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores: Official Ballot. American Film Institute via Internet Archive. Retrieved June 20, 2021.
  36. ↑ AFI's 10 Top 10: Official Ballot. American Film Institute via Internet Archive. Retrieved June 20, 2021.
  37. ↑ The Film-Lover's Check List: AFI 10 Top Ten + Nominees. www.rinkworks.com. Retrieved June 20, 2021.
  38. ↑ "Preserved Projects". Academy Film Archive. Archived from the original on August 13, 2016. Retrieved August 3, 2016.

Bibliography

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