While a sleepy Mississippi town tries its best to ignore the turning racial tides elsewhere in the nation, it’s shocked by the early-morning murder of an important businessman. A visiting Philadelphia police detective is initially suspected, primarily for being a black stranger with a fat wallet, then grudgingly enlisted to help solve the crime. In turning over clues, he also uncovers the flabby underbelly of an ugly southern society that sorely needs a kick in the pants.
Many such films from the heart of the civil rights era tend to be narrow and stilted; easy morality plays with limited desire to directly confront the hard truths. This one’s an exception - there’s a tangible sense of important, uncomfortable change churning right on the surface. A tribe of middle-aged white guys, suddenly forced to challenge their lifelong prejudice. A proud, big city black man who struggles to mask his indignance in the face of slack-jawed (and loose-lipped) yokels. Both slip in the wrong direction at times, giving way to knee-jerks and outbursts, but growth often comes hard and real change is never a straight line.
Though well-written, with a multitude of complex characters and a crafty mystery at the core of it all, In the Heat of the Night is really all about the performances. Key among those are the dual leads, Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, who keenly embody the roiling emotions of their parts. Poitier’s barely-contained rage is intense and understandable; a refined man doing his best to maintain his composure in an impossible situation. By contrast, Steiger’s dumpy police chief fumbles and falters his way through an awakening, grumpy and bigoted but gradually willing to change. Their tense arrangement never quite becomes a friendship, but it does become mutually respectful, and in the end that might be even more meaningful. An excellent, timely effort that had no qualms over pushing the limits of a very difficult, dangerous social atmosphere.
Review by drqshadowBlockedParent2023-09-07T14:05:46Z
While a sleepy Mississippi town tries its best to ignore the turning racial tides elsewhere in the nation, it’s shocked by the early-morning murder of an important businessman. A visiting Philadelphia police detective is initially suspected, primarily for being a black stranger with a fat wallet, then grudgingly enlisted to help solve the crime. In turning over clues, he also uncovers the flabby underbelly of an ugly southern society that sorely needs a kick in the pants.
Many such films from the heart of the civil rights era tend to be narrow and stilted; easy morality plays with limited desire to directly confront the hard truths. This one’s an exception - there’s a tangible sense of important, uncomfortable change churning right on the surface. A tribe of middle-aged white guys, suddenly forced to challenge their lifelong prejudice. A proud, big city black man who struggles to mask his indignance in the face of slack-jawed (and loose-lipped) yokels. Both slip in the wrong direction at times, giving way to knee-jerks and outbursts, but growth often comes hard and real change is never a straight line.
Though well-written, with a multitude of complex characters and a crafty mystery at the core of it all, In the Heat of the Night is really all about the performances. Key among those are the dual leads, Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, who keenly embody the roiling emotions of their parts. Poitier’s barely-contained rage is intense and understandable; a refined man doing his best to maintain his composure in an impossible situation. By contrast, Steiger’s dumpy police chief fumbles and falters his way through an awakening, grumpy and bigoted but gradually willing to change. Their tense arrangement never quite becomes a friendship, but it does become mutually respectful, and in the end that might be even more meaningful. An excellent, timely effort that had no qualms over pushing the limits of a very difficult, dangerous social atmosphere.