On Saturday, Feb. 5, the Wesleyan Film Series hosted a screening of “In The Heat of the Night,” a 1967 film starring the legendary actor Sidney Poitier, who died on Thursday, Jan. 6 at age 94. The film stars Poitier as Virgil Tibbs, a Black police detective from Philadelphia who becomes involved with a murder investigation in a small Mississippi town. 

The screening was the first installment in the Film Series’s Black History Month programming and featured an introduction and post-film talkback with Visiting Associate Professor of Film Studies Joe Cacaci, Film Studies Chair and Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies and Co-Director of the Wesleyan Documentary Project Tracy Heather Strain, and Assistant Professor of the Practice in Film Studies and Co-Director of the Wesleyan Documentary Project Randall MacLowry.

Speaking to a well-attended theater, the professors introduced the film with context about both Poitier’s career and the state of race in America at the time. In 1967, Poitier was at a high point in his career. In 1964, Poitier had become the first Black leading actor to win an Academy Award for his role in “Lilies of the Field.” In addition to “In the Heat of the Night,” 1967 also saw the release of two other films led by Poitier: “To Sir, with Love,” about a London schoolteacher who learns to relate to and motivate his troubled students, and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” a romantic comedy about a Black doctor navigating a meeting with his white fiancée’s parents. 

“It’s a fraught time, to say the least,” Cacaci said, noting that these films were released not long after the murder of Malcolm X and less than a year before the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. “[Poitier] is a Black man working in the middle of a certain type of Armageddon. It’s remarkable.”

The production of “In the Heat of the Night” was influenced by Poitier’s own work with the Civil Rights Movement. Though the film is set in Mississippi, MacLowry noted that Poitier requested to not film in the South out of fears for his safety. The majority of production occurred in Illinois.

After the film, Strain shared her personal experiences with segregation during her childhood in Pennsylvania, noting that despite the North/South divide depicted in the film, Northern states were far from tolerant. 

“It wasn’t all the South,” Strain said. “It was pretty much everywhere across the United States at this time.”

Strain also discussed witnessing the discrimination Poitier feared during her work in the art department of the 1991 film “Mississippi Masala,” which, as its title suggests, was filmed in Mississippi. 

“No white person there would rent a house to [the film’s star] Denzel Washington, in 1990,” Strain said. 

From Poitier’s era into our own, such incidents are a poignant reminder that celebrity is no protection from racism.

Following the brief introduction, the screening began, and for the entire 110-minute runtime, I was rapt. Even before the plot kicks into gear, Norman Jewison’s direction and Haskell Wexler’s cinematography give the film a palpable, raw energy, which makes the film as vivid as it was upon its release 55 years ago.

Strain noted the movie’s impressive lighting and framing of Poitier.

“He is well exposed, they’re giving him the star shots, the Hollywood shots,” Strain said. “In the present, there’s no excuse for films to have the problems they’ve had with lighting people [with darker skin]. There’s nothing negative about how Mr. Poitier is presented.”

As Tibbs, Poitier is magnetic. Tibbs is put through a wringer of racist indignities. His involvement with the murder case only comes about after he is framed and falsely arrested by the local police, eager to put away the first Black man they see. Poitier’s performance is one of measured intensity, a calm exterior with fire in the eyes. His poise makes Tibbs’s rare outbursts all the more memorable. 

In one such moment, Tibbs finds himself fed up with being taunted by racist white police chief Gillespie (Rod Steiger). Even as Tibbs helps him with the murder investigation, Gillespie dismisses Tibbs’s expertise, mocking his name, Virgil, and calling him the n-word. In a sharp retort, Tibbs exclaims: “They call me Mister Tibbs!” This line became so iconic that the film’s 1970 sequel was entitled “They Call Me Mister Tibbs!” 

In another memorable scene, Tibbs and Gillespie visit the wealthy Endicott (Larry Gates), the white owner of a local cotton plantation. Upon being questioned by Tibbs, Endicott is incensed and slaps Tibbs across the face. Standing his own, Tibbs slaps Endicott right back, sending him stumbling backward. 

In the talkback after the film, MacLowry noted this scene’s significance. 

“The retaliation of a Black man to a white man caused great concern for the producers in terms of what kind of reaction that would have on audiences going to see this movie, especially in the South,” MacLowry said. “It was called ‘the slap heard around the world.’”

Ultimately, Tibbs does solve the murder, but in his journey to do so, he is beset by racism in all forms, from casual remarks to violent attempts on his life, not only from the suspects he investigates but also from his ostensible allies and fellow policemen. Despite this, Tibbs comes out on top, always the smartest, most capable one in the room. This is even evident in his appearance; while most of the characters wear sweat-stained, short-sleeved shirts, Tibbs is always in an immaculate suit.

After the film, Strain noted Poitier’s inspiring rise from adversity, starting off as a poor Bahamian immigrant and becoming one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, all as a Black man in the 1950s and 1960s.  

“Whenever I feel that something is difficult, I think about people like Mr. Poitier,” Strain said. “It keeps it in perspective for me. If they could go through what they did at that time, then I have no real complaint.”

Strain and MacLowry also recalled their experience interviewing Poitier for “Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart,” a documentary on playwright Lorraine Hansberry. Poitier starred in the original Broadway production of Hansberry’s best-known work, “A Raisin in the Sun,” and its 1961 film adaptation.

“He was incredibly graceful, he really was very down to earth,” MacLowry said. “It was emotional and touching to have the opportunity to meet him, speak with him, and to be brought into his world even just a little bit.” 

 

Oscar Kim Bauman can be reached at obauman@wesleyan.edu.