By Marc S. Sanders
In 1967, just before the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Norman Jewison’s film In The Heat Of The Night won five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actor for Rod Steiger and Best Adapted Screenplay by Sterling Silliphant. While it is easy to classify the movie as a crime drama/murder mystery/detective story, the setting and themes of racial prejudice overshadow who the killer is or the motive. As the film progressed, I grew less curious of who bludgeoned white businessman Philip Colbert to death and why. It was much more important to understand exactly why Steiger’s Mississippi Police Chief Gillespie is so quick to believe that a well dressed and cooperative black man who was simply apprehended for waiting at a train station would be the culprit. The black man is Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier), a Philadelphia police detective.
After Tibbs has an opportunity to identify himself, Gillespie shamelessly requests his services in solving the crime. Murder doesn’t happen often in Sparta, Mississippi. Tibbs’ supervisor speaks highly of his officer’s capabilities. Tibbs knows how to look for signs of rigor mortis on the deceased. He knows how to identify that the killer was right-handed and he knows that when another suspect is quickly brought in, that he can’t be the killer either. Still, many of the heated conversations between Gillespie and Tibbs are the same. Their back and forths even become redundant at times. Gillespie, nor the deputies and other residents of Sparta, are apt to listen to a “colored” person. At one point, Tibbs is put in a cell for not agreeing with Gillespie’s conclusions. He’s also ordered on two or three occasions to get out of town. Tibbs is not so willing to surrender though, even if he’s regarded with racial disdain. The impression is that this murder will not be so challenging for Tibbs to solve, if only he had a little more time and cooperation. So, the riddle of the crime is not the overall conflict of In The Heat Of The Night. More so, it is the racial hatred that a deep south Mississippi town has for an educated and skillful black man from up north.
I read that the film was shot primarily in Sparta, Illinois. Poitier made that request for his own safety while a tense period within America was occurring against the backdrop of the civil rights movement. Jewison’s film is quite brave. In the face of racial divide within the United States, this film still got made. Yet, it had to be produced with an abundance of caution.
A telling scene happens in the middle of the picture. Tibbs requests Gillespie escort him to a wealthy cotton plantation owner’s home. As they drive up to the home, they pass by the black cotton pickers collecting the crops under the hot sun. They meet in the estate green house with a Mr. Endicott, who comes off very cordial to Tibbs at first. However, when a slight accusatory question comes from Tibbs, Endicott slaps him across the face. Tibbs responds with a slap right back at him. In Mississippi, a black man better know his place, even if the prime suspect of a murder is a wealthy white man, or more simply just white. It’s a classic moment in film history. However, it remains an important scene and maybe its significance should be all the more heightened in modern day 2022 with the Black Lives Matter mentality at the forefront; where police/African American race relations are being tested.
Three white men were recently sentenced to life in prison without parole for the hate crime killing of a black jogger named Ahmaud Marquez Arbery in the state of Georgia. All that Mr. Arbery was doing was jogging through a neighborhood. He didn’t have a weapon. He hadn’t come in contact with anyone to even slightly suspect a threat. He was noticed by these three criminals, and because he didn’t belong in that area, he was brutally murdered for the color of his skin. Evidence would reveal where these men stood with regards to black people as a history of various texts that were clearly racial in nature were later uncovered. If it wasn’t going to be Mr. Arbery who was murdered, it was eventually going to be another black person who would fall victim to these men.
Though Dr. King was murdered shortly after the release of In The Heat Of The Night, I’m cautiously optimistic that racial hatred has lessened and the generations that followed learned from the misgivings of their ancestors. Still, the term “hate crime” is often used in news reports today. The debate of the Confederate flag and its argument for keeping it flying still has to be pondered. Fifty years later, I cannot understand why, though.
I will never forget a vacation I took with my family to Stone Mountain in Georgia back in 2005. It was fourth of July and we were picnicking on the lawn next to a couple of teenagers while waiting for the fireworks. I struck up a conversation with a local teenage girl and the flag and the confederacy along with the carving of Confederate leaders (Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis) on the rock sight were brought up. Her defense of these topics was “It’s history. Not hate.” I became much wiser in that moment. I was just a naïve Jewish guy who was raised in New Jersey. I was not aware enough. Much still hadn’t been learned and a whole lot needed to be unlearned. History is not a reason to celebrate. History is not meant to honored. History is meant to be remembered for our rights, and especially our wrongs. Much of history should not be repeated, and yet that’s what happens all too often.
In The Heat Of The Night is another example of the power of films. So much is debated about what is taught in our schools. A proposal of law for “Don’t Say Gay” is likely to be passed in Florida where it’s deemed impermissible to discuss homosexuality in elementary schools. Books are continuing to be restricted from availability in libraries. So, if our institutions of learning are being censored, then we have to rely on other mediums. Movies like Schindler’s List or In The Heat Of The Night or Do The Right Thing offer those opportunities. Films open a window to view love and hate as well as tolerance and prejudice. We can never afford to look at our world with rose colored glasses.
2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!! 