In The Heat of the Night is a moral lesson in equality told to us in a who dunnit. Starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, it tells us a compelling story of life in a small town, circa 1960’s America. But, not just any part of America. The deep south America where the Civil War is called The War Between the States and where non-whites know their place.
It is both shocking and a healthy reminder to revisit these old attitudes. Though I’m 37 years old and was exposed to a few years of life in a racist town in the Mid-West, I was surprised at how different life is today versus even just 25 years ago. What Heat shows us about our past bolsters the understanding that we really have come a long way in dealing with hate. A fact that is too easily forgotten.
Heat is both fascinating and a hard watch at the same time. Which is what filmmaker Norman Jewison wanted. Throw on top of that that he made this film in 1966 for contemporary audiences, and you have to have a sense of pride knowing that a bunch of white people made a movie to show white people how they expect blacks to live. It was at times enormously un-comfortable to watch with the “N” this and “N” that. And if that isn’t enough, add to all this anti-social behavior the plot turn of statutory rape.
Wow, and I am recommending this? YES. Because the film is intensely entertaining. Remember, it’s a who dunnit. A story propellant that keeps us pushing forward. Waiting breathlessly to see what will happen next. With a police force that seems to solve cases the way I did as a child playing the board game Clue. It’s a wonder that the town’s minister didn’t get arrested.
Sidney Poitier plays Virgil Tibbs and delivers one of the most memorable lines in all of American cinema, “THEY CALL ME, ‘MISTER TIBBS’” he bites at the police chief. (That line later became the title of the movie’s sequel) Tibbs, an off duty homicide detective from Philadelphia, is passing through the small town of fictitious Sparta, MS. When he is discovered waiting in the town’s train station, he’s falsely arrested and taken to meet the chief.
On the phone with his own chief back in Philly to prove his innocence, Tibbs is instructed that he is to offer his services to the police of Sparta. Then the fun really begins. Helping out a town that hates blacks to solve a murder of a very important white man. While being so much smarted than the rest, Tibbs has to be thinking that life can’t get any worse.
Rod Steiger plays Police Chief Gillespie. Though it is not pointed out overtly, it’s apparent that he is a relatively recent arrival in Sparta himself. And, while no one will ever confuse him for a civil rights worker, it is also just below the surface that Gillespie is probably more annoyed by blacks than having any visceral hate for them. Still, he gives Tibbs a hard time of things while being pragmatic enough to want Tibbs’ help.
Made for a mere $2.6 million, Heat has a few minor errors that viewers would be well served to ignore and instead follow the story. The biggest error was one that is out of the control of every filmmaker, mother nature. Once the budget and other coordinations dictate where a film will be made, filmmakers do their best to fool our eyes into believing that the action is where we are told it is. Though Heat was filmed in Sparta, it was Sparta, IL and not Mississippi. And it was autumn.
The problem of course is the deciduous trees that lose their leaves after they turn various shades of fall. That occurs from cold temperatures at night. So, we’ll ignore that aspect and remember that it’s a heat wave down south in September. Focus on figuring out who killed and why. Remember how ugly our past is and be grateful that we have chosen differently.
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