In the Heat of the Night (film)

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

Released by United Artists in August 1967, the film was a widespread critical and commercial success. At the 40th Academy Awards the film was nominated for seven Oscars, winning five, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Actor for Rod Steiger. Quincy Jones' score, featuring a title song performed by Ray Charles, was nominated for a Grammy Award. The success of the film spawned two film sequels featuring Poitier, and a television series of the same name, which aired from 1988 to 1995.

In the Heat of the Night is widely considered one of the most important American films of the 1960s. 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".

Plot

In 1966, wealthy industrialist Phillip Colbert and his wife are in Sparta, Mississippi, to oversee the building of a factory. Late one night, police officer Sam Wood discovers Colbert's corpse 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 learns Tibbs is a homicide detective from Philadelphia, who was passing through town after visiting his mother. Tibbs wants to leave town on the next train, but his Chief in Philadelphia requests that 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 that 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. Tibbs, after being jailed for withholding his findings subsequent to examining the body, reveals that Oberst is left-handed and has witnesses to confirm his alibi. Frustrated by the ineptitude of the police but impressed by Tibbs, Colbert's widow threatens to halt construction of the factory unless Tibbs leads the investigation.

Tibbs initially suspects the murderer is wealthy plantation owner Eric Endicott, a genteel racist and Sparta's most powerful citizen, who opposed Colbert's new factory. When Tibbs begins interrogating him, Endicott slaps him, and Tibbs slaps him back. Afterwards, Endicott sends a gang of 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 detours from his patrol route, Tibbs discovers that Wood enjoys passing the house of 16-year-old Delores Purdy, who walks around nude with the lights on in an attempt to entice men, 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 car and Colbert's car back into town.

Delores' older brother Lloyd, a hostile racist, 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, Lloyd is offended and 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 Henshaw, a cook at a roadside diner. Lloyd's mob arrives and holds Tibbs at gunpoint.

Tibbs tells Lloyd to check Delores' purse for the $100 Ralph gave her for an abortion, which he got from killing and robbing Colbert. Lloyd realizes that Tibbs is right when he opens the purse and finds the money. After Lloyd confronts Ralph for getting his sister pregnant, Ralph shoots Lloyd dead. Tibbs grabs Ralph's gun. Ralph is arrested and confesses to killing 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 him 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 their final interaction, as Tibbs ascends the stairs onto the train, Gillespie sincerely tells him: "You take care, you hear?" After a hesitation, Tibbs gives a warm smile and says, "Yeah.” Gillespie smiles back at Tibbs as he boards the train.

Cast

Production

Casting

Both Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger were the first choices to play their roles. According to the AFI Catalog of Feature Films, the two were "old friends who had long sought an opportunity to work together." Anthony James, Quentin Dean, and Eldon Quick. Clegg Hoyt's unbilled appearance in this film was his final acting role. He died two months after the film's release.

Filming

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. The original novel was set in the (fictional) town of "Wells, South Carolina", but the name of the town was changed to Sparta so that the filmmakers could use the existing signage and storefronts. In an interview, Poitier stated: "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." 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.

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. 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.