It kind of blows my mind that Norman Jewison directed
In the Heat of the Night (1967) because I associate him with the comedies
The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming! (1966) and
Moonstruck (1987). And this movie is definitely not a comedy, though it has some funny bits of snappy dialog that make me laugh aloud. But he also directed
Fiddler on the Roof (1971), and that definitely has a lot of melancholy and dark parts, so... he obviously handles darker material well too. Which is cool, to have that kind of directing range.
Anyway. I first saw In the Heat of the Night about fifteen years ago. I watched it for Sidney Poitier because I knew this was one of the three movies he made in 1967 that all made a huge splash -- the others were Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and To Sir, with Love, and I'd seen them both before I saw this. Of the three, this is by far my favorite.
The movie opens with a dorky white police officer finding a dead body in the alley of a small Mississippi town. It's a rich white man from Somewhere Else who was spearheading the building of a new factory that was going to bring a thousand new jobs to the area. But now, he's dead, his wallet's gone, and who in this sleepy little town could possibly have done such a thing? Surely not anyone who belongs there.
Enter the perfect, most obvious suspect possible: a stranger. Not just any old stranger, but a black man in a nice suit with a lot of money in his wallet, waiting in a train station. Obviously, he must have killed that rich white man and stolen his money. Why else would a black man have a lot of money? The white police officers who find this obvious suspect are filled with joy over having solved this murder so quickly and easily, and they can't wait to drag their obvious suspect down to the police station to impress their chief! Never mind that their obvious suspect insists he is innocent and has no idea what is even going on.
But then, their solution falls apart. The suspect's name is Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier), and Chief Gillespie (Rod Steiger) quickly discovers that Tibbs is also a police officer -- and not just a fellow officer, but a big-city homicide detective from Philadelphia. Which the over-eager small-town officers didn't bother finding out before they arrested him. Tibbs is just passing through, on his way back to Philadelphia from visiting family and changing trains in this little nowhere town.
Much to the chagrin, annoyance, and even anger of both Tibbs and Gillespie, Tibbs gets ordered by his superiors to help Gillespie solve this murder. So he does. Eventually. But along the way, both Tibbs and Gillespie have a whole lot of learning and growing to do.
You see, this is 1967. It's the height of the Civil Rights Movement. In 1967, there were riots in black neighborhoods in more than 100 American cities. Change had arrived, but not enough change and too much change all at once, and Americans of every color were having to examine their thoughts, beliefs, and behavior toward anyone who didn't look like them. And it's that examination that is the core of In the Heat of the Night.
Chief Gillespie begins the movie with a snide, condescending attitude toward Detective Tibbs. Even after he finds out Tibbs is a fellow police officer, he talks down to Tibbs. Pretends to humor him. Pretends to allow him to work the case, even when it is very clear to Gillespie that he needs Tibbs's expertise. He can't bring himself to admit, for a very long time, that Tibbs might be smarter, more educated, and more experienced than he is. Because if he admitted any of that, he'd have to admit that Tibbs was at least his equal, if not his superior. And that's not a view that's allowable by the culture Gillespie grew up in, lives in, trusts.
Detective Tibbs begins the movie knowing he's smarter, more educated, and more experienced than Chief Gillespie. He knows that, if he doesn't work this case, they're probably going to pin the murder on the next person that suits them. He believes himself above everyone on that police force. He would never arrest someone because of the color of their skin. He would never pin a crime on an innocent man because finding the guilty one would be inconvenient. He would never look down on someone because they are a different race than he is. Until, gradually, Tibbs begins to realize he's doing exactly that. He's convinced that he's better than Chief Gillespie and the other police officers because he's not white.
Once Gillespie and Tibbs stop treating each other -- and thinking of each other -- as A Black Man and A White Man, they finally make progress on the case. They both discover that they can respect and even like each other for who they are, not despite what they look like. And that was a lesson that 1967 America desperately needed to learn. It's also a lesson that 2022 America desperately needs to learn. We've come a long way in learning to like people who look differently from us for who they are... and we have also not come very far at all in learning that we shouldn't like someone despite what they look like. Does that make any sense? I hope so.
Anyway! Gillespie and Tibbs solve the murder, and Tibbs gets on a train for Philadelphia a couple days later than expected. And he and Gillespie share a rueful smile as they say farewell. I think they're both acknowledging how much they learned over the couple of days they worked together, and how hard it's going to be to hold onto that new knowledge.
Is this movie family friendly? Well, no. There's a smattering of bad language, violence, scary situations, and a lot of unsavory stuff going on. (WARNING: the rest of this paragraph contains SPOILAGE). Unsavory stuff like peeping tom behavior, accusations of rape, and discussions about illegal abortions. There is some clinical discussion of cause of death for the murdered man, plus shots of his body on the street when discovered and in the morgue when examined later. And there are a couple of very tense and possibly scary parts where Virgil Tibbs is threatened by white supremacists who gang up on him and clearly intend to hurt and then kill him.
TL;DR: This movie does not shy away from hard topics, and I would not show it to anyone under sixteen. However, it is clearly not glorifying or condoning the kinds of behavior and actions listed above. I do not find it a problematic movie for adults and mature teens to watch. It is definitely not appropriate for children, in my opinion.
