Due to bad timing, northern cop Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) happens to be in the southern town of Sparta when a local bigwig is found murdered.
Fingered as the chief suspect because he is black, Tibbs is forced to pair up with Police Chief Bill Gillespie (Rod Steiger) to solve the mystery.
As they get closer to uncovering the truth, Tibbs and Gillespie find themselves on the wrong side of the town’s regressive power structure - and the police chief is forced to question his own assumptions about his reluctant partner, and the system Gillespie is upholding…
Originally I was planning to review the rest of the Shaft sequels, but I found a copy of this film first. And I was hooked.
I had always avoided In The Heat of the Night because I assumed - like Poitier’s other big hit of 1967, Look Who’s Coming To Dinner, it was more of a heavy-handed drama. Bobbins to that.
In The Heat of the Night is great. Like Shaft, the mystery is just a framework. This is a high-tension thriller with a razor-sharp sense of humour.
That humour is key - I was reminded of Jewison’s The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! in the way the film layers its examination of prejudice with irony.
That being said, that earlier film was more overtly farcical. This film shows it is a difficult balance to strike.
Tension and humour operate on the same basic mechanics, but the film has to function with a delicate balance of tones. Lean too comic and the story is robbed of stakes, lean too far the other way and the film could become relentlessly bleak.
The opening of the film has the structure of a joke.
It opens with a pair of legs climbing off a train in the middle of the night - a hand is briefly shown.
We then follow a local deputy (Warren Oates) as he cruises the streets and discovers a dead body. This leads to the introduction of Chief Gillespie, who orders a sweep of the town.
The scene ends where it began, with the deputy finding the unseen stranger sitting at the train station.
Addressing the stranger as ‘Boy’, the deputy draws a gun and arrests him.
Cut to the first shot of Sidney Poitier, sitting on a bench reading a magazine.
It is a fantastic character introduction - made even more impressive by Tibbs coolly following the deputy’s commands. He is clearly unsettled, but he is not going to show the deputy anything - just a cold stare.
Thus is set a fascinating dynamic - once the local cops know who he is, they need Tibbs’ help to solve the case. Neither party wants anything to do with the other - Tibbs was only in town because he has to change trains, and understandably wants nothing to do with the locals’ open hostility towards him.
Violence is not shown, but it is implicit in every interaction he has to endure. Unable to betray his true feelings, Tibbs relies on a subtle wit (his “Right, Chief?” to Gillispie after he explains how to determine the time of death is gold).
It is only when he shows up Gillispie, and makes the racist lawman explode, that he is able to return in kind (cue the iconic “They call me MISTER Tibbs!”).
The film is filled with moments like this, as Tibbs’ investigation - and more importantly, his very presence - gets deeper into the town’s secret underbelly.
The slapping scene remains impactful (no pun intended) because of how long the film has taken to build up to the moment.
The film has stoked such tension over the threat of violence towards our hero that when Tibbs slaps Endicott back, it comes off like an explosion.
Followed by reaction shots of everyone in the scene, it is a cathartic moment that immediately becomes a catalyst for notching up the tension, and the stakes - unwilling to act, Gillespie is now under pressure.
When Tibbs has another face-off, this time with a lynch mob, Gillespie comes to the rescue.
To the film’s credit, it does not have the Chief affect a total about-face immediately. At this stage, he is ready to help Tibbs, but only so that the northerner leaves town.
Ultimately the solving of the mystery not only forces Gillespie to confront his own prejudice, but the collective hypocrisy of the white townsfolk:
The white community hides their own deviance and hypocrisy, and while they hate black people they need them - not just Tibbs,but Mama Caleba (Beah Richards), the abortionist.
The film ends with the two lawmen finally on even terms.
Tense, funny and sadly timeless, In The Heat of the Night is a great movie.
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