In the Heat of the NIght

[watervole]

 There are films with great music, films with fantastic action sequences, films that make you laugh, films with beautiful actors, etc.

But just now and then, you come across  a film that makes it purely on a great script and fantastic acting.

'In the Heat of the Night' is one of those. No background music at all, unless the characters are in a place where music is playing, but the sound of the cicadas at night adds to the tension in so many of the scenes.  The two leads, Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger are both amazing, but I think it's Steiger that makes the movie so memorable.

The film is set in Mississippi - it was made in 1967, It's very much a film about racism, but also a murder mystery.  Steiger is the local police chief, Poitier is a black homicide detective from the north, just going home after visiting his mother.

The film works so well because it never preaches or offers easy answers to racism.
(I remember an episode of M*A*S*H in which Hawkeye manages to convert a racist in one episode and the guy thanks him afterwards - no one would react that way in real life.)

This film is far more subtle.  It shows a deeply racist society, in which the police find it easy to pick on a convenient black suspect.  No one is 'cured' of their racism, but there are subtle shits.  The black detective is seen to be intelligent and the local police are pretty much forced to work with him even they they don't want to.

A very telling moment for me is when one of the white characters actually addresses Virgil Tibbs as 'Tibbs' (Until then, it's always been 'Boy', or 'Virgil').  The film plays it exactly right. It isn't treated as a big incident in any way, but the viewer is in no way going to miss it.

So, highly recommended (and definitely one I will watch again)

What movies would people recommend that fall into this category?  (Twelve Angry Men is on my personal list)  Movies that compel you to watch purely on the strength of the actors and the script?

 

 

Comments

[vera_j]

YES!!!! This film, together with Twelve Angry Men, belongs to unforgetable ones! These were one of the masterpieces. No hystery of today, no pronounced violence, just excellent dialogs, atmosphere and a piece of real life. And you can´t stop watching and you are literally sucked into the film. By the way, in Twelve Angry Men was Jiri Voskovec, our great actor, who fled from the Nazis and settled in the USA. He used to be Jan Werich´s partner - they are still beloved and their plays and films and songs they made with Jaroslav Jezek are my favourite. Their work still has a lot to tell us today!
https://youtu.be/u5JKkPhql4Q?si=LtAGVvhUVcjb4Afx.

[watervole]

Absolutely! Sucked in is exactly what it feels like.

[selenak]

The majority of movies directed and written by Billy Wilder (and one of his two life long script writing partners) count as this. Not that Wilder wasn't visually imaginative as a director, but his movies aren't famed for their tracking shots, say, and the music is okay and suitable for the subjects at hand but not outstanding. However, you can tell he started out as a scriptwriter, because the scripts, if he's on top of his game, are brilliant. (Bonus point for English being a second language - Billy Wilder started out as Samuel "Billie" (spelled like this) Wilder, Austrian citizen making good in Berlin of the late 1920s and emigrated just in time - and him becoming a master in it.) And he excelled at casting, too, getting some of their "best of career" performances from several of his actors.

Cases in point:

- Sunset Boulevard (still my choice of Best Hollywood On Hollywood movie ever, also Wilder was able to use actual silent movie stars which none of the later movies dealing with the clash between silent and talkie era people could) - Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim and William Holden all outstanding, and Swanson should have gotten the Oscar, dammit

- The Apartment (Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, and I think they scored a nomination at least)

- Ace in the Hole (Kirk Douglas as a cynical reporter)

- Some Like It Hot (Marilyn Monroe in what is a great many people's favourite role of hers, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon)

And of course the first film version of:

- Witness for the Prosecution (Charles Laughton, Marlene Dietrich)

Dark Horse Wilder film not many people know but where the music does play a part of the overall pull factor because Wilder got Friedrich Hollander to write songs for Marlene Dietrich to sing in this 1947 piece set among the ruins of Berlin (also a song title):

- A Foreign Affair (Marlene Dietrich, Jean Arthur)

Wilder scripts are infinitely quotable, his characters are complicated and shades of grey, young scriptwriter Billy W. having earned some additional cash as a gigolo in Berlin results in men for sale being a recurrent topic in one way or the other, the wit goes hand in hand with a sharp unflinching view of the world.

[watervole]

Discovered that Sunset Boulevard was on Paramount and decided it was probably about time to subscribe.

Can't get it to work... It may be the age of my tablet - but it manages Netflix fine...