Judith Proctor's Journal

 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?