In the Heat of the Night is a 1967 American Southern Gothic 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 September 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 Tibbs 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 after 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. Gillespie accuses Tibbs of also being racist for focusing the investigation on Endicott. 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 retrace 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 Henshaw 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 Henshaw for getting his sister pregnant, Henshaw shoots Lloyd dead. Tibbs grabs Henshaw's gun. Henshaw is arrested and confesses to killing Colbert.
Gillespie carries Tibbs’ suitcase to the train station and bids him farewell. They warmly smile at each other, making it clear there was no longer animosity between them.
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."
In the Heat of the Night was the film debut for several of its actors - Scott Wilson, 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. The producers were unaware that "Sparta, Mississippi" was a real town, and the film's depiction bears little resemblance to the real community. For example, the film's Sparta is situated along Interstate 20, while the real town is nowhere near any interstate.
Jewison, Poitier, and Steiger worked together and got along well during filming, but Jewison had problems with the Southern authorities, and Poitier had reservations about coming south of the Mason–Dixon line. However, despite their reservations, Jewison decided to shoot part of the film in Dyersburg and Union City, Tennessee anyway, while the rest was filmed in Sparta, Chester (Harvey Oberst chase scene), and Freeburg (Compton's diner), Illinois.
The film is notable for being the first major Hollywood film in color lit with proper consideration for a Black person. Haskell Wexler recognized that standard strong lighting used in filming tended to produce too much glare on dark complexions and rendered the features indistinct. Accordingly, Wexler adjusted the lighting to feature Poitier with better photographic results.
Slapping scene Tibbs slapping Endicott is not present in the novel. According to Poitier, the scene was almost not in the movie; he proposed the scene. 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 Jewison and Silliphant confirmed. 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.
Music
The film score was composed, arranged and conducted by Quincy Jones, and the soundtrack album was released on the United Artists label in 1967. 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.
AllMusic's Steven McDonald said the soundtrack had "a tone of righteous fury woven throughout" and that "the intent behind In the Heat of the Night was to get a Southern, blues-inflected atmosphere to support the angry, anti-racist approach of the picture ... although the cues from In the Heat of the Night show their age". The Vinyl Factory said "this soundtrack to a film about racism in the South has a cool, decidedly Southern-fried sound with funk-bottomed bluesy touches, like on the strutting 'Cotton Curtain', the down 'n' dirty 'Whipping Boy' or the fat 'n' sassy 'Chief's Drive to Mayor'".
Track listing All compositions by Quincy Jones. "In the Heat of the Night' (Lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman) – 2:30 "Peep-Freak Patrol Car" – 1:30 "Cotton Curtain" – 2:33 "Where Whitey Ain't Around" – 1:11 "Whipping Boy" – 1:25 "No You Won't" – 1:34 "Nitty Gritty Time" – 1:50 "It Sure Is Groovy!" – 2:30 (Lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman) "Bowlegged Polly" – 2:30 (Lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman) "Shag Bag, Hounds & Harvey" – 3:28 "Chief's Drive to Mayor" —1:10 "Give Me Until Morning" – 1:09 "On Your Feet, Boy!" – 1:37 "Blood & Roots" – 1:07 "Mama Caleba's Blues" – 5:00 "Foul Owl [on the Prowl]" – 2:30 (Lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman)
Personnel Unidentified orchestra arranged and conducted by Quincy Jones including Ray Charles – vocals (track 1), piano (track 15) Glen Campbell – vocals (track 9), banjo Gil Bernal – vocals (track 8) Boomer and Travis – vocals (track 16) Roland Kirk – flute Bobby Scott – tack piano Billy Preston – electric organ (track 1) Ray Brown – bass Carol Kaye – electric bass Don Elliott – human instrument The Raelettes – backing vocals (track 1)
Reception In contrast to films like The Chase and Hurry Sundown, which offered confused visions of the South, In the Heat of the Night depicted a tough, edgy vision of a Southern town that seemed to hate outsiders, a theme reflecting the uncertain mood of the time, just as the civil rights movement attempted to take hold. Canadian director Jewison wanted to tell a story of a White man and a Black man working together in spite of difficulties. Jewison said that this film proved a conviction he had held for a long time: "It's you against the world. It's like going to war. Everybody is trying to tell you something different and they are always putting obstacles in your way."
A particularly famous line in the film comes immediately after Gillespie mocks the name "Virgil": Gillespie: "That's a funny name for a nigger boy that comes from Philadelphia! What do they call you up there?"Tibbs (annoyed): "They call me Mister Tibbs!" This reply was later listed as number 16 on the American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes, a list of top film quotes, and was also the title of the movie's sequel. Among other places, it was referenced by Pumbaa in The Lion King.