Review: Norman Jewison’s In the Heat of the Night on Criterion Blu-ray

Criterion’s 4k transfer and extras do justice to one of New Hollywood’s more complex and challenging social message movies.

In the Heat of the NightVirgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) doesn’t bother asking for acceptance or respect from white people. He unequivocally demands it. Unlike Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night is under no delusions that racial prejudice can be corrected merely by white people coming into proximity with intelligent, successful people of color, particularly in a small town like Sparta, Mississippi. Tibbs dons a slick suit, employs a vivid vocabulary, and carries himself with an aura of confidence and import. But he knows he’s firmly entrenched in the Deep South, and when he’s suddenly arrested in humiliating fashion by Officer Sam Wood (Warren Oates), and with no questions asked, Tibbs wisely stays mum and allows himself to be roughly escorted to the police station.

In the Heat of the Night doesn’t satisfy expectations of a traditional narrative structured around an innocent Black man struggling to prove his innocence. When presented to the town’s police chief, Bill Gillespie (Rod Steiger), Tibbs angrily tosses his Philadelphia police badge on the man’s desk, not only insisting on the respect that he’s earned, but taking special joy in boasting of his higher salary and position as Philly’s elite homicide investigator. And while Tibbs’s professional standing causes Gillespie to straighten his shoulders and drop the condescension long enough to all but beg Tibbs to stick around and help out with the homicide investigation, the antagonistic nature of their initial encounter hangs like a dark cloud over the remainder of Jewison’s film.

As the two cops begin the tumultuous process of collaboration, Poitier and Steiger play off one another like two great jazz musicians, using prolonged silences and explosive bursts of pent-up rage with equal aplomb as Tibbs and Gillespie struggle to balance their innate suspicion of one another with the dawning realizations that they must rely on each other to solve a crime. And it’s their precarious and often combative relationship, with the men wavering between intense distrust and making strides to strengthen their alliance during their investigation of Phillip Colbert’s murder, that becomes the guiding principle of the film.

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Across scenes that are occasionally thick with disdain, In the Heat of the Night depicts the Sparta locals who are tangentially tied to the murder investigation, but the offbeat humor of these scenes also provides a much-needed levity to the film’s otherwise tense proceedings. Everyone from the aforementioned Sam and the diner owner, Ralph (Anthony James), to Gillespie’s assistant, Courtney (Peter Whitney), are amusing Southern-fried caricatures, but beneath their goofy exteriors lurks something strange and unsettling. Such scenes as Ralph putting the satirical country song “Foul Owl on the Prowl” on the jukebox and awkwardly dancing around the diner get at how this lifestyle of the rural South is fundamentally incompatible with inclusion, especially of a well-educated Black man like Tibbs.

A dichotomy of one sort or another, such as that between Black and white or self and society, underlines almost every moment in the film. As Gillespie uncomfortably acclimates to deferring to the professional expertise of a Black man of higher class, Tibbs copes with his initial resentment at having to rely on a racist white man as his lone protector from the many townspeople who’d, at best, run him out of town. And to the film’s credit, neither of the men’s flaws are swept under the rug. Tibbs’s calm, collected demeanor conceals a brewing undercurrent of indignation that mutates into an impulsive vengeance which drives him to stay in Sparta even after the townsfolks’ death threats become more serious. And while Gillespie grows to admire Tibbs for his skills as an investigator, his prejudices are too deeply embedded to allow a true kinship between them to flourish. Where similar “biracial buddy” films build to a newfound sense of racial unity between their main characters, naïvely suggesting that a white person’s long-held prejudices have been forever eradicated, In the Heat of the Night embraces a more nuanced understanding of how people evolve.

In a complex, emotionally disarming scene late in the film, Tibbs visits Gillespie at his home, where the latter suddenly begins to open up and speak about his loneliness. After asking Tibbs if he’s ever lonely, Tibbs tenderly replies, “No lonelier than you, man,” offering his own feelings of isolation as an olive branch. But Gillespie responds hostilely: “Now, don’t you get smart, Black boy.” The man bristles at receiving even a hint of pity from someone who, in some ways, he will always see as an inferior. Soon after this contentious encounter, the filmmakers attempt to bridge the gap between the two men, as Tibbs boards the train heading out of town and Gillespie musters up an amiable, “You take care, you hear?” The two men smile in a sort of tacit admission of mutual respect after having caught the murderer.

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James Baldwin astutely referred to this moment as a form of reconciliation akin to that of a movie kiss. But by positioning this final scene of supposed racial harmony so soon after the earlier moment when Gillespie’s prejudice resurfaces with a vengeance, the film takes on a bittersweet quality. The men’s final goodbye portends hope while subtly, yet cynically, acknowledging that Gillespie’s feelings of camaraderie with a Black man are fleeting, that his racism will almost certainly endure long after Tibbs’s train has pulled out of the station.

Image/Sound

The Criterion Collection’s new 4k scan lends the image a remarkable clarity and depth while maintaining a healthy amount of grain, effectively preserving the gritty immediacy of Haskell Wexler’s cinematography. The colors are uniformly vibrant, from the reds and blues in the film’s opening scene to the warm autumnal hues found in the remarkable chase sequence through the woods. The sharpness of the transfer greatly enhances foreground details, breathing new life into the subtleties of small-town Southern life that the filmmakers captured throughout, as well as the expressive faces of Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, whose characters often say more in the film when they’re not speaking. The dialogue occasionally has an echoey quality, but the uncompressed monaural soundtrack is otherwise evenly mixed and makes a robust show of Quincy Jones’s groundbreaking soundtrack.

Extras

The commentary track from 2008 with Jewison and Wexler is a nicely balanced discussion of In the Heat of the Night, from its social themes to historical context to its often experimental shooting methods. Jewison speaks mostly to the film’s social import and performances, charting the personal and professional relationship between Poitier and Steiger, who the former thought was often over the top. Wexler, on the hand, offers an endless supply of technical insights, revealing his expressive use of mesh and screens to achieve a more textured look in numerous shots and tricks he learned from Raoul Coutard’s lighting methods. While Wexler’s thoughts may be more of a deep dive into the nuts and bolts of cinematographic art than some viewers may be interested in, both men speak with such enthusiasm and respect for one another and the film that their dialogue remains lively and stimulating.

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A new interview with Jewison covers some of the same ground as the commentary but also provides context for his decision to imbue the film with humor; he also discusses his working relationship with the film’s editor, Hal Ashby. Lee Grant’s interview sees her offering insight into the tender scene where Poitier consoles her character after her husband’s murder, as well as gives the actress the space to discuss her still-lingering anger at being blacklisted. There are also interviews with Poitier and Aram Goudsouzian, author of Sidney Poitier: Man, Actor, Icon, which touch on the actor’s political beliefs, his rise to fame throughout the civil rights movement, and his frustrations with Hollywood for consistently depriving his characters of sexuality so that he can be deemed “safe” for white audiences. The film’s wildly eclectic soundtrack is also given its due in a short piece, “Quincy Jones: Breaking New Sound.” The disc also includes a short documentary, “Turning Up the Heat: Movie-Making in the ’60s,” a theatrical trailer, and a booklet with a shrewd essay by K. Austin Collins that delves into the film’s depiction of racial intimacy and complex juxtapositions of rage and pride.

Overall

Criterion’s beautiful 4k transfer and an abundance of extras do justice to one of New Hollywood’s more complex and challenging social message movies.

Score: 
 Cast: Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates, Lee Grant, Larry Gates, James Patterson, William Schallert, Beah Richards, Peter Whitney, Kermit Murdock, Larry D. Mann, Quentin Dean  Director: Norman Jewison  Screenwriter: Stirling Silliphant  Distributor: The Criterion Collection  Running Time: 110 min  Rating: NR  Year: 1967  Release Date: January 29, 2019  Buy: Video, Soundtrack

Derek Smith

Derek Smith's writing has appeared in Tiny Mix Tapes, Apollo Guide, and Cinematic Reflections.

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