Sidney Poitier has said that working with Rod Steiger taught him to reach deeper into himself for this performance. I'd seen Sidney Poitier before, but in this movie he was sizzling--and Rod Steiger was brilliant. In the Heat of the Night remains one of my all-time favorite movies.
Not sure who you are, or what your issue is but sounds like you have some issues. Are literary and cinema classics and color, race or creed has no bearing on it. Good luck with a soured outlook on life...
Rod Steiger has stated (years after the film) that when his Police Chief character is chewing his gum fast, it shows he was confident and sure of himself. However when ever he stops chewing in a scene, It shows when he realizes he is wrong and Virgil is Correct! AWESOME to see it in the move countless times!
Brilliant, deadpan funny and with rock solid acting from both Poitier and Steiger. The loaded pauses are part of what's so great about it: you really sense the tiredness of the CI, his wish to score a goal on Tibbs and the comic, humiliating reversal. Great movie.
The difference between movies in the 60s and now. Same scene: Then: Tibbs doing a slow burn. Quiet but seething. Keeps a civil tone but you can tell he is pissed. Now: Tibbs pissed off. Probably angrily answering the sheriff's questions. Probably tossing in a F-bomb or two. which would be the better movie?
A BLACK GUY UNDER ARREST IN A SMALL SOUTHERN TOWN IN THOSE DAYS....WELL FOR HIM TO TALK BACK, THROW F-BOMBS, ETC. MIGHT BE A DEATH SENTENCE. HE'D SIMPLY DISAPPEAR WITHOUT A TRACE. NOT SURE THAT MODERN AUDIENCES COULD UNDERSTAND THAT.
The movie was made in 1967. Changing Virgil's hometown from Pasadena to Philadelphia was a brilliant decision; it pitted the North against the South and it allowed the film-makers to slip in a reference to Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three civil rights workers had been murdered in 1964.
Bill Gillespie - "WOOD!" Sam Wood - "Yessir?" Gillespie - "Did you question this man before you brought him in?" Wood - "No, sir." Gillespie - "Would you mind taking a look at that?" (Wood looks at Virgil's badge and ID) Gillespie - "Yeah... OH, YEAH!" - EPIC
One of my top 10 films of all time with two fantastic actors at the peak of their talents. Can't say enough about the terrific Oscar winning screenplay by the great Stirling Silliphant too. It's provocative and a great microcosm of racism in the south during the turbulent 60's. "A colored can't earn that kind of money boy, hell that's more than I make in a month!! Now where did you earn it?!!!
+John Fuentes Can't do it. They've tried it with Gone With The Wind and The Wizard Of Oz. Those two movie are just too perfect, you take away from the legacy. Same with In The Heat Of The Night. PLEASE, Hollywood, don't even try it.
When Sidney threw his badge on Steiger's desk, the world changed for the better. And when he exclaimed "They call me Mr. Tibbs." the world woke up from it's past.
Steiger is an English actor, old school. He took the role as a 1960's Southern small town Sheriff to flex his acting abilities. Won the Oscar for Best Actor.
+degree7 Yeah, Steiger was an American method actor who was part of the actors who hated McCarthism and worked to end such bullshit. In doing so, he took this role to help end racism in this country. The only English about Rod was his chosen language.
LOL....LOL.........Joe Smith "Foremost Movie Trivia Expert".......LOL.... Steiger an English actor flexing his acting abilities"......U L T R A-----L O L
An English actor would have never been able to pull this off. It requires too subtle a knowledge of American regional history, culture, and racial dynamics
Whoo! $162.39 cents !!! Well boy .... take him outside Wood and treat him easy. A man who makes $162.39 cents a week man we don not want to ruffle him .................. lol
Yes, according to the Inflation Calculator (www dot westegg dot com slash inflation), $162.39 in 1967 US dollars (the time this movie was made) would be about $1118.07 today! Quite a princely sum...
Watched this a couple of nights ago. Guess what, no special effects, no alien invaders, no light sabres- Just a great story with brilliant actors delivering their lines with surgical precision to make a great movie!
This is my favorite movie starring Sidney Poitier. In the movie The Chief (Rod Steiger) became friends with Virgil Tibbs (Poitier) after learning he was a cop and homicide expert, very good movie.
got to correct you, they did in fact have CGI back then, for example if you have ever watched the original series of Star Trek that ran from 1966 to 1969 . 99% of the images on the Bridge's "Main viewing screen" as well as other certain special effects like Phaser beams, the transporter , and other effects were done by using computerized imagery,. true it wasn't the type of CGI quality as we know it today, but none the less they were Computer generated images
I've seen thousands of movies in my seventy years and this is in my top five. The casting of secondary actors is perfect, especially Warren Oates as Wood. Both Poitier and Steiger deserved Oscars.
I don't give a shit what anyone says, this is one of the most important movies ever made at a time when we NEEDED it. I've seen it at least 150 times and studied it that many times. I love it when wrongs are righted by what is right. Movies and songs have always helped us live with one another.
Wonderful scene from wonderful movie..damm shame they screwed it up at the very end when Steiger asks his receptionist to get him long distance 5 minutes after the 4.05 to Memphis just left town..
Hard to believe $162.39 a week was decent money---but for 1967 it was a pretty good salary!! (Averages to roughly $60000 today adjusted for inflation.) BTW---Poitier was one of the coolest cats to ever grace the big screen!!
I saw the movie in 1967, and at that time I was making barely half of what Tibbs was making. So my first thought about this "police officer" was--wow, he must be a razor-sharp detective!
did only i notice after he told them he was a police officer they still treated him like a criminal? reminds me 2day how they treat obama after he became president
Looking at Rod Steiger portray Gillespie its no wonder they had Carrol O'Conner play him on the TV show. Not only does O'Conner bear some physical resemblance to Steiger, Gillespie is almost parallel to Archie Bunker in that he starts off as an unlikeable bigot but his character starts to reveal that he's only a product of his environment and he's not a hard core hater/racist. Who better to play a 'sympathetic bigot' than the man who played another 'sympathetic bigot'. However I just don't feel that Harold Rollins portrayal of Virgil Tibbs measured up to Poitier's performance.
YEAH ! OH YEAH !! My favourite scene from any film, the editing is spot on. Steiger's face when P{oitier says 'I'm a police officer' is worth a million dollars.
Throughout this entire movie, there is not a SINGLE moment which does not stand alone as a way to tell/advance the story. Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger -- ESPECIALLY in this single scene -- do more acting, (often by using only facial expressions and hesitations) than I have seen from almost anyone else who has taken home an Oscar in many, many years. The use of linear lines, dark/light shadowing, etc.is also brilliant, but would have meant nothing without the perfect cast...and they did have the perfect cast!
+D Mill Amen. The perfect cast for sure. One of the most telling lines in the movie came from Mr. Poitier when he told the black store keeper "there is white time and there is colored time" . Back then that was so true. I just voted for Donald Trump because we're so deep in shit financially and he's the only choice to help end it. But I like Bernie Sanders idea of jail reform to stop putting blacks in jail for bullshit. A joint? A fight in the street? Come on. When I was growing up in the 60's and 70's if you had a joint, just a joint, they let you make it. And if you got in a fight, they separated you and told you to go home.
Anyone that grew up in the Deep South in that era can relate to the sheriff piddling around with that air conditioner at the beginning of the clip. God, that brings back memories of the heat.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I remember another version of this same scene where Poitier puts his hands on the desk and leans toward Steiger and literally yells, "I'm a police officer!". Am I right or do I have a poor memory?
It just doesn't get any better than this !! Every line delivered, every expression, every pause,...EVERY thing in this scene is what ACTING is all about !!! The racial tension, the "City folk" vs "small town", North vs South,,,prejudices of so many kinds dealt with in a scene that lasts less than 6 minutes. Brilliant Scene, thanks for posting it !!
Life is like a railroad the people are the carriages, there are some people who are like engines they do the pushing and pulling, I guess Sydney Poitier's role in "To Sir With Love" explains it all.
This is one of the greatest scenes in the history of movies. Brilliant dialogue, acting, and directing. Poitier, Steiger, Oates. I also love the scene when Tibbs and Gillespie are up late talking and they realize they are both lonely and that their job is their whole life. Remember, Tibbs said 10 hours a day, 7 days a week when they first met. I wish that could of gone on just a tad longer before Pachy showed up.
