In the Heat of the Night is best summed up by the restrained rage and dignity captured on Sidney Poitier’s face during the opening scenes. He utters few words but speaks volumes through his eyes and manner. It’s all there—the implied history, the necessary caution, the awareness, the fear, the anger, and the pain. It’s hard to watch him being mistreated and misjudged by the incompetent, prejudiced law officers in a rural Southern town. This movie took guts to make in 1967, particularly by such A-listers as Rod Steiger, Lee Grant, director Norman Jewison, and the aforementioned Poitier, who received death threats after crossing the Mason-Dixon Line to film a key scene.

The plot centers around a Black policeman from Philadelphia named Virgil Tibbs (Poitier), who finds himself the unwilling homicide expert in Sparta, Mississippi, trying to solve a murder case. Initially, Tibbs is the prime suspect, at least according to local officer Sam Wood (Warren Oates), who takes him into custody without questioning him, based on the color of his skin and his location at the train depot in the middle of the night. Officer Wood brings him straight to Police Chief Gillespie (Steiger), who discovers during a tense interrogation that Tibbs is a fellow officer from Philly on his way home. Steiger, who won an Oscar for his performance, brilliantly captures the resentment, confusion, jealousy, disdain, and reluctant respect that he must extend to this educated, well-paid, dark-skinned colleague from the North. Watching Gillespie struggle with his emotions is the highlight of this grim portrait of a town buried in the long-standing tradition of racism.

Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger.

After Tibbs invalidates their second suspect Harvey Oberst (Scott Wilson), it’s clear Gillespie and his buddies in blue are in over their heads. Unexpected pressure is applied when Tibbs’s sergeant back in Philly asks him to stay in Sparta to help with the investigation as a gesture of goodwill. Then a distraught Mrs. Colbert (Lee Grant), the widow of the murder victim, turns the screw even tighter when she threatens to leave town, taking her husband’s proposed business along with her. She promises she’ll do it if they don’t keep Tibbs in charge of the investigation. It seems her late spouse Phillip Colbert, a Northern industrialist, was planning to build a factory in Sparta, employing hundreds of workers. Desperate to stop the inevitable outcry from his town if the deal falls through, Gillespie asserts that many of these anticipated employees would be Black, appealing to Tibbs’s social conscience, should he decide to walk away. He knows, at this point, Tibbs would just love to teach the “local boys” a lesson by solving this case.

Tibbs accepts the challenge—but his motivations are elevated to near obsession once he and Gillespie drive up to meet a genteel plantation owner named Endicott, who publicly opposed the new factory. It should be mentioned that while the majority of filming took place in a safer northern state (Illinois), the plantation scene with its sprawling cotton field couldn’t be replicated anywhere but the South. They filmed it in Tennessee, despite the danger involved. As it turns out, this scene depicting Endicott (Larry Gates) in his greenhouse is the most controversial and memorable in the movie.

Larry Gates, Sidney Poitier, and Rod Steiger.

A conversation about orchids is a pleasant enough icebreaker until it’s clear to Endicott that he himself is a suspect in the murder. Endicott approaches Tibbs and slaps him across the face. Tibbs returns the blow in equal measure, almost as a ricocheted reflex. This exchange happens so fast it’s startling, but in 1967, it sent shockwaves through audiences, with polar-opposite reactions of livid gasps and empowered cheers. Endicott fights back tears as he proclaims there was a time not long ago when he could have had Tibbs shot for this. The investigation continues, and it’s obvious that Tibbs is hell-bent on proving Endicott’s guilt. However, more evidence reveals just the opposite. As horrible as he is, Endicott is innocent. Gillespie points out to Tibbs that his personal feelings are clouding his judgment. “You’re no better than the rest of us,” he says with a laugh.

The time bomb ticks away for Tibbs after word gets out about his retaliatory slap. Local White supremacists are out to teach him a lesson, and even the police can’t guarantee his safety any longer. Gillespie advises him to hop the next train out of town, but soon Tibbs is led to a backroom abortionist named Mama Caleba (Beah Richards), the one person who can identify the murderer. It’s fascinating to see Poitier and Richards play such different roles than that of a devoted mother and her soon-to-be-married son, as they did in another classic movie from the same year: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

Beah Richards.

In the end, an unverbalized respect is established between Tibbs and Gillespie. The crime may be solved, but the greater issue at hand is still at large. These law officers are two people from two different worlds who existed in the same country in 1967 … and still exist to this day.

In the Heat of the Night