Sidney Poitierbecame the first Black actor to receive star billing in a major Hollywood production with his appearance opposite Tony Curtis in the 1958 escapee prisoner dramaThe Defiant Ones. Poitier also became the first Black actor to win the Best Actor Academy Award for his performance in the 1963 comedy-drama filmLilies of the Field. However,Poitier’s most groundbreaking achievementas an actor came with the 1967 mystery dramaIn the Heat of the Night, in which Poitier plays Virgil Tibbs, a Philadelphia police detective who teams with a racist white southern sheriff to solve a murder in Sparta, Mississippi.
As one of the first major Hollywood studio films to address racism in the immediate aftermath ofthe Jim Crow era,In the Heat of the Nightquickly gained a reputation for being one of the most important films of the 1960s. Nearly 60 years after its initial release,In the Heat of the Nightcontinues to resonate with audiences as a powerful historical artifact. Moreover, just as the relationship between Tibbs and his white counterpart, Chief Bill Gillespie, brilliantly played by Rod Steiger, was a progenitor of the modern buddy-cop genre,the legacy ofIn the Heat of the Nightis plainly visible in today’s film and television landscape. In particular, this can be seen in the career ofTaylor Sheridan, who has cited the film as a touchstone inspiration for his own distinctive writing style.
‘In the Heat of the Night’ Is a Character Study Disguised as a Murder Mystery
In the Heat of the Night
In the Heat of the Nightstarts as a fairly routinepolice procedural dramain which a wealthy industrialist is found murdered by a police officer on a desolate street in small-town Sparta, Mississippi, in the dead of night. However, the details of the murder investigation and its tortuous resolution are so arbitrary and convoluted that they barely hold the audience’s attention.The murder investigation primarily serves to facilitate the fascinating relationship between the town’s racist white sheriff, Bill Gillespie, and Virgil Tibbs, a Black Philadelphia police detectivewho makes his first appearance in the film at a train station, where Tibbs is arrested by said police officer on suspicion of being the murderer.
When Tibbs is arrested and brought to the local police station for his first meeting with Gillespie, he doesn’t immediately identify himself as a police officer. Just as Tibbs seems to have a probative reason for this deception, the audience is left to wonder howa falsely arrested Black manwould ordinarily be treated by Gillespie and his officers, if Gillespie didn’t sense something special about the articulate and well-dressed Tibbs.
This period of tension leads to the film’s emotional high point, when Virgil exclaims, “They call me Mister Tibbs,” in response to a racial epithet from Gillespie. After Gillespie discovers Tibbs’ true identity and is forced to partner with him on the murder investigation, Gillespie is upset, not because he doubts Tibbs’ investigative skills, but because he fears for his safety and the resulting trouble for Gillespie’s previously quiet town.
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The trajectory of this uncomfortable relationship doesn’t lead Gillespie and Tibbs to the point of hugging and kissing each other. Instead, it takes them on an incremental journey toward a level of grudging respect and mutual trust. By the end ofIn the Heat of the Night, after the lackluster murder plot has been resolved, Gillespie is able to bring himself to shake Tibbs’ hand and wish him well for his trip back home. For Gillespie and audiences in 1967, this was a sign of major progress.
The Slap Heard Around the World
WhileIn the Heat of the Nightattained cultural and historical significance for a variety of reasons,its landmark status is most attributable to an iconic scene in which Virgil Tibbs takes a shocking stand against bigotry. This is the scene in which Gillespie and Tibbs visit the lush estate of Eric Endicott, an outwardly refined and wealthy plantation owner who was a business rival of the man who is found murdered in the film’s opening scene. When Tibbs questions Endicott about his potential involvement in the murder, Endicott slaps Tibbs in the face, to which Tibbs immediately responds by slapping Endicott.
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This marked the first time a Black character had ever slapped a white character on screen in a major Hollywood production. Audiences in 1967 were as shocked by this as Endicott, who tells Tibbs, “There was a time when I could have you shot,” a clear reference to the passage ofthe Civil Rights Actin 1965. The sight of Sidney Poitier, the biggest Black star of his era, responding in this way elicited an overwhelmingly positive audience response. He is credited with catapultingIn the Heat of the Nightto box-office success. Moreover,the “slap heard around the world,” as it became known, created endless possibilities for generations of Black performerswhose careers were ushered into existence by Poitier’s powerful example.
‘In the Heat of the Night’ Is Taylor Sheridan’s Second Favorite Movie of All Time
The success ofIn the Heat of the Night, which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, empowered subsequent feature films and television shows to explore racial tension in increasingly complex ways. One of the most ardent admirers ofIn the Heat of the Nightismedia titan Taylor Sheridan,who has creditedIn the Heat of the Nightwith influencing the structure and themes of Sheridan’s numerous film and television projects.
The influence ofIn the Heat of the Nightis especially apparent in Sheridan’s career in terms of how he has consistently explored race relations in the southern United States and the uneasy alliances that have formed out of the South’s difficult history. This approach formed the bedrock of Sheridan’s Western drama television seriesYellowstoneand various feature films, like the2017 Western crime filmWind River, where an FBI agent teams with a wildlife officer in Wyoming to solve a murder. In a 2017 interview withRotten Tomatoes, Sheridan listedIn the Heat of the Nightas his second favorite film, behind only Clint Eastwood’sUnforgiven. Sheridan said:
“I think In the Heat of the Night was one of the most influential films on me. Looking back now, I can see how influential it was on my screenwriting, because here you have what looks to be a crime procedural, and it’s actually a study in race and loneliness, and a perception of an era, so I think that was one of the most influential films.”
