April 11, 2024: I Am AmericanStudying Sidney Poitier: Two 1967 Classics

[Thiscoming weekend marks the 60thanniversary of Sidney Poitier becoming the first Black actor to win a Best Actor Oscar.So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of Poitier performances, leading upto a special post on a handful of 21C actors carrying his legacy forward!]

On standoutspeeches and sweet sendoffs in Poitier’s pair of 1967 releases.

By 1967Sidney Poitier had starred in 24 films, including the 1963 release that won himthe Academy Award 60 years ago this week (and on which I’ll focus in tomorrow’spost); in early 1967 he would star in another, the English educational drama To Sir, with Love. Whichis to say, he was by this time already very well-established, if not indeedAmerica’s most beloved screen actor. But having said all of that, I would stillmake the case that it was his second and third 1967 releases which hold up thebest among all of Poitier’s films, and which not coincidentally happen tocomprise (at the time and ever since) two of the most powerful depictions ofrace in America ever put on the silver screen: the police procedural In the Heat of the Night,which co-starred Rod Steiger and debuted in August 1967; and the domestic melodrama(with plenty of comic moments) Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, whichco-starred Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy (in his final performance, as hepassed away in June) and debuted in December 1967.

WhilePoitier’s character is far more central to Heatthan to Guess (where for much of thefilm he takes an understandable backseat to the powerhouse couple of Hepburn andTracy), both films offer him the chance to deliver standout, stirring speechesabout race in America (among other topics). In Heat those speeches tend to be brief, to the point, and righteouslyenraged, as in the film’s two most famous moments: “They call me Mr.Tibbs!” and the slapheard ‘round the world. In GuessPoitier’s most extended speech and scene is far more slow-building, emotionallynuanced, and multilayered: a frustrated yet lovingconversation with his father (the great character actor Roy E. Glenn, Sr.) abouttheir respective generations and perspectives. But what all these speeches andscenes share is a profound degree of emotional truth, the authentic humanitythat Poitier brought to every performance and that makes both of these charactersfar more than just statements about race or civil rights (although they areboth that as well).

Althoughfull of more fraught and painful moments, both of these films end on sweetnotes, and interestingly ones that are given to Poitier’s white male co-stars(while they are addressed to his characters). Spencer Tracy’s long finalmonologue in Guess is justifiablyfamous, not least because it is clearly addressed to his actual wife Hepburn (henceher very real tears throughout) as well as to the characters by Poitier and hisfiancé (Tracy’s character’s daughter). Rob Steiger’s final linein Heat is as brief and to the point asPoitier’s explosions earlier in the film, but it is no less moving than Tracy’smonologue (and just as important to the film’s arc and themes), and it elicits oneof Poitier’s most beautiful smiles in all his film performances. And while bothof these endings are performed by other actors, I would argue that both momentshave been created largely (if not, in Heatat least, entirely) by the presence and influence of Poitier’s characters, andspecifically by that combination of emotional humanity and civic inspirationabout which I wrote above.

LastPoitier post tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other Poitier films you’d highlight?