#75 - In the Heat of the Night

Not really impressed. Sure, it was decent, maybe even good. But it wasn't earth-shattering Top 100 material. The story of a murder case in racially charged Sparta, Mississippi, 1967's "In the Heat of the Night" has such classic characters as Sidney Poitier as Virgil Tibbs (make sure you call him Mr. Tibbs) and Rod Steiger as the level-headed chief of police Bill Gillespie.

Steiger won the Academy Award for Best Actor for this film (Poitier wasn't even nominated, take that for what you will). Steiger's competition was some of the stiffest I've ever seen: Paul Newman in "Cool Hand Luke," Spencer Tracy in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?," Dustin Hoffman in "The Graduate," and Warren Beatty in "Bonnie & Clyde." And Steiger won. I honestly would put him in last place in that category, which had to be a photo-finish.

All of this is not to say that I did not enjoy the movie. It was mildly enjoyable: the story was simple enough, and the acting was above-average, I guess. I just saw it more as a hard-nosed detective story rather than one of the best movies ever.

Some movies on this list seem to be chosen based on their politics (I'm looking at you, "Do the Right Thing"). Of course this is supposed to be an indictment of the widespread racism of 1960s America (not just the South, but especially), but what does the movie really prove? What did it accomplish? When a movie tries to get too preachy, it is either done only to the choir, or its results are the opposite of its intentions.

The film has a 96% "Fresh" rating on RottenTomatoes.com, a site I put a lot of stock in. The lonely "rotten" review was written by a guy named Nick. While he was lambasted for ruining the film's perfect reputation, I agree with a lot of the things he says: "American liberals, though obviously preferable to to its racist hate-mongers, are forever so ensconced in a deluded rhetoric of color-blindness that when a picture even notices the blackness of some of its characters, many audiences will sense that political work has been accomplished." All "In the Heat of the Night" has to say is that racism exists, and it's wrong. Thank you for that, give them five Oscars. Give me a break.