Genre: Drama / Mystery / Crime Director(s): Norman Jewison Release Date: 01 January 1967 Movie rating: 8.0

“In the Heat of the Night” is a 1967 crime drama directed by Norman Jewison and based on the novel of the same name written by John Ball. It tells the story of a black police detective investigating a murder in a Mississippi small town inhabited by racists. It was an overwhelming commercial and critical success, winning five Academy Awards, including best picture. Sidney Poitier plays the role of Virgil Tibbs, a respected Philadelphia police detective passing through the town of Sparta, Mississippi. While waiting for a train he is picked by the racist local police as a suspect in a murder case. A wealthy Chicago industrialist planning to invest in Sparta has been murdered. Tibbs is very upset once he is cleared and can’t wait to leave Sparta, but, in an attempt to pacify the situation, his superiors order him to stay there and assist with the investigation. The local police are reluctant about cooperating with Tibbs, but after the victim’s widow threatens to pull her late husband’s investment if Tibbs doesn’t run the investigation, they agree. The prejudiced Sparta police chief Bill Gillespie (Rod Steiger) gradually learns to respect Tibbs as the unlikely pairing proceeds with the investigation that will put Tibbs against the entire racist town threatened by a black man in its midst.

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