In the Heat of the Night (1967)

Directed by Norman Jewison

Starring Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates, Lee Grant, Larry Gates, James Patterson, William Schallert, and Beah Richards

This film was very important when it was released. I feel, however, that it has lost some of its pop in the four decades since. Racism is clearly still a problem in this country, but it needs to be addressed in stronger terms than it is in this film. In the Heat of the Night also illustrates one of my biggest problems of movies dealing with rascism in the 1960s. In the midst of the civil rights movement, Hollywood did churn out several movies denouncing rascism, but they only really employed one actor. Almost all of these movies, with the exception of A Raisin in the Sun, which featured an mostly-black cast, featured Sidney Poiter and a cast of whites. Other black actors may have played small supporting roles, but most of them, like In the Heat of the Night, only featured one black lead, and the producers enlisted Poitier to play it. It would have been nice if Hollywood, which acted like it cared a great deal about the rascism problem, could have given significant work to more than one man.

Other nominees: Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn), Doctor Dolittle (Richard Fleischer), The Graduate (Mike Nichols), and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (Stanley Kramer)