Kerri Battles the AFI’s Top 100 – # 75: In the Heat of the Night

In the Heat of the Night is one of The Top 100 I’ve been looking forward to watching since I began this project a few months back. I knew Sidney Poitier starred alongside possibly Carroll O’Connor and that, whoever the portly white dude was, he was supposed to call Poitier “Mr. Tibbs.” Based on that and the fact that it was a Sidney Poitier film from the 60s, I also figured there were going to be some racial tensions that resolved themselves once everyone learned that, in the end, we’re all just people after all. I wasn’t too far off, either. All I missed was the sweaty, controversial murder that drives the film along. Well, that and the fact that Carroll O’Connor was only in the less awesome 80s TV show remake.

Explain to me how Rod Steiger & Carroll O’Connor aren’t the same guy.

In the Heat of the Night begins with a smalltown cop in Sparta, Mississippi, on his nightly rounds. He grabs a soda and a wedge of pie from the creepiest, smarmiest diner cook ever, then drives by the house of a pretty little exhibitionist enjoying her own soda naked by the window. After a few moments’ pause to enjoy the view, Smalltown Cop drives on. He eventually happens upon a body in the middle of Main Street that turns out to be the New Factory Tycoon upon whom the entire town had pinned its hopes. In an effort to wrap the case up quickly, our Smalltown Cop arrests the first likely suspect he passes — a black man quietly waiting for the train in a nice suit with money in his wallet. As Chief Gillespie interrogates his suspect, he discovers that the man they’ve arrested for Existing While Black is actually Detective Virgil Tibbs, a homicide expert from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (REPRESENT!). During a phone call to his chief to verify his identity, Tibbs is ordered to stay in Sparta and solve their murder for them because, “They’ve got a murder on their hands. They don’t know what to do with it.” From here, Tibbs out-cops the chief, out-autopsies the ME, and gets chased and attacked by a bunch of Good Ol’ Boys for his efforts. He and Gillespie bond over mutually tragic bachelorhood and acknowledge their own prejudices, which allows Tibbs to realize the murderer wasn’t the racist Cotton Baron who slapped him and called him “boy” after all! It was actually Creepy Diner Cook all along because he had to pay for Exhibition Girl’s abortion somehow! And, in the end, we’re all just people after all.

You don’t bitch-slap Sidney Poitier. Or a Philly cop. YOU ESPECIALLY DON’T BITCH-SLAP SIDNEY POITIER WHEN HE’S PLAYING A PHILLY COP.

Let’s just get this out of the way right now: In the Heat of the Night is an abysmal excuse for a crime drama. It’s jumpy and disjointed with a surprising lack of actual detecting ever shown. Tibbs apparently has an unbelievable amount of CSI-type knowledge — an amount  usually supported by an entire ensemble cast that includes obscure specialists and genius science nerds — but we see very little of it in action. In the first few minutes of the film, Tibbs corrects the ME’s time of death with pinpoint accuracy simply by rubbing the corpse’s jowls. It’s impressive and leaves every racist asshole in the room agog. After that, though, he basically just says things that turn out to be true. Valid reasons or sciencey explanations are sort of given, but we never actually see how he arrives at these conclusions. At one point, Gillespie is trying to keep Tibbs safe from a roving band of lynch-happy rednecks when he finds the detective alone at the remote construction site of Dead Tycoon’s new factory. When Gillespie chastises Tibbs for being exposed and unprotected, Tibbs simply tells him that the FBI Crime Lab found pine bits embedded in Tycoon’s crushed skull. Obviously, that means he was murdered at his own construction site with one of those wooden stakes tied with orange ribbon, then dropped in the middle of Main Street afterwards. Later, Gillespie arrests Smalltown Cop for the murder because he made a large bank deposit in roughly the amount found to be missing from Dead Tycoon’s wallet. But when Exhibitionist Girl comes in to report Smalltown Cop for rape, Tibbs realizes Smalltown Cop must be innocent because he can’t drive two cars at once! If that last sentence doesn’t make sense, it’s not my fault. I’m only working with what I’ve been given and, in the way of coherent detective stories, I wasn’t given all that much. Of course, a coherent detective story isn’t what puts In the Heat of the Night on the AFI’s list.

In film school, I was presented with the concept that society creates media creates society. That is, a society can be influenced and directed by the mass media it generates and consumes. This idea is something that has since shaded everything I watch. In this instance, the murder case that appears to be the heart of In the Heat of the Night is really just the backdrop. It’s nothing more than an incredibly contrived excuse to place an educated and strong black [Philadelphian!] character in the middle of 1960s Stars-and-Bars-racist Mississippi to literally and figuratively smack down some ignorant fucking white people. And it. Is. Glorious. If you slept through that year of high school, it might interest you to know that there was a turbulent period in US history (also known as roughly the first 200 years) where openly hostile and violent racism was socially acceptable, particularly those states below the Mason-Dixon line. Sidney Poitier actually had to refuse to film in Mississippi because of that time he and Harry Belafonte were almost murdered by the KKK. A film like this — a film that bucked stereotypes on both sides, acknowledged that we all harbor preconceived notions about others, and dared to light black actors so they’d show up on screen as more than just eyes and teeth — was the sort of controversy we needed on the big screen to help facilitate change. I may crack jokes about how, in the end, we’re all just people after all, but in 2014, I (sort of) have that luxury. Almost 50 years later, we don’t really see lynchings or burning crosses in the US anymore. Hell, most modern bigots highlight themselves by prefacing bigoted statements with things like, “I’m not racist, but…” or “The shooting of that unarmed black teenager wasn’t racially motivated because….” At least in 2014, even most racists know it’s not socially acceptable to admit to it, let alone be vocal and violent about it. And that’s something … right? … Right? — KSmith