‘They Call me Mister Tibbs!’ In the Heat of the Night and its Message of Harmony amidst the Long Hot Summer of 1967

Before we begin, give this clip a watch.

Watching this scene almost fifty years after its release, I still get goosebumps. After all, can you imagine how groundbreaking this must have been at the time? At the height of a decade ‘haunted by black-white confrontations’[1], In the Heat of the Night had white audiences ‘cheering’ for the black man.[2] No small feat by any stretch of the imagination.

Similar to what Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, and Little Richard had achieved in the 1950s, Sidney Poitier’s performance as Virgil Tibbs broke down the perceived barrier of race for many. Where people overlooked the colour of these artists and simply enjoyed the rock ‘n’ roll, many looked beyond the colour of Sidney Poitier’s skin and simply enjoyed his performance. Instead of seeing a Negro, they saw Mister Tibbs: a human being no different to you or I.

At its heart, the film is about the emotional journey taken by two men. More specifically it depicts the evolution, almost enlightenment, of one man’s views towards another race. These men are Virgil Tibbs, an African American police detective from Philadelphia, and Bill Gillespie, the white police chief of Sparta, Mississippi.

The association between the two begins when Virgil is wrongly arrested (I might add at gunpoint) for the murder of a wealthy white industrialist. Of course, because Virgil is a black man with money, his guilt is automatically assumed. ‘What d’ya hit him with?’ asks Gillespie upon their introduction at the station.[3] ‘Coloured can’t earn that kind of money.’[4] 

Not a great start then.

Upon the realisation of Virgil’s detective status, the two are forced to work together where a mutual respect begins to blossom. Gillespie goes from a place of sheer hatred towards Virgil to saving him from a lynch mob and sharing a drink with him at his house. Gillespie has evidently undergone an emotional transformation. His perceptions of Virgil and race have clearly been altered.

This is not to say that Gillespie has been ‘cured’ of his racism so to speak. No, this would be too clean-cut for a film that deals with such a serious issue. It would serve to brush-off southern racism as an issue that was easily solved. Despite an apparent fondness growing towards Virgil, Gillespie continues to make racist remarks throughout. Even in the most poignant of moments such as the aforementioned drink they share, Gillespie addresses Virgil as ‘black boy’.[5]  In doing so, In the Heat of the Night creates a realistic depiction of just how entrenched racism was in the South, while at the same time suggesting there was potential for change. 

The message of the film was one of harmony then, ‘that colour was less important than the quality of the human being.’[6] Released at ‘the height of the long, hot summers’ which saw 250 African Americans killed ‘in nearly 300 race riots between 1965 and 1968’, this message had never been so crucial.[7]

‘Virgil...you take care, y’hear.’[8]

By Jordan Newton

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[1] Lester J. Keyser, Andre H. Ruszkowski, The Cinema of Sidney Poitier: The Black Man’s Changing Role on the American Screen, (San Diego: A. S. Barnes & Company, Inc., 1980), p. 105

[2] Mark Harris, Scenes from a Revolution The Birth of a New Hollywood, (Edinburgh: Canongate Books Ltd., 2008)

[3] Norman Jewison, In the Heat of the Night, 1967

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Lester J. Keyser, Andre H. Ruszkowski, The Cinema of Sidney Poitier, (San Diego: A. S. Barnes & Company, Inc., 1980), pp.111-112

[7] Emma Hamiltin, Troy Saxby, ‘“Dragging the Chain”: Linking Civil Rights and African American Representation in The Defiant Ones and In the Heat of the Night’, Black Camera, Vol. 3, No.1, (2011), pp. 75-95, (p.90)

[8] Norman Jewison, In the Heat of the Night, 1967