While a sleepy Mississippi town tries its best to ignore the turning racial tides elsewhere in the nation, it’s shocked by the early-morning murder of an important businessman. A visiting Philadelphia police detective is initially suspected, primarily for being a black stranger with a fat wallet, then grudgingly enlisted to help solve the crime. In turning over clues, he also uncovers the flabby underbelly of an ugly southern society that sorely needs a kick in the pants.

Many such films from the heart of the civil rights era tend to be narrow and stilted; easy morality plays with limited desire to directly confront the hard truths. This one’s an exception - there’s a tangible sense of important, uncomfortable change churning right on the surface. A tribe of middle-aged white guys, suddenly forced to challenge their lifelong prejudice. A proud, big city black man who struggles to mask his indignance in the face of slack-jawed (and loose-lipped) yokels. Both slip in the wrong direction at times, giving way to knee-jerks and outbursts, but growth often comes hard and real change is never a straight line.

Though well-written, with a multitude of complex characters and a crafty mystery at the core of it all, _In the Heat of the Night_ is really all about the performances. Key among those are the dual leads, Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, who keenly embody the roiling emotions of their parts. Poitier’s barely-contained rage is intense and understandable; a refined man doing his best to maintain his composure in an impossible situation. By contrast, Steiger’s dumpy police chief fumbles and falters his way through an awakening, grumpy and bigoted but gradually willing to change. Their tense arrangement never quite becomes a friendship, but it does become mutually respectful, and in the end that might be even more meaningful. An excellent, timely effort that had no qualms over pushing the limits of a very difficult, dangerous social atmosphere.

Warren Oates ("Wood") steps from his patrol car in the quiet town of Sparta and discovers the body of "Colbert" - a controversial local employer. Shortly afterwards he discovers "TIbbs" (Sidney Poitier) sitting waiting for the 4.05 train. He is black and there is a wealthy white murder victim on the street - ergo, two and two... Next thing, though, the police chief "Gillespie" (Rod Steiger) is interrogating their visitor and discovers that he is an accomplished homicide detective. Initially inclined to just send him on his way, "Gillespie" decides - with a bit of persuasion from the widow (Lee Grant) that it might make sense for "Tibbs" to do some of the investigating himself. Backs up, heckles raised, the white supremacists are outraged and astonished in equal measure as the police allow him to follow his nose and to uncover some rather nasty little home truths about their community and the people who dwell within. On the face of it, it's about racial prejudice and perhaps, offers a rather simplistic get out solution. Or, maybe, it demonstrates that the best cure for ignorance is exposure to that which we loathe or don't understand and let behaviours and experience alter these views? There is room for both perspectives as we evaluate the police attitudes to this clever and slightly arrogant man who clearly considers himself to be as superior to them as they to him. Fifty-five years on, it's hard to appreciate just how profound this kind cinema was in alerting the US population to the bigotries in their own backyard, and Poitier always was a poised and measured actor when it came to making a point without shoving it down your throat! Steiger is also on good form here. He underplays his role, his character has flaws - sure - but as we progress there appears to be a willingness to mature and his performance manages that well. Small town life, small town mentality - with a racist, xenophobic, tinge. Well worth a watch.

I have a love/hate thing for how this ended. It looked good but it was too dark... visually. I think they were going for a source lighting thing and failed a bit. It was realistically dark but not Hollywood viewer in mind dark.

Anyway the bad is out of the way, the good is the performance, it was really Oscar worthy in the truest sense, and the evolution of both the lead character and the supporting cast right down to the town around him was legendary. Subtle, but legendary.

It even had a sense of humor, little jokes in it that were probably added to break the tension, but added in a way that you have to look for them so it doesn't break.

Start to finish it is brilliant.

Poiter was one of the greats and makes the film worth watching all on his lonesome. His searing, uncompromising Mr. Tibbs in a town smothering in its hatred of him is mesmerizing. The things the man can do with his eyes, taking everything in and a million thoughts he’s thought a million times amongst people like these racing in them. And the slapping scene is still a hell of a moment even today with how instant, how instinctual it is. It’s a given and given all the more weight for it.

The rest of the film doesn’t quite live up to Poiter’s work. It gets a little too enamored with Gilliespie. He’s a test run for characters like Rockwell’s in 3 Billboards, the fact his actor won an Oscar for it while Poiter wasn’t nominated a testament to that. The racism is less something to be condemned or commented on so much as a vehicle for dramatic tension, there’s an odd implication that Tibbs is being too harsh on this town and prejudiced in his own way, and the ending is a saccharine note to end things on. But with Poiter giving his all, the film still manages to hold a weight and heat to it that endures.