August 2, 1967: "In the Heat of the Night" Premieres

Sidney Poitier (left) and Rod Steiger

August 2, 1967: The film In the Heat of the Night premieres, directed by Norman Jewison, and based on a 1965 novel by John Ball. Quincy Jones wrote the score and the theme song, which was sung by Ray Charles.

Three years earlier, Sidney Poitier had become the 1st black man to receive the Academy Award for Best Actor. Still, born in Miami and raised in The Bahamas -- and thus having both American and British citizenship -- he knew what racism existed in the American South, and did not want to film any of his scenes in the American South. Not wanting to lose him, Jewison shot all of Poitier's scenes in Sparta, Illinois -- in southern Illinois, not exactly a place that welcomed civil rights activists -- while filming scenes without him in Dyersburg and Union City, Tennessee.

Poitier played Virgil Tibbs, who is arrested by Officer Sam Wood (played by Warren Oates) at the train station in Sparta, Mississippi, for the murder of wealthy industrialist Phillip Colbert (an uncredited Jack Teter). The police chief, Bill Gillespie (Rod Steiger), looks through his wallet, and discovers a badge: Tibbs is a homicide detective with the Philadelphia police, and was visiting his mother in Sparta.

A calendar in Gillespie's office reveals the date as September 12, 1966, which suggests the date of filming. There actually is an unincorporated community in northeastern Mississippi named Sparta. The choice of Philly as Tibbs' adopted hometown cannot be a coincidence: In 1964, 3 civil rights workers had been murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi. Gillespie hears the name "Virgil," and says to Tibbs: "That's a funny name for a (N-word) boy that comes from Philadelphia! What do they call you up there?" Tibbs angrily tells him. "They call me Mister Tibbs!"

Tibbs wants to leave town on the next train, but his Chief in Philadelphia suggests he stay in Sparta to help Gillespie with the murder investigation. Though Gillespie, like many of Sparta's white residents, is racist, he and Tibbs reluctantly agree to work together. This leads to Tibbs' detective skills overruling the town doctor as to when and where the murder occurred, and the Sparta police for overlooking the alibi of a suspect, Harvey Oberst (Scott Wilson).

Tibbs initially suspects the murderer is wealthy plantation owner Eric Endicott (Larry Gates), a genteel racist and Sparta's most powerful citizen, who publicly opposed Colbert's new factory. When Tibbs begins interrogating him, Endicott slaps him, to which Tibbs responds by slapping him back. Afterwards, Endicott sends a gang of local thugs after him. Gillespie rescues Tibbs and tells him to leave town to save himself, but Tibbs is determined to stay and solve the case.

The scene of Tibbs slapping Endicott is not present in the novel. According to Poitier, the scene was almost not in the movie, and it was he who had proposed the idea of Tibbs slapping Endicott back. In the textbook Civil Rights and Race Relations in the USA, Poitier stated: "I said, 'I'll tell you what, I'll make this movie for you if you give me your absolute guarantee when he slaps me I slap him right back, and you guarantee that it will play in every version of this movie.' I try not to do things that are against nature."

It turns out that Officer Wood has a 16-year-old girlfriend, Delores Purdy (Quentin Dean). Her brother Lloyd (James Patterson -- not the mystery novelist) wants to press statutory rape charges against Wood for getting her pregnant. Tibbs wants to be present for Delores' questioning. Lloyd is offended, and gathers a lynch mob to go after Tibbs.

Tibbs pressures illegal abortionist Mama Caleba (Beah Richards), who is black, to reveal that she is about to provide an abortion for Delores. (Roe v. Wade was still over 5 years away.) When Delores arrives and sees Tibbs, she runs away. Tibbs follows Delores and confronts her armed boyfriend, Ralph (Anthony James), a cook at a local roadside diner.

Lloyd's mob arrives and holds Tibbs at gunpoint. Tibbs tells Lloyd to check Delores' purse for the $100 that Ralph gave her for an abortion, which he got from killing and robbing Colbert. Lloyd realizes Tibbs is right when he opens the purse and finds the money. After Lloyd confronts Ralph for getting his sister pregnant, Ralph shoots Lloyd, killing him. Tibbs grabs Ralph's gun as Gillespie arrives on the scene.

Ralph is arrested, and confesses to the killing of Colbert. He explains that after hitchhking a ride with Colbert and asking him for a job, Ralph attacked him at the construction site of the new factory, intending only to knock Colbert unconscious and rob him, but accidentally killing him instead.

Tibbs arrives at the station to meet the next train that will return himto Philadelphia, as Gillespie, having carried his suitcase, shakes Tibbs' hand and bids him farewell. In the final interaction between Gillespie and Tibbs, as the detective ascends the stairs onto the train, for one last time Gillespie calls out to him and sincerely tells Tibbs: "You take care, you hear?" After a moment of hesitation, Tibbs turns around to face Gillespie and gives a warm smile in reply. Gillespie smiles back at Tibbs as he boards the train.

The time of this film's release may have been a "Summer of Love" in San Francisco, but, in so many other places, it was "The Long Hot Summer" and "The Year of Living Dangerously." And it was all because of the lingering effects of what America's white aristocracy had done to black people. And to poor white people, too: A few weeks later, the Number 1 song in America would be "Ode to Billie Joe" by Bobbie Gentry, set in rural Mississippi.

Still, the film aimed to both expose and heal. It certainly did the former, and maybe it helped to do the latter, too. After all, the symbolism is undeniable. When the film begins, it's the middle of the night, and everything is dark and foreboding, and nobody feels like smiling, even before they find out there's been a murder. When it ends, it's midday, and the film's formerly antagonistic protagonists, their mission accomplished, are smiling.

The film was nominated for 7 Academy Awards, winning Best Picture, and Best Actor for Steiger. Poitier made 2 sequels, with the character having moved to San Francisco and being married to a woman named Valerie, played by actress and jazz singer Barbara McNair: They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! in 1970 and The Organization in 1971. Both films did well at the box office, but not as well as the original.

Neither of these films was based on Ball's subsequent novels about Tibbs, all of which, like the original, set the action outside Los Angeles in Pasadena, California: The Cool Cottontail (1966), Johnny Get Your Gun (1969), Five Pieces of Jade (1972), The Eyes of Buddha (1976), Then Came Violence (1980) and Singapore (1986).

Jewison seemed to specialize in making films of Broadway plays, including the musical Fiddler on the Roof (1971), the musical Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), A Soldier's Story (1984) and Agnes of God (1985). He also directed The Cincinnati Kid (1965), The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966), the original version of The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), the original version of Rollerball (1975), ...And Justice for All (1979) and The Hurricane (1999).

James Patterson died in 1972, Warren Oates in 1982, John Ball in 1988, Larry Gates in 1996, Beah Richards in 2000, Rod Steiger in 2002, Quentin Dean in 2003, Barbara McNair in 2007, Scott Wilson in 2018, Anthony James in 2020, and Sidney Poitier in 2022. As of August 2, 2022, Norman Jewison is still alive. So is Lee Grant, who played Mrs. Colbert, widow of the murder victim. (UPDATE: Jewison died in 2024.)

In 1988, NBC began a TV version of In the Heat of the Night, but played with the timeline: The show took place in the present day, but the events of the previous meeting between Tibbs and Gillespie are said to have taken place only "a few years ago." Tibbs returns to Sparta for his mother's funeral, and is persuaded by the Mayor to stay and integrate the town's all-white police force as Chief of Detectives.

Tibbs was played by Howard Rollins, and Gillespie by Carroll O'Connor, who had played Archie Bunker on All in the Family. Both Archie and Gillespie had to learn to suppress their bigotry, but, by the time the TV show began, Gillespie had proven better at it than Archie.

The show ran 4 years on NBC, then switched to CBS for 3 years, but Rollins' legal and health issues made it impossible to continue: He died in 1996, only a year and a half after the show aired its last episode. O'Connor's son, Hugh O'Connor, played Officer Lonnie Jamison. Like Rollins, Hugh had drug problems, causing him legal problems, and couldn't take it anymore, and killed himself in 1995, during the show's last days.

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August 2, 1967 was a Wednesday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the California Angels, 5-4 at Yankee Stadium. Bill Monbouquette blew a 4-3 lead in the 9th inning. Mickey Mantle went 0-for-2 with 2 walks.

* The New York Mets lost to the Houston Astros, 5-2 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* The Kansas City Athletics beat the Boston Red Sox, 8-6 at Fenway Park in Boston. Carl Yastrzemski went 2-for-4.

* A doubleheader was split at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. The Detroit Tigers won the opener, 4-2. Al Kaline went 1-for-4 with a home run and 2 RBIs in the 1st game, then sat out the nightcap. The Baltimore Orioles won that, 2-1. Over the 2 games, Brooks Robinson went 4-for-8 with a home run and 2 RBIs, and Frank Robinson went 1-for-5 with 3 walks and an RBI on a bases-loaded walk.

* The Washington Senators beat the Minnesota Twins, 5-4 at District of Columbia Stadium in Washington. (It was renamed Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in 1969.) Hank Allen singled Ed Stroud home with the winning run in the bottom of the 11th inning.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-1 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Atlanta Braves, 7-3 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Pete Rose went 3-for-4 with 2 home runs, a walk and 2 RBIs. Hank Aaron went 4-for-5 with an RBI.

* The St. Louis Cardinals swept their arch-rivals, the Chicago Cubs, 4-2 and 7-1 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Over the 2 games, Lou Brock went 6-for-10 with a stolen base and 2 RBIs. Ernie Banks went 1-for-7 with a home run, a walk and an RBI. Steve Carlton won the 2nd game for the Cardinals, but Bob Gibson did not pitch in either game: This was during his time on the Disabled List with a broken leg.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 3-2 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Dick Allen singled Billy Cowan home with the winning run in the top of the 10th inning.

* And the San Francisco Giants beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 7-2 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente both hit home runs.