In The Heat Of The Night

E:
The Oscar race 1967. The turn of the tide. Moobies were different before then; they weren't the same after. 5 moobies from 5 different corners of the cinematic world. A collection that signaled the end of an era.
Arthur Penn's Bonnie And Clyde was so fresh, so hard hitting, so...cool! The Graduate - satirizing the bourgeoisie. Doctor Dolittle - a tepid studio musical, the lone holdover. Guess Who's Coming To Dinner - a soft approach to America's bubbling racial turmoil (also starring Sidney by the way). And In The Heat Of The Night - a much harder take.
A man is found murdered in a small Mississippi town. The white sheriff and his deputies arrest a black man only because he's unfamiliar and he's at the train station. They figure he's looking to escape. Turns out he's a big city detective and he's much better equipped to handle the murder case than the rest of them combined. Of course none of these white men want to admit that a black man could be better than any of them, but the sheriff has to swallow his pride and begrudgingly acccept his help.
It's a great moobie.
First of all, Sidney Poitier was amazing. He should have been nominated for his work and the fact that he wasn't speaks to the fact that although the academy was ready to address the issue of racial tension, it wasn't ready to embrace it. Sidney portrayed Mister Tibbs with such subtlety and fire and cool all at the same time, and Rod Steiger's Sheriff Gillespie was the perfect counterpoint. Conflicted and proud, he finally comes to respect Tibbs as they work together to solve the murder.

The Academy Award Ceremony was postponed that year due to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination.

G:
I finally saw the scene where he says "They call me MR. TIBBS" whooo hoo! nice. Oh, and when he slapped the rich white man, guuuuuuurl. This one is worth watching.