In the Heat of the Night

 

Title card

In the Heat of the Night was a great movie filled with action packed scenes and a good mystery that needed to be solved. My favorite character was easily the out-of-town detective, Virgil Tibbs. He is not my favorite just because he solved the mystery but because while he was juggling all of the things that had to do with the murder, he had to put up and deal with heavy racism in the rural town he just happened to find himself solving a mystery in. 

Virgil getting threatened by racists

However, I do respect the police chief who seemed to be on Virgil's side since he stopped some folks from jumping Virgil as well as standing up for him in verbal matters. What I do not like about him is how quickly he jumps to conclusions in such a serious case. He accused one of his own deputies because he changed his route while taking him and Virgil on a relay of the night of the murder. Turned out he did this because he wanted to keep his sixteen-year-old girlfriend a secret which eventually came out to the public when her older brother found out and stormed into the police station. This was a blessing in disguise though because it opened the suspect seat back up for the actual murderer.

Chief Bill Gillespie

Virgil Tibbs is also considered the finest homicide detective belonging to the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania police department but still receives mistreatment after the fact he has told them that. I noticed that, in the film, they included both blatant racism and subtle remarks like a bad look or a whisper to show the prejudice. Secondly, I realized that racism is everywhere in this movie not just in specific scenes where it was blatant. It was in the diner when the waiter told the police chief he would not serve detective Tibbs. Another good example of this is when the big brother found out about the situation that the cop and his sixteen-year-old sister were in, he would not speak of it unless Tibbs dismissed himself from the room.

Moving on, I want to talk about the importance of the slap scene which was my favorite scene in the whole movie. Basically, Virgil was being chased by a group of racists that were planning on possibly killing him but probably just beating him up beyond measure. After Virgil was fending them off for what seemed like forever, the chief stepped in and broke them up. The boys were not having it though so they told the chief that if he does not get rid of Virgil, they would. This is where the slap comes in to play, the chief slaps him quickly twice and runs them off shortly after that. This shows that the chief's character is turning out to be not to be racist or prejudice.

Finally, I think this movie was trying to relay a message to all it's viewers. This movie was made in 1967 which means we were still in the time period of the Civil Rights Movement. I think the film is trying to show us that black men and maybe women I do not know had what it took to be functional and useful members of society and that they should be treated as such.