For this weeks edition of Kenaz's vintage video picks I've decided to review some of the best of one of the greatest actors ever, Sidney Potitier. My first indulgence into the cinematic brilliance of Mr. Ponitier's was as a teen when I saw the 1967 classic "In the Heat of the Night".
In the movie Potitier plays Virgil Tibbs. A Philadelphia Homicide detective home to see his mother in the rural south. He is arrested after a wealthy northern factory owner is murdered, racist Mississippi cops accuse the African American detective of the crime. Once they learn that he is a renowned in his home state, they reluctantly seek his help. As Tibbs, Potitier displays his acting skills and depicts a skilled black detective , who is willing to show patience and percevierance in his quest to win the respect, protection, and ultimately friendship of the Police Chief Bill Gillepsie (Rod Steiger).
In 1970 Potitier reserected the character for the less then steller sequell "They Call Me Mister Tibbs". Poitier's performance is masterful. But the writing is pedestrian, the pacing too slow, and the resolution ultimately unsatisfactory. The movie does offer one of the most memorable character introductions in cinematic history when Detective Tibbs is asked who he is by a less than respectable underling of the police department. Potitier turns into the camera and delivers the line "They call me (pause) Mr. Tibbs" A simple line that set the tone for movie. This was a skilled black man who wasn't going to lay down for anyone.
I have seen now a good portion of Sidney Poitier's some fifty movies and enjoyed watching him transform himself into each of his characters. From a rebellious student in "Blackboard Jungle" (1955) to Nelson Mandela in the made for tv bi-opic "Mandela and de Klerk(1997), Poitier showed why he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2002.
Some of my other favourites from Sidney Poitier include,
The 1963 film "Lilies of the Field". The film that until 2001 sported the only African-American Best Actor or Actress Oscar winner (Halle Berry,"Monster's Ball"). Sidney Poitier (in an excellent Oscar-winning performance) stars as an unemployed handyman whose car breaks down in New Mexico. He is greeted by a group of German nuns led by Lilia Skala (Oscar-nominated). The nuns are in desperate need of a church and it just seems that Poitier is not going to be able to shake Skala and the various duties she imposes on him.
In the 1967 classic,"Guess Who's Coming to Dinner". Poitier starred opposite the legendary couple of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. The movie showcased an unusual bi-product of that resulted from the clash between 1960's liberalism and racial fanaticism. Superb acting and dialog is what overcomes the dated aspect. Hepburn and Tracy are Matt and Christina Drayton a wealthy and successful couple who have a daughter named Joey played by Katherine Houghton who comes home and tells them she has met the man of her dreams. The only problem in the story is that he is of a different race. Sidney Poitier is John Wade Prentice a successful individual who is the man of Joeys dreams and is of the different race. The Draytons are people who in theory hold no prejudice toward any one regardless of their race, color or creed but now have those same views put harshly to the test when it's their own daughter involved.
Courtesy of http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001627/
In Sidney Poitier’s feature film debut (1950's "No Way Out"), "racial tensions simmer, then flare into violence when two white criminals wounded in a shootout are brought into the care of Dr. Brooks (Poitier), the only black doctor at a city hospital. When one brother suddenly dies, the surviving brother accuses Dr. Brooks of killing him and instigates slayings and racial rioting to get revenge. Provocative and nuanced, NO WAY OUT dramatizes the different threads of race relationships, from indifference to blind hatred, that are woven through American society. Starring black actors (it was also Ossie Davis's first film) and filmed at the very cusp of the civil rights movement, only 10 years after Hattie McDaniel became the first African-American actor to win an Oscar(Best Supporting Actress), NO WAY OUT was a leap ahead of the mainstream film industry in its head-on tackling of racial prejudice. The script, written by director Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Lesser Samuels, was nominated for an Oscar."
Courtesy of http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&id=1800299207&cf=info&intl=us
Kenaz,
