BY LEE PFEIFFER
The year 1967 marked the high point of Sidney Poitier's screen
career. He starred in three highly acclaimed box office hits: "To Sir,
With Love", "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and "In the Heat of the
Night". The fact that Poitier did not score a Best Actor Oscar
nomination that year had less to do with societal prejudices (he had
already won an Oscar) than the fact that he was competing with himself
and split the voter's choices for his best performance. "In the Heat of
the Night" did win the Best Picture Oscar and immortalized Poitier's
performance as Virgil Tibbs, a Philadelphia detective who finds himself
assigned to assist a redneck sheriff (Rod Steiger, who did win
the Oscar that year for his performance in this film) in a town in the
deep south that has experienced a grisly unsolved murder. When Steiger's
character, resentful for having to work with a black man, refers to
Tibbs as "boy" and asks what they call him back in Philadelphia, he
replies "They call me Mister Tibbs!", thereby uttering
what would become one of the cinema's most iconic lines of dialogue. In
the film, Poitier plays Tibbs as a man of mystery. Little is unveiled
about his personal life, which adds immeasurably to his mystique. He
proves to be highly intelligent, logical and courageous, though
refreshingly, not immune from making mistakes and misjudgments. The
reaction to the movie was so good that, Hollywood being Hollywood,
United Artists became convinced that Tibbs could be brought back to star
in a "tentpole" series of crime thrillers. These have previously been released as individual Blu-ray titles by Kino Lorber and they are now available as a double feature set.
First up is the 1970 release, "The Call me MISTER Tibbs!" Aside from
Poitier's commanding presence as the same character, there is virtually
no connection between this Virgil Tibbs and the one seen in the previous
film. The screenplay by Alan Trustman, who wrote the winners "The
Thomas Crown Affair" and "Bullitt", softens the Tibbs character to the
point that he resembles one of those unthreatening TV gumshoes. When we
first see him, he is now in the San Francisco Police Department, though
Trustman doesn't provide even a single line of dialogue to explain how
he got there. He's apparently been there for some time, too, because
Tibbs has suddenly acquired a wife (Barbara McNair) and a young son and
daughter. The movie opens with the brutal murder of a call girl who
lived in a pricey apartment. Evidence points to Tibbs' old friend Logan
Sharpe (Martin Landau), a firebrand street preacher and activist who
enjoys a wide following and who is galvanizing the community to vote in a
politically controversial referendum. Sharpe professes his innocence
and Tibbs sets out to acquit him and find the real killer. The trail
quickly leads to a confusing mix of motley characters and red herrings,
among them Anthony Zerbe and Ed Asner. Poitier is never less than
impressive even when playing a watered-down version of a once gritty
character. However, his impact is diminished by the sappy screenplay
which allocates an abundance of time showing Tibbs dealing with
day-to-day family living. He flirts with his wife and offers life
lessons to his son that border on the extremes of political
incorrectness. When he catches the lad smoking, Tibbs decides to teach
the pre-teen a lesson by inviting him to join him in smoking Churchill
cigars and drinking some scotch. (Most of our dads would probably have
employed methods that were slightly more "conventional".) This domestic
gibberish reduces the character of Tibbs to a big screen version of
Brian Keith's Uncle Bill from the "Family Affair" TV series. Director
Gordon Douglas, normally very underrated, handles the pedantic script in
a pedantic manner, tossing in a few impressive action scenes including
one in which Poitier chases Zerbe on foot seemingly through half of San
Francisco in the movie's best sequence. The scenes between Poitier and
Landau bristle with fine acting but they only share a limited amount of
screen time. Quincy Jones provides a lively, funky jazz score but the
film never rises above the level of mediocrity.
Poitier returned to the screen for the last time as Virgil Tibbs in 1971
in "The Organization". Compared to the previous outing, this one is
superior on most levels. The script by James R. Webb is just as
confusing but there is a grittiness to the production and the character
of Tibbs is toughened up a bit. Thankfully, the scenes of his home life
with wife and kids are kept to a minimum. The film, well directed by Don
Medford (his final production), begins with an inspired caper in which a
group of masked men stage an audacious and elaborate infiltration of an
office building owned by some shady mob characters. They abscond with
millions in cocaine. Tibbs is assigned to the case and is shocked when
the culprits secretly approach him and admit they stole the drugs. Turns
out they are community activists who wanted to prevent the cocaine from
hitting the streets. However, they want Tibbs to know that they did not
commit a murder that occurred on the premises of the office. They claim
someone else did the dirty deed and is trying to pin it on them. Tibbs
believes their story and goes against department protocols by keeping
the information secret from his superiors while he works with the
activists to crack the case. At some point the plot became so tangled
that I gave up trying to figure out who was who and just sat back to
enjoy the mayhem. Tibbs' withholding of information from the police
department backfires on him and he ends up being suspended from the
force. Predictably, he goes rogue in order to take on organized crime
figures who are trying to get the drugs back. "The Organization" is
fairly good Seventies cop fare capped off by a lengthy action sequence
imaginatively set in a subway tunnel that is under construction. The
supporting cast is impressive and includes reliable Sheree North,
scruffy Allen Garfield and up-and-comers Raul Julia, Ron O'Neal and a
very brief appearances by Max Gail and Damon Wilson. Barbara McNair
returns as Mrs. Tibbs but her sole function is to provide attractive
window dressing. Gil Melle provides a hip jazz score.
Both films boast fine transfers but the only bonus features are the original trailers.
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