Sidney Poitier

  • They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970)

    They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2020) The nice thing about They Call Me Mister Tibbs! is that anyone with the slightest amount of 1960s movie literacy will know exactly what they’re getting—a further adventure with the protagonist of In the Heat of the Night. Sidney Poitier once again plays Tibbs, this time in his urban element. Employed in San Francisco, Tibbs investigates the death of a prostitute and uncovers a run-of-the-mill set of suspects, lies, and telling details about circa-1970 big-city crime and consequences. While Poitier is as great as always, the film itself plays like a middle-of-the-road crime movie of the week, with decent but not particularly impressive narrative and production values. This many not be as much of a problem as you think: Watch this film alongside Dirty Harry (also set in San Francisco, also during the early-1970s) and They Call Me Mister Tibbs! will strike you as somewhat more realistic and less grim as many of the urban decay crime movies of the era. It’s clearly a few steps down from the first film (and arguably not even related except for the title, considering the differences in characterization) but it’s not necessarily all that bad. The period detail may even make it a bit more fun today than back then.

  • Shoot to Kill (1988)

    Shoot to Kill (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, March 2020) While Shoot to Kill doesn’t really manage to get above its B-movie intentions, it does have a few things going for it. The most obvious one is the setting, as this criminal chase thriller takes us far from the urban skyline of San Francisco all the way up north to the Rockies, eventually crossing the border into Canada and finally ending in Vancouver. The Canadian content doesn’t stop there, as Shoot to Kill is an early effort from Ottawa-born director Roger Spottiswoode. The unusual nature of the film’s setting is bolstered by interesting casting, whether it’s a rare late-career role of Sidney Poitier, Kirstie Alley looking her best, or Bart the Bear doing his usual thing. The least one can say is that Spottiswoode manages to put all of the ingredients together competently: Shoot to Kill moves forward steadily, does well with its budget and comfortably executes the buddy-movie thriller template it’s given. It’s certainly watchable, even if it falls into the glass-half-full-or-half-empty neverland of middle-of-the-road films that are both better and worse than they could have been.

  • The Defiant Ones (1958)

    The Defiant Ones (1958)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) I know, from 2020’s vantage point, that Tony Curtis has played a number of dramatic and unlikable roles in his career. But there’s a good reason why his performance as a racist criminal in The Defiant Ones is still surprising: Even today, well after the end of his career, Curtis is far better remembered as a funny romantic protagonist than anything else. His enduring renown for comedy makes his performance in The Defiant Ones still compelling: In this socially-minded Stanley Kramer film, he plays an unrepentant white racist who finds himself chained to a black man (the excellent Sidney Poitier in one of his earliest performances) while escaping a chain gang. There’s little surprise as to where the film’s overall dramatic arc is going, but some of the details along the way are interesting—the portrait of the American South, with its heavily racist atmosphere and punitive justice, is asphyxiating and almost alien. The film is at its strongest in leaning upon its literalized metaphor of two races chained together, finding a way to get past their animosity for a common goal. The stark black-and-white cinematography works in favour of the film more often than not, leaving all the space necessary for the actors to show their skills playing off each other. By contemporary standards, The Defiant Ones can feel a bit rough on messaging, but is not really any less effective for it.

  • Lilies of the Field (1963)

    Lilies of the Field (1963)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) Sidney Poitier won his Oscar thanks to his performance in this film and it’s easy to see why—playing an itinerant handyman who comes across an eccentric group of nuns during his travels, he is the glue that holds the film together. The nuns are not only recent immigrants unable to talk much English: they need help building a chapel, and their leader is unusually skillful at persuasion. Before understanding what he’s getting into, our protagonist finds himself spearheading the construction of the chapel, helping the nuns despite their inability to pay him. There’s clearly a construction narrative at work here as we see the chapel take form, but Lilies of the Field wouldn’t half as interesting without the off-beat nuns and how they somehow convince the protagonist in doing their bidding. Meanwhile, Poitier plays the cool, bemused outsider (the nun’s antics wouldn’t be half as funny without his reactions), immensely relatable to the audience. The black-and-white cinematography makes good use of outdoor locations, with the desert helping to create a white backdrop useful for composition. In some ways, I’m amused that script can be seen as a constructive take on the “stranger comes to town” western premise. Still, the draw of Lilies of the Field is Poitier, charismatic and relatable at once. It’s thanks to him if it’s still so entertaining today.

  • To Sir, With Love (1967)

    To Sir, With Love (1967)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, June 2019) 1967 was an extraordinary year for Sidney Poitier, but while we readily remember In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, fewer will remember the third of his movies that year: To Sir, With Love. This time, he’s off to London as a teacher in a tough school, befriending local hoodlums and wayward girls after the initial hostility. The same super-teacher movie has been made and remade many times since then, but two things help To Sir, With Love remain interesting fifty years later—Poitier’s performance, obviously, but also the street-level view of London in the mid-1960s, as the film confronts the rise in teenage rebellion. The film itself is definitely on the side of the establishment—as the protagonist befriends his charges, he lifts them toward notions of respectability and good manners, helping them fit in society. As such, you can see the film as deeply conservative, but that too is in the tradition of that kind of movie. To Sir, With Love is a film about the revolution but not a revolutionary film—as such, it may have aged a bit better than the trendy New Hollywood movies that followed slightly later. For Poitier, this is a great role—he gets to whip up a few youngsters into shape, befitting his image as the capable, nearly unflappable black man. There’s a lot to unpack in this persona, as it was the only one allowed to him at the time, but that’s a discussion for another time, and about his other two movies of 1967.

  • Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967)

    Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2018) It’s not a failure if some social-issue films don’t work as well now than at the time of their release—sometimes, the world moves in the direction advocated, and as a result the film looks as if it’s been outpaced by the future. So it is that the central conceit of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (a white girl bringing back a black fiancé home for her parents’ approval) doesn’t quite have the same charge fifty years later. And that’s quite all right. This being said, let’s not take this for a condemnation of the work from director Stanley Kramer, or by Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, and Katharine Hepburn. After all, the film finished shooting six months before Loving v. Virginia actually legalized interracial marriages across the United States. But it does feel a bit stuffy, all the way to a conclusion that boils down to an intensely paternalistic “Father has thought about it and will let you crazy kids do whatever you want” conclusion. It’s not quite fair to dismiss the film in such a way (and indeed, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’s ending gets far more potent once you read about how Spencer Tracy died two weeks after shooting his final scene and final film with long-time co-star Katharine Hepburn) but it is definitely a reflection of its time, and time has moved on.

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, October 2018) As I suspected, revisiting Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner after watching a handful of Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn movies has significantly improved my opinion of the film. This was a partial re-watch, focusing on the scenes featuring Tracy and Hepburn, and it affirms that Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is a terrific victory lap for Tracy, whose kindly-father persona here acts as a capstone to a career that saw numerous pairings with Hepburn at various moments in their careers. It’s easy to imagine a shared backstory for their characters that includes bits and pieces of Woman of the Year or Adam’s Rib, and that’s when context can become crucial in seeing what the fuss is about a particular movie. If you de-emphasize the racial message and focus on the Hepburn/Spencer couple, this film becomes a satisfying epilogue to a shared on-screen career, well worth watching if you’re familiar with the rest of the Hepburn/Tracy filmography.

  • In the Heat of the Night (1967)

    In the Heat of the Night (1967)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2017) Whenever I tackle an older film, I usually curse my lack of knowledge of the era and my imperfect understanding of the context surrounding the film. But in the case of In the Heat of the Night, I’m actually proud and thankful that I don’t have a deep understanding of the pervasive and violent southern racism that the film portrays. Built around a murder mystery in small-town Mississippi, In the Heat of the Night is really an issues drama, as a competent police officer from Philadelphia is semi-voluntarily asked to help with the investigation. The legendary Sidney Poitier stars as “They call me Mister Tibbs,” a gifted cop whose skills are dismissed by the locals due to his skin colour, and who gets into increasingly violent confrontations with those who wish he’d go away. The murder mystery is perfunctory, but it definitely takes a back seat to the social issues illustrated throughout the plot. Thankfully, there is some good character work along the way that helps make the film more than simply a moral lesson—The protagonist has significant flaws (pride, mostly) that are pointed out by other characters, and the lead sheriff’s (Rod Steiger) evolution from stone-cold racism to honest admiration is handled organically. Colourful minor characters help establish the torrid atmosphere of a southern town in the middle of a heat wave. Competent filmmaking, headed by director Norman Jewison (a Canadian, one notes), make much of the film look and feel just as compelling as it was back then. From a contemporary perspective, much of the movie, and the locals’ reaction to the protagonist, defies comprehension and almost approaches caricature—I’m glad to live in a world where that stuff isn’t as acceptable any more. In the Heat of the Night is a Best Picture Oscar winner and it’s easy to see why—even today, it blends genre entertainment with a strong social conscience, through compelling performances and good production savviness.