In the Heat of the Night

 

The film "In the Heat of the Night" took place in the 1967 and is about a mysterious murder that occurred in a small town in Mississippi. Unlike the past films that we have see in class, this was more of an investigative/mystery when the others were dramatic love stories. The film is about a wealthy man named Phillip Colbert who was murdered and the local sheriff named Bill Gillespie and a police man from the North named Virgil Tibbs try to discover what happened.

What stood out to me in this movie was that unlike the others one of the lead characters was a Black man. Eventhough this film and the last one we watched were produced 10 years apart you can see how times have changed in terms of segregation. The producers made a black man the lead role and is used to show the audience and society that they are just as intelligent as whites. Virgil Tibbs was who led the investigation and was able to use the evidence in order to figure out who convicted the murder.

Virgil Tibbs in the beginning of the film was falsely convicted of the murder due to him having a large amount of money in his wallet. A moment in the movie specifically that I remember was when the sheriff didn't believe that the money belonged to Tibbs. He then goes on to explain that he is also a police officer and that he makes the money himself. The sheriff didn't believe that he got payed as much as he did. This then goes to show him that Tibbs may be a more respected man than he originally thought. In this time period showing that a Black man may be more qualified than a white man was odd and unlikely.

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As we can see throughout the movie Bill Gillespie starts to treat Virgil Tibbs as more of an equal instead of a low class man. In the beginning he thinks that Tibbs is just a Black man that fits all the pasts years stereotypes. He didn't believe that he could be such a well respected officer. Virgil does not care that the sheriff sees him this way and he continues to try and figure out the investigation. We can see that as the movie proceeds the sheriff starts to respect and change his perception of Tibbs. Tibbs really wants to get to the bottom of this case and Gillepsie begins to realize how worthy his determination is. As the two start to work more as a team, this shows society that no matter the color of ones skin they can come together and work as one.