They Call Me Mister Tibbs!

Review #2531: They Call Me Mister Tibbs!

Cast: 

Sidney Poitier (Lieutenant Virgil Tibbs), Martin Landau (Logan Sharpe), Barbara McNair (Valerie Tibbs), Anthony Zerbe (Rice Weedon), Ed Asner (Woody Garfield), David Sheiner (Lieutenant Kenner), Jeff Corey (Captain Marden), Ted Gehring (Sergeant Deutsch), Juano Hernandez (Mealie Williamson), Norma Crane (Marge Garfield), and Beverly Todd ("Puff") Directed by Gordon Douglas (#663 - Them!, #686 - In Like Flint, #2320 - Viva Knievel!)

Review: 

Hey, remember In the Heat of the Night? To refresh my memory, because I only remember a few fragments...the movie was based on the 1965 novel by John Ball that involved a small Southern town in Mississippi rocked by a murder in the midst of the 1960s as an outsider detective comes in, deals with bigotry and solves the case. Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger were big on doing the film together, which was filmed in Illinois (as directed by Norman Jewison) that probably had its most interesting scene when Poitier's character slaps someone back (as not originally envisioned). Or, well, the scene where Poitier's character, being asked what he gets called back in Philadelphia, responds, with, well, "They call me Mister Tibbs!". Ball actually did a handful more novels with the character of Tibbs with The Cool Cottontail (1966), Johnny Get Your Gun (1969), Five Pieces of Jade (1972), The Eyes of Buddha (1976), Then Came Violence (1980) and Singapore (1986). But this would be a movie that just went on its own way, with Alan Trustman (writer of The Thomas Crown Affair and co-writer of Bullitt [both 1968], interestingly enough). writing the story and co-writing the screenplay with James R. Webb (the Academy Award winning writer of How the West Was Won eight years prior). At the helm for director was Gordon Douglas, a regular presence in various genres, which included follow-ups to films such as Lady in Cement (1968). While not as big a success as the first film, it made roughly over $2 milllion in rentals in the first six months. Poitier returned as Tibbs for one more movie with The Organization (1971), with Don Medford serving as director.

We now have a film set in San Francisco as our title character is now wrapped up in the investigation of a dead prostitute as some sort of city referendum is coming up about urban renewal with a preacher on one side. This also goes with a few scenes spent in the household of his wife and children (what, a lonely detective in the big city?) that results in a few moments of strife because damned if there is even one bit of tension in the murder case. The 1970s would have a few movies with an interesting presence behind it in terms of crime action thrillers, but Shaft (1971) would be the one people think of as among the first to get the ball rolling rather than this film, that's for sure. Hell, Cotton Comes to Harlem, released a month before Tibbs, is more captivating because it just feels like a movie that yearns to actually do something beyond the mundane routines that come with an investigation that might as well be the equivalent of turning over a rock to see a bunch of ants on the bottom. You might say that there was something lost in the curiosity factor in the character played by Poitier, because now he just seems completely rigid as a board, as if someone wanted to make a Dragnet impersonation but gave up. His family life just sits there in a strange type of "I recognize the dynamic, but I don't care about these people". Landau was a nice actor who people loved in film and TV (such as, say, his Mission: Impossible run*) but he barely has anything to really give in this film, which seems shocking when you consider he is playing a street preacher. You would think that an investigation that you've got a pretty good guess on who the killer is would have some sort of way to drive interest but nope, it basically stays on autopilot for most of it. Zerbe is the more interesting presence, and he's playing for a pimp, for God's sake (to say nothing of putting a wig on Ed Asner and doing a routine car chase). You get little to nothing from folks such as Corey on the police side and you barely get a feel for the city as a whole, managing to resemble Generic Town USA even more than the average sequels that usually pass by on charm. But this one doesn't have enough charm to actually ride the wave for a complete winner for all of its 108 minutes, even with its ridiculous ending (calling it a shaggy dog procedural might be nicer). As a whole, They Call Me Mister Tibbs! is a downgrade from the previous film in most of the aspects that matter and just isn't enough of a film to call a winner, managing to be a disappointment that lies in the shadow of the decade that would give out better films to offer in procedures and thrillers.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*What can I say, I watch old TV from time to time. The Wild Wild West is the other old show I'm on at the moment, I've done a whole bunch of TV watching on DVD such as The Fugitive, The Addams Family, The Munsters, Batman, Star Trek, The Twilight Zone, Lost in Space, and Get Smart.

Intruder in the Dust.

Review #1969: Intruder in the Dust.

Cast: 

Juano Hernandez (Lucas Beauchamp), David Brian (John Gavin Stevens), Claude Jarman Jr (Chick Mallison), Porter Hall (Nub Gowrie), Elizabeth Patterson (Miss Eunice Habersham), Will Geer (Sheriff Hampton), Charles Kemper (Crawford Gowrie), David Clarke (Vinson Gowrie), Elzie Emanuel (Aleck), Lela Bliss (Mrs. Mallison), and Harry Hayden (Mr. Mallison) Directed by Clarence Brown (#423 - A Woman of Affairs, #433 - Angels in the Outfield, #484 - Plymouth Adventure, #1351 - The Rains Came) 

Review: 

The real reason that people care about the film in any way besides the usual crime movie elements is Juano Hernandez. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1896 (two years prior to the region being acquired by the United States). Before becoming an actor, he worked as a sailor, a circus entertainer, and a boxer. He entered vaudeville in the late 1920s, doing various shows in New York City that included a Broadway debut with Show Boat in 1927. He did work for radio on programs such as Cavalcade of America. Hernandez had gotten his start in film with who else but Oscar Micheaux with the 1932 film The Girl from Chicago, the first of three appearances in a Micheaux feature (there were a few uncredited appearances in films here and there as well, but Intruder in the Dust was his first starring role). Until his death in 1970 at the age of 74, Hernandez was a regular presence in film, such as The Breaking Point (1950) and Trial (1955), although this film has generally been the one that he is best recognized for, in part because of his standout performance that paved the way for more involving roles for black actors. The movie is an adaptation of the 1948 novel of the same name by William Faulkner (which like a variety of his works employed a stream of consciousness style of narration). Incidentally, in order to make money, Faulkner served as a screenwriter for various films from 1932 until the 1950s (which resulted in scripts such as the 1944 adaptation To Have and Have Not). Faulkner was only semi-involved with the production, but it was shot in Oxford, Mississippi (where he had lived most of his life); it should be noted that while most of the cast got to enjoy the hospitality of the University of Mississippi, Hernandez was housed separately at the residence of an undertaker. The choice of director was the one who pushed to do a film of the book in Clarence Brown, who had been raised in Tennessee, had known Faulkner for a time in the late 1930s when Brown was a key director for MGM. Of course, the film only got the greenlight when Dore Schary, fresh off being hired as vice president of production, backed doing it despite the objections of studio head Louis B. Meyer. Ben Maddow wrote the script for the film.

The movie was not a major hit at the time, perhaps because of its minimal promotion or being on the tail-end of "message movies" (imagine watching Pinky or Home of the Brave and then deciding to ditch Intruder in the Dust). But at least it had a fan in Faulkner, who said it was a "fine job." As an 87-minute feature, it works quite well in the art of creating a careful yarn that is part-whodunit and part-look into oneself. It isn't so much about finding the truth about who committed the crime as it is finding the truth in how one could get wrapped up in a possible lynching in the first place. It is a film that does not wrap itself in pretentions of being something that it is not, being a Southern tale with biting truth all the way through (which is why Brown, a craftsman of various successes, deserves credit for making sure the film was not done within a studio backlot), one that is firmly made in a time for one to experience themselves in levels of uncomfortableness (such as its use of the N-word, for example). Obstinate is probably the best way to describe the character played by Hernandez, which is to say he is firmly confident in each scene he commands the screen, which doesn't require copious amounts of dialogue to get the point across of how engaging he proves to be. He isn't just a symbol utilized for some sort of message of tolerance for the sake of it, as he is no servant to misplaced pride. It is funny too, because Brian and Jarman are actually pretty good too, acting in their own type of tolerance angle with Hernandez in nuance that makes it an uneasy coming-of-age film as well, where adult figures are not cut and dry in helping one find easy answers in the building blocks of life. Sure, books/films such as To Kill a Mockingbird ended up enduring more in the public consciousness when it came to children and the destruction of innocence and moral heroes over a decade after the release of the film (each involve an accuser's family being of ill repute). However, Intruder in the Dust and its portrayal of the struggle to understand an adult world that doesn't make much sense with its teen character in Jarman is not to be forgotten to go with Brian and his double-act of prejudices and principles. This goes for Patterson as well, quietly effective in elder sophistication without intrusions of unsubtlety. At any rate, this is a movie to watch for Hernandez and company as a whole, with his cool confidence providing the spark for a rivetingly uncomfortable crime movie that is more than meets than the eye in the parts that matter most. It endures after over seven decades because it shows us how much work one still has to do in the matter of understanding and pride, whether in a small town or beyond.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Next Time: Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song.

Kiss Me Deadly.

Review #1389: Kiss Me Deadly.

Cast: 
Ralph Meeker (Mike Hammer), Albert Dekker (Dr. G.E. Soberin), Paul Stewart (Carl Evello), Juano Hernandez (Eddie Yeager), Wesley Addy (Lt. Pat Murphy), Maxine Cooper (Velda), Cloris Leachman (Christina Bailey), Gaby Rodgers (Gabrielle/Lilly Carver), Nick Dennis (Nick), Jack Lambert (Sugar Smallhouse), and Jack Elam (Charlie Max) Produced and Directed by Robert Aldrich (#105 - What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and #778 - The Longest Yard, and #1014 - The Dirty Dozen)

Review: 
"The power is for the director to do what he wants to do. To achieve that he needs his own cutter, he needs his cameraman, he needs his own assistant and a strong voice in his choice of writer; a very, very strong voice on who's the actor. He needs the power not to be interfered with and the power to make the movie as he sees it."

A director can come from anywhere if their heart is set on it. The descendant of prominent family members of wealth and society, Robert Aldrich found himself with plenty of pressure to succeed in the line of other Aldriches before him, with his father being a newspaper publisher while others had served in office or in war. He attended both Yale and the University of Virginia, but he found himself at odds with his family when it came to his beliefs that were less focused on wealth and money than his family was, particularly with the advent of the New Deal in lieu of the Great Depression. He dropped out of studying economics for a chance at working at RKO Radio Pictures as a production clerk at the age of 23, which resulted in him being disinherited. From this, he would work his way up to positions higher up such as associate directing and producing to writing and directing for television (which he viewed as a crash course for directors in terms of rushed schedules). He worked for a variety of directors for a decade such as Lewis Milestone, Robert Rossen, Charlie Chaplin, and Jean Renoir, learning from their strengths and weaknesses about the fundamentals of filmmaking. In 1953, at the age of 35, Aldrich made his directorial feature debut with Big Leaguer, a low-budget baseball movie that he felt was good, but not what he wanted to express in the film medium. Aldrich found his next effort more to his interest with World for Ransom the following year, and he soon found himself hired by Burt Lancaster for two Westerns in Apache and Vera Cruz (1954), with the relative success of those films helping in him forming his own company in The Associates and Aldrich. In total, the fiercely independent and rambunctious Aldrich would direct 29 total films before his death in 1983 at the age of 65, having a rapid work pace that was equaled with his constant use of crew members like editor Michael Luciano or composer Frank De Vol for several of his films.

It probably isn't a surprise that certain types of people felt this film was a menace to juveniles in terms of delinquency, which was the case of one government commission. Of course the material the film was adapted from attracted its own kind of attention for its violent content (which led to trouble in adapting the generally cold-blooded killer detective to the screen acceptable for the standards of the time) for its hardboiled character of Mike Hammer, which Mickey Spillane featured in thirteen novels over the course of 49 years. The film was an adaptation of the novel of the same name, which was the sixth of thirteen novels (with the series continuing after the author's death in 2006). This was the second of three Spillane novels to be turned into a film in this decade (the other two being I, the Jury and My Gun is Quick). The writing for the film was done by A.I. Bezzerides, who changed the novel's adversary of Mafia gangsters while also adding the nuclear suitcase aspect (as opposed to the pursuit of certain substances in the book) along with changing the occupation of the private eye to divorce case P.I, with Bezzerides noting that he wrote the script with contempt and quickness, which apparently did not sit well with Spillane. In any case, this is a wonderful film noir, filled with plenty of intrigue and tension with a dynamite cast and execution from Aldrich and cinematographer Ernest Laszlo. Meeker leads the film with cynical conviction, a blunt instrument of macho nature that fits the film's maze of brutality. The rest of the cast follow along in varying levels of principle that range from the cleverly understated Rodgers to the hard-line authority in Addy to the careful menace of Dekker. Of note is the debut of Broadway-turned-television actress Cloris Leachman, who appears for the first couple of minutes in a key role that sticks out in panic. In any case, one finds themselves swept up in the film in its path, whether that means having our lead break a record or hurt someone's fingers or even when it comes to explaining the mysterious glowing whatsit. By the time one has spent 106 minutes with the film, you will find yourself electrified by a film that lands most of its punches with precision and paranoia that makes for an explosive climax, which has thankfully been restored in recent years (for decades, the film abruptly ended on a shot of the burning house that made it look like the lead had died looking around the house as opposed to ending on the beach). On the whole, this is a fine gem in Aldrich's body of work that stands today as a neat noir for a prime decade of thrills and paranoia for audiences to gaze upon.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.