In the Heat of the Night story
In the Heat of the Night is a 1967 American mystery drama film directed by Norman Jewison, produced by Walter Mirisch, and starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger. It tells the story of Virgil Tibbs (Poitier), a black police detective from Philadelphia, who becomes embroiled in a murder investigation in a small town in Mississippi. The film was adapted by Stirling Silliphant from John Ball's 1965 novel of the same name.
17 total · 5 choice · 6 major · 6 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| having a preconception challenged | choice | Bill Gillespie, who was a product of the deeply racist community of which he was police chief, found his prejudices about Black people challenged in the process of working together with the Black homicide detective Virgil Tibbs. |
| murder | choice | The story concerns the investigation of the wealthy industrialist Philip Colbert's murder. The main character, Virgil Tibbs, was a police detective who specialized in homicide. |
| pride | choice | A point of the story is found in Virgil Tibbs taking pride in showing off his success to White people, as laid out by Bill Gillespie at the train station when Tibbs tried to leave. Tibbs kicked himself for having let his pride mislead him in the murder investigation. Twice over, Gillespie took pride in unraveling the murder himself without the help of the Black man Tibbs. Purdy's pride was wounded when he had to testify about his sister's alleged rape in front of a Black man. More generally, Southern pride was a feature of the little town of Sparta, Mississippi, where the story took place. |
| racism in society | choice | The story concerns a Black Philadelphia police detective who found himself facing overt racism in a small Mississippi town, while he tried to unravel a murder. |
| working together in spite of disagreement | choice | Virgil Tibbs and Bill Gillespie worked together on a murder investigation despite their initial, and mutual, resentment for one another. |
| friendship | major | Despite their initial animosity Virgil Tibbs and Bill Gillespie came to respect one another. The final scene even suggested an enduring friendship had formed between them. |
| growing as a person | major | Bill Gillespie became less racist in the process of working together with the Black police detective Virgil Tibbs. In the final scene, Gillespie treated Tibbs as an equal when seeing him off at the train station. |
| law enforcement | major | Virgil Tibbs was a homicide detective from Philadelphia. Gillespie was the local chief of police. They reluctantly teamed up to find Philip Colbert's murderer. |
| mutual respect | major | Despite their initial animosity Virgil Tibbs and Bill Gillespie came to respect one another. The final scene even suggested an enduring friendship had formed between them. |
| swallowing one's pride | major | Bill Gillespie, while obviously racist and flawed, was a many-layered and intelligent character who was capable of understanding when he had been wrong, face evidence, apologize and feel shame. Notably, Bill Gillespie twice concluded he'd caught the murderer, only to realize that he'd been wrong, and then went back to Tibbs and more or less humbly requested his continued services. |