*** Welcome to piglix ***

In the Heat of the Night (film)

In the Heat of the Night
In the Heat of the Night (film).jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Norman Jewison
Produced by Walter Mirisch
Screenplay by Stirling Silliphant
Based on In the Heat of the Night
by John Ball
Starring Sidney Poitier
Rod Steiger
Warren Oates
Lee Grant
Music by Quincy Jones
Cinematography Haskell Wexler, ASC
Edited by Hal Ashby
Production
company
Distributed by United Artists
Release date
  • August 2, 1967 (1967-08-02)
Running time
109 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $2 million
Box office $24.3 million

In the Heat of the Night is a 1967 American mystery drama film directed by Norman Jewison. It is based on John Ball's 1965 novel of the same name and tells the story of Virgil Tibbs, a black police detective from Philadelphia, who becomes involved in a murder investigation in a small town in Mississippi. The movie changes various details found in the book from relatively minor ones (in the book Tibbs is a police officer in California) to more major (basic details of the murder, including the victim, are different). It stars Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, and was produced by Walter Mirisch. The screenplay was by Stirling Silliphant.

The film won five Academy Awards, including the 1967 awards for Best Picture and Rod Steiger for Best Actor.

The film was followed by two sequels, They Call Me Mister Tibbs! in 1970, and The Organization in 1971. In 1988, it also became the basis of a television series adaptation of the same name.

Although the film was set in the fictional Mississippi town of Sparta (with supposedly no connection to the real Sparta, Mississippi), part of the movie was filmed in Sparta, Illinois, where many of the film's landmarks can still be seen. The quote "They call me Mister Tibbs!" was listed as number 16 on the American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes, a list of top film quotes. In 2002, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


...
Wikipedia

...