Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
| Guess Who's Coming to Dinner | |
|---|---|
Original release poster
|
|
| Directed by | Stanley Kramer |
| Produced by | Stanley Kramer |
| Written by | William Rose |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Frank De Vol |
| Cinematography | Sam Leavitt |
| Edited by | Robert C. Jones |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
|
Release date
|
|
|
Running time
|
108 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $4 million |
| Box office | $56.7 million |
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is a 1967 American comedy-drama film produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, and written by William Rose. It stars Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, Katharine Hepburn and featuring Hepburn's niece Katharine Houghton. The film contains a (then rare) positive representation of the controversial subject of interracial marriage, which historically had been illegal in most states of the United States, and still was illegal in 17 states—mostly Southern states—until 12 June 1967, six months before the film was released, roughly two weeks after Tracy filmed his final scene (and two days after his death), when anti-miscegenation laws were struck down by the Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia. The film's Oscar-nominated score was composed by Frank De Vol.
The film is notable for being the ninth and final on-screen pairing of Tracy and Hepburn, with filming ending just 17 days before Tracy's death. Hepburn never saw the completed film, saying the memories of Tracy were too painful. The film was released in December 1967, six months after his death.
Joanna Drayton's (Katharine Houghton) unannounced early return from a Hawaiian vacation causes a stir when she brings her new fiancé to her childhood upper-class home in San Francisco. He is John Prentice (Sidney Poitier): a widowed, black physician. Joanna's parents—newspaper publisher Matt Drayton (Spencer Tracy) and his wife art gallery owner Christina Drayton (Katharine Hepburn)—are purported liberals who have instilled in her the idea of racial equality. But although they try to hide it, Joanna's parents and in particular her father are initially upset that she is planning to marry a black man. The Draytons' black maid, Tillie (Isabel Sanford), is even more horrified, suspecting that John is trying to "get above himself" by marrying a white woman.
...
Wikipedia