2015 Blind Spot Series: They Call Me Mister Tibbs!

You may or may not know that I am participating in the 2015 Blind Spot Series hosted by Ryan McNeill at The Matinee. For those of you unfamiliar, bloggers have created a list of 12 movies that they should have seen by now, but haven't. You can see my list by clicking here.

February is Black History Month here in the States. Since I've been a bit neglectful of that on this blog, the least I could do was make sure I used this month to watch the only film on my list with a black protagonist. We'll be discussing 1970's They Call Me Call Mister Tibbs!, the sequel to 1967's In the Heat of the Night. The title is really just the most famous quote from the first movie. Many of you know that In the Heat of the Night spawned a long-running television series. The movie was a dissertation on the effect of America's changing racial climate on the deep south. This boiled things down to a murder mystery wrapped in a fish out of water story. Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, as Tibbs and Chief Gillespie, respectively, both give magnificent performances. Steiger took home Best Actor honors at the Oscars, one of five Academy Awards won by the film, including Best Picture. Given all of this, that a sequel was made is hardly surprising.

Though only three years apart, it becomes apparent They Call Me Mister Tibbs! is markedly different from its predecessor almost immediately. Legendary R&B producer Quincy Jones handled the music on both films. This time around, however, he brings an undeniable 70s flair to the proceedings over the opening credits. He lets us know that our hero is no longer banging heads with the cops in the rural and bigoted Sparta, Mississippi during the turbulent 60s. Mister Tibbs is now back in a more accepting, but funkier urban setting. After the music stops, we indeed discover that he is in the place many perceive to be the most progressive in the continental US, San Francisco. This is a bit odd since in the original we're told that Tibbs is a police officer in Philadelphia. Sadly, it goes unexplained.

What doesn't need explaining is that we won't be seeing Chief Gillespie or anyone else from Sparta. This serves to highlight a problem the film could never solve. With the overt racial tension of that first movie behind him, Most of what made Tibbs a compelling character is removed. He is again investigating a murder, this time of a local prostitute, but without the give and take relationship he had with Gillespie. That's never replaced. He's just left to be the point man in a fairly typical police procedural. No longer the symbol of forward progress, Tibbs is now just a weary detective working a case. True, he's a bit smarter than the rest of us, but not something meant to be greater than us. Watching Tibbs think his way through the case is mildly interesting, but fails to pick up any real momentum. The problem is it's fairly obvious who the killer is almost from the start. Therefore, the movie spends a lot of time trying to throw us off the scent, unsuccessfully. After all, there are only two possible suspects and one of them is so obviously sleazy he couldn't be the murderer.

In between the cop stuff, the movie does try to add some intrigue to Tibbs. We get to meet his family and find out that there are some problems at home. His relationships with his wife and daughter are pretty great. It's his son that's causing all the trouble. Our hero's handling of the boy is baffling viewed through the prism of twenty-first century parenting. When he catches his boy hiding out and smoking a cigarette, Tibbs hands the boy a huge cigar, lights it for him, and says "If you're going to do it, you'll do it right and enjoy it." What? I've heard stories of kids that were forced to smoke a whole pack of cigarettes or as much as it took to make them sick as a punishment for smoking and a way of trying to make them not want to smoke again. Though I'm not sure what kind of success rate that had, I could at least understand the theory. This isn't that. This is a dad just chilling with son while they both smoke a stogey (see pic above). After an incident involving a different offense, Tibbs slaps the boy in the face several times then gives the boy an apologetic hug. We're supposed to sympathize with both the boy and the dad trying to come to grips with the old man having such a demanding and important job it leaves little time for father/son bonding. It doesn't quite work. At some point during these episodes, Tibbs' wife lets him know that he's not home enough and warns that the boy will keep acting out if this continues.. Of course, this is usually followed by him going back to work on the case and family disappearing from the movie for a lengthy stretch.

Since the familial stuff is portrayed so awkwardly, whether or not the movie succeeds is based on that murder investigation. Back when it was released, the seediness of some of the characters may have been enough to carry it. The seventies had just begun. While cinema had become increasingly gritty and daring, we were still a couple of years away from The Godfather, The French Connection, A Clockwork Orange, and the rise of Martin Scorsese. They Call Me Mister Tibbs! is a movie that might be called a precursor to those, but makes far less of an impact on the viewer. Helping drag the nation into a more enlightened era, in its own small way, is what separated In the Heat of the Night from other murder mysteries. This element was done as well as it could be by that movie. The sequel is looking for something to cling to, but never finds it. To be fair, this isn't a terrible movie. It's just that what was once special is now average.