In the Heat of the Night is a 1967 American neo-noir 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. It stars Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, and was produced by Walter Mirisch. The screenplay was written by Stirling Silliphant.
At the 40th Academy Awards the film was nominated for seven Oscars, winning five including Best Picture and Best Actor for Steiger. 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. The film also appears on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies, a list of the 100 greatest movies in American cinema. 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".
Plot
Wealthy industrialist Phillip Colbert and his wife are in Sparta, Mississippi, to oversee the building of a factory. Late one night, in September 1966, Sparta police officer Sam Wood discovers Colbert's murdered body lying in the street. Wood finds Virgil Tibbs, a black man with a fat wallet, at the train station and arrests him. Police chief Bill Gillespie accuses him of murder and robbery, but soon learns Tibbs is a top homicide detective from Philadelphia, who was visiting his mother. Tibbs wants to leave town on the next train, but his Chief in Philadelphia suggests he stay in Sparta to help Gillespie with the murder investigation. Though Gillespie, like many of Sparta's white residents, is racist, he and Tibbs reluctantly agree to work together.
A doctor estimates that Colbert had been dead for less than an hour when his body was found. Tibbs examines the body and concludes the murder happened much earlier, the killer was right-handed, and the victim had been killed elsewhere and moved to where Wood found his body.
Gillespie arrests another suspect, Harvey Oberst, who protests his innocence. The police plan to beat him to extract a confession, but Tibbs reveals Oberst is left-handed and has witnesses to confirm his alibi. Frustrated by the ineptitude of the local police but impressed by Tibbs, Colbert's widow threatens to halt construction of the factory unless Tibbs leads the investigation, so the town's leading citizens are forced to comply with her demand.
Tibbs initially suspects the murderer is wealthy plantation owner Eric Endicott, a genteel racist and Sparta's most powerful citizen, who publicly opposed Colbert's new factory. When Tibbs begins interrogating him, Endicott slaps him, to which Tibbs responds by slapping him back. Afterwards, Endicott sends a gang of local thugs after him. Gillespie rescues Tibbs and tells him to leave town to save himself, but Tibbs is determined to stay and solve the case.
Tibbs asks Officer Wood to re-trace his patrol car route during the night of the murder; Gillespie joins them. After questioning why Wood partially detours from his patrol route, Tibbs discovers that Wood enjoys passing by the house of 16-year-old Delores Purdy, who deliberately walks around nude with the lights on in an attempt to entice him, and that Wood changed his route to prevent Tibbs from seeing her. Gillespie learns that Wood made a $632 deposit to his bank account the day after the murder. He arrests Wood, despite Tibbs's protests that he is not the murderer. Tibbs tells Gillespie that the murder was committed at the site of the planned factory, which clears Wood because he could not have driven both his and Colbert's cars back into town. Later, Wood provides a credible account of where the money for his large deposit could have come from.
Delores' brother Lloyd Purdy, a racist, hostile local, brings her to the police station to file statutory rape charges against Wood for getting her pregnant. When Tibbs insists on being present during Delores' questioning, Purdy is offended that a black man is present during her interrogation and soon afterwards gathers a lynch mob to attack Tibbs.
Tibbs pressures illegal abortionist Mama Caleba to reveal that she is about to provide an abortion for Delores. When Delores arrives and sees Tibbs, she runs away. Tibbs follows Delores and confronts her armed boyfriend, Ralph, a cook at a local roadside diner. Purdy's mob arrives and holds Tibbs at gunpoint.