They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! (1970)

Director:

Gordon Douglas

Writers:

Alan Trustman (screenplay) &
James R. Webb (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

10 July 1970 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery

Tagline:

The last time Virgil Tibbs had a day like this was "In The Heat Of The Night"

Plot:

San Francisco Police Lieutenant Virgil Tibbs is called in to investigate when a liberal street preacher...

Plot Keywords:

Preacher | Prostitute | Police | Car Accident | Child Smoking Cigarette

Cast

Sidney Poitier	...	Virgil Tibbs
Martin Landau	...	Logan Sharpe
Barbara McNair	...	Valerie Tibbs
Anthony Zerbe	...	Rice Weedon
Edward Asner	...	Woody Garfield
Jeff Corey	...	Captain Marden
Norma Crane	...	Marge Garfield
Juano Hernandez	...	Mealie Williamson
David Sheiner	...	Lieutenant Kenner
Beverly Todd	...	Puff
Ted Gehring	...	Sergeant Deutsch
Linda Towne	...	Joy Sturges
Garry Walberg	...	Medical Examiner
George Spell	...	Andy Tibbs
Wanda Spell	...	Ginger Tibbs

MPAA:

Rated R for a violent scene with nudity.

Runtime:

108 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Canada:A (Nova Scotia) | Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PG (Manitoba/Ontario) | West Germany:16 (nf) | USA:GP (original rating) | USA:R (re-rating) (1996) | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16

Filming Locations:

San Francisco, California, USA

Company:

Mirisch Corporation, The

Trivia:

One of the handful of major Hollywood releases to have an entire word in upper case in the title.

Quotes:

[talking about Rice Weedon]
Puff: You killed him.
Virgil Tibbs: Look, let's get the record straight. He started that shoot out.
Puff: Well, you bastard, you killed the wrong man he didn't do it!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Curb Your Enthusiasm: The Larry David Sandwich (#5.1)" (2005)

Look for the three-handed murderer!

This sequel to "In the Heat of the Night" will suffer in inevitable comparisons to its infinitely better predecessor. Instead of looking like a theatrical movie edited for television, "Mister Tibbs" looks suspiciously like a TV movie edited for theatrical release, with grainy photography, cheesy opening titles, and sets that look like they're made of plywood. The murder sequence has a glaring continuity error: the camera shows two hands choking the girl, then a shot of a hand reaching for a statuette, then a shot of the girl being choked with two hands again, and finally the statuette coming down for the fatal blow. Solving the case should be easy: find the only guy with three hands! But the shoddy production values can't completely obscure this film's considerable merits: namely, Sidney Poitier's performance as the cool detective determined to follow the evidence wherever it may lead, even if it implicates a friend. Martin Landau is also convincing as the do-gooder preacher-activist suspected of brutally murdering his prostitute girlfriend. In addition to being haunted by the case, Tibbs is conflicted about his home life, but the issues of race and Tibbs' barely concealed sense of social outrage are absent here. So is the complex murder mystery that made "In the Heat of the Night" so compelling.